KFC Uerdingen have presented their first new signing of the winter. Takumi Yanagisawa comes from SV Straelen, but does not burden the club’s budget.

KFC Uerdingen have announced their first new signing of the winter after five departures. However, it is no ordinary signing. “Sponsor gives and Takumi Yanagisawa” is how the Krefeld club’s press release announced the signing of the Japanese striker, who spent the first half of the season at SV Straelen and had to look for a new club due to their withdrawal.

“The signing is only possible thanks to the earmarked funds of a sponsor who wanted to strengthen the team,” explained Marc Schürmann, 1st chairman of KFC. ”The transfer does not put any additional strain on our budget, otherwise we would not have done it.”

The 28-year-old has been playing in Germany since August 2019. In his first season in the Oberliga (fifth tier) in the Lower Rhine region, he impressed with eight goals in 21 league games for TuRU Düsseldorf. Just one year later, he transferred to 1. FC Bocholt, where Yanagisawa played a total of 43 times in two years, scoring twelve goals, setting up five and celebrating promotion to the Regionalliga (fourth tier).

Yanagisawa made 78 appearances in the Oberliga and 11 in the Regionalliga

The two parted ways, but his performances attracted the attention of Straelen, who play in the Regionalliga, and brought the attacker, who usually plays on the right, to the club in December 2022, after he had been without a club for almost three months. Eleven appearances later (one goal, one assist), Yanagisawa and SVS were relegated back to the Lower Rhine Oberliga, where he was one of the absolute starters in the first half of the season, starting 17 of the previous 18 games and scoring four times.

The new signing provides coach Marcus John with an alternative in the offensive positions to his top scorer Hinata Gonda (eight goals and two assists in 13 appearances), who will be out until March with an inner ligament rupture.

Meanwhile, the SVS squad continues to thin out. Yanagisawa is already the twelfth Straelen player to find a new club – three more players will follow shortly.