He is understated, quiet, not a showman in front of the cameras and microphones, but this is because Yuya Osako prefers to do his talking on the pitch. And that is exactly what he did in Monday evening’s friendly against VVV Venlo, coming on for Martin Harnik after half an hour and immediately causing the opposition defence problems.
“Yuya did very well,” praised head coach Florian Kohfeldt after the game. “He occupied the right spaces between the lines, made deep runs himself, was a threat in front of goal and also pressed well.” But it was not only the coach who was satisfied with the Japan international’s first Green-White outing, as the new number eight himself also told WERDER.DE: “I still haven’t taken part in training with the rest of the team as I’ve been training individually over the last four days, so to play right away wasn’t that easy in the first half, but the second half went much better.”
Standing five feet and nine inches tall (1.82m), Yuya Osako does not possess the classic stature of a strike that plays with his back to goal. “My strengths lie in the spaces between the lines,” reveals the Japanese, who represented his country at the World Cup in Russia this summer. He is cute in tight spaces, chooses the right passes and, thanks to his great technique, can dribble to make space to find his teammates or shoot on goal himself. He showed all these skills in his Werder debut, even though he was not able to reward himself with a goal, admitting: “We have to do that better in the future. We created a lot of chances so we have to score more goals.”
At the weekend, he will travel with his new teammates to their second training camp of pre-season. There, Kohfeldt’s men will refine the fine details of their game to make sure the chances they carve out are converted when the Bundesliga returns. Maybe when he gets his first Green-White goal, we will see the louder side of Yuya Osako…
