KFC Uerdingen have made their first signing of the winter. Takumi Yanagisawa arrives from SV Straelen, but does not burden the club’s budget.
After five departures, KFC Uerdingen have also announced their first new signing of the winter. However, it is no ordinary signing. “Sponsor gives and Takumi Yanagisawa” is the title of the Krefeld press release introducing the Japanese striker, who played the first half of the season at SV Straelen and had to look for a new club due to his retirement.
“The signing is only possible thanks to the earmarked funds of a sponsor who only wanted to strengthen the team,” explained Marc Schürmann, 1st chairman of KFC. “The transfer doesn’t put any additional strain on our budget, otherwise we wouldn’t have done it either.”
The 28-year-old has been active in Germany since August 2019. In his first Oberliga season on the Lower Rhine, he impressed with TuRU Düsseldorf, scoring eight goals in 21 league games. Just one year later, he moved to 1. FC Bocholt, where Yanagisawa made a total of 43 appearances in two years, scored twelve times, set up five goals and celebrated promotion to the Regionalliga.
Yanagisawa made 78 appearances in the Oberliga and eleven in the Regionalliga
He then left the club, but his performances caught the attention of the Straelen club, who mostly played on the right, and brought him to the Regionalliga in December 2022 after almost three months without a club. Eleven appearances later (one goal, one assist), Yanagisawa was relegated with SVS back to the Oberliga Niederrhein, where he was one of the absolute regulars in the first half of the season, starting 17 of the 18 games so far and scoring four times.
The new signing provides coach Marcus John with an alternative in the attacking positions to his top scorer Hinata Gonda (eight goals and two assists in 13 appearances), who is out until March with a torn inner ligament.
Meanwhile, the SVS squad continues to thin out. Yanagisawa is already the twelfth player from Straelen to find a new club – three more games will follow shortly