Leeds hope ‘bargain’ Ao Tanaka will bring goals and excitement to midfield — The Athletic 5/9/24
By Nancy Froston
Ao Tanaka has cult hero potential at Leeds United.
Fans do not come up with a song within 24 hours of a player
signing unless they know he has the ability to excite. It helps, of course, if
that player has a name as ripe for wordplay as Tanaka’s. Saturday’s debut at
Elland Road brought a clever re-working of Tequila, a call-and-answer copy of
Freddie Mercury conducting the Wembley Stadium crowd in a singalong at Live
Aid, and a rendition of The Ramones’ Blitzkrieg Bop.
Alongside the fun supporters have had with the Japan
international’s name — which is actually pronounced ‘Ow’, rather than ‘Ay-Oh’—
Leeds have landed a classy player who is very highly regarded. In three years
in Germany, the 25-year-old acclimatised and then thrived in the 2. Bundesliga,
leaving it as one of the second tier’s best midfielders.
A 10-minute cameo in the weekend’s 2-0 defeat of Hull City,
after signing hours earlier, on deadline day, was enough to suggest Tanaka can
do the same in the equivalent division in English football, as he dictated the
pace to help Leeds secure their first home win of the season. It was enough to
lead manager Daniel Farke to assess his new central midfielder as “a pretty
cool player, a cool person and cool on the ball”. Despite his brief appearance
off the bench against Hull, data from Opta shows Tanaka made 18 successful
passes, only 13 fewer than the visitors’ entire team in the time he was on the
pitch.
Leeds originally lodged a bid with Fortuna Dusseldorf for
Tanaka last summer, but opted for fellow midfielders Glen Kamara and Ilia Gruev
when it was knocked back. They finally landed him a year on, after Kamara’s
sale to Rennes in France, for a fee in the region of £3million ($3.9m) — seen
as a bargain to those who have watched him regularly. His quality saw him
picked out by Premier League new boys Ipswich Town’s manager Kieran McKenna
following a pre-season friendly won 2-1 by visitors Fortuna in July. McKenna
said: “Anyone who is serious about football will know a little about him.”
Even casual fans might remember Tanaka for the most
memorable goal of his career so far, in Japan’s final group game of the 2022
World Cup against Spain. It sealed a 2-1 win, sent Japan through to the
knockout phase as group winners ahead of the Spaniards and at the expense of
Germany, and caused plenty of debate as to whether Kaoru Mitoma’s assist went
out of play before Tanaka prodded home.
Leeds will hope Tanaka, who came through the academy at J1
League club Kawasaki Frontale, will be able to add goals to their midfield unit
after his seven in 30 league games last season.
Farke’s deep-lying midfielders, usually Gruev and Kamara and
occasionally Ethan Ampadu, failed to score a single goal between them in the
same campaign’s regular season (Gruev got one in the play-offs), so Tanaka’s
eye for goal, particularly from long range, is surely an asset. He is more of a
box-to-box midfielder than Kamara, for example, and has been compared to Real
Madrid and England star Jude Bellingham for his style, and ability to play a
range of midfield roles.
It seems fitting, with that comparison in mind, that Tanaka
has taken the No 22 shirt at Leeds. The number was also worn by Bellingham at
Birmingham City and Germany’s Borussia Dortmund, after coaches at Birmingham
said he had the traits of a No 4, a No 8 and a No 10, numbers which when added
together come to 22. Tanaka has developed into an archetypal No 8 who can also
play as a No 6, so looks less likely to be used in the much-debated No 10 role
at Leeds.
Tanaka’s box-to-box role benefited Fortuna as they finished
third to make the promotion/relegation play-off last season, agonisingly losing
to top-flight Bochum 6-5 on penalties after the tie finished 3-3 on aggregate.
Here, against Kaiserslautern last October, from a more advanced position in the centre of Fortuna’s usual 4-5-1 formation, Tanaka received a lay-off from striker Vincent Vermeij and takes one touch before releasing a shot…
…which is rifled into the back of the net.
It is a very similar finish to another long-range goal he
scored against Hansa Rostock in February, which was one of his 11 goal
contributions in the league.
Tanaka’s ability to time his runs and his general
positioning are strengths, although he is less likely to be the type of
midfielder to dribble or carry the ball often. He won awards while at Kawasaki
Frontale, being voted J1 League rookie of the year in 2019 (the only Frontale
player to have won that award) and making the J1 League best XI in 2020 as they
won the title.
After initially moving to Fortuna on loan in summer 2021,
the transfer was made permanent the following April as he made 29 appearances
in his debut season.
Dusseldorf, a commercial hub in Germany, has Europe’s
largest Japanese population, making it a home away from home for the country’s
footballers, but Tanaka’s singular focus on his game also helped him to settle.
He works hard with individual training and gym sessions as
well as taking a close interest in nutrition to aid his performance. Tanaka has
a clear personal target of playing in the Champions League and despite
opportunities to join Celtic, who are in this season’s Champions League,
Denmark’s Midtjylland (playing in this season’s Europa League) and Como in
Italy’s Serie A this summer, Leeds were considered the best next move for his
career.
He has now joined up with the Japan squad during this
international break and will look to add to his 27 caps in World Cup qualifiers
at home against China on Thursday and away to Bahrain on Tuesday.
Nailing down a starting place alongside Wataru Endo
(Liverpool) and Hidemasa Morita (Sporting Lisbon) is a key ambition after
helping his country to fourth place in the Olympics on home soil three years
ago and his exploits at the following World Cup. This get-together will reunite
him with Brighton & Hove Albion winger Mitoma again, with the pair having
played together at elementary school, in middle school, for Kawasaki Frontale,
and in the national team.
When he returns to England next week, Leeds can look forward
to Tanaka helping to unlock their forward line with through balls and his
long-range passing, but his support runs should also enable their attackers to
get in behind defences. His through-ball ability was demonstrated in this game
against St Pauli in January.
Christos Tzolis spreads a pass to Tanaka in the middle of the pitch before continuing his run into the penalty area.
Tanaka reads his movement and, first time, plays a perfectly weighted return ball for Tzolis to run onto and deliver a cross.
Tanaka also frequently spreads the play wide, which would
allow Leeds to capitalise on the attacking threat of their full-backs and
wingers.
Leeds have signed far more than just a classy midfielder,
however, with Tanaka’s addition bringing commercial opportunities for both club
and player. Though he has not yet achieved the exposure of countrymen Hidetoshi
Nakata or Keisuke Honda in previous years, Tanaka has modelled for luxury brand
Dior and has the potential to tap into further opportunities in fashion should
his career continue on an upward trajectory.
He is seen as one of the poster boys of Japanese football,
something which will bring new eyes to Leeds’ fortunes.
Cool, committed and with superstar potential, Tanaka is not
a run-of-the-mill signing for Leeds and neither is the player’s decision to
come to Elland Road an accident. Both have big ambitions for this season — time
will tell if they can deliver that longed-for return to Premier League status
come May.