Takuma Asano will miss VfL Bochum for the time being. Possibly up to five games.
There’s still room for improvement in Bundesliga club VfL Bochum’s offense so far this season. Only Takuma Asano, who has made 16 appearances, scored five goals and set up one goal, has been completely convincing so far.
That brings us to the problem: Asano will be missing for VfL in the first few weeks after the winter break as he will be taking part in the 2024 Asian Cup in Qatar with Japan. It runs from January 12 to February 10, 2024.
Should Japan live up to their role as favorites, Asano would miss up to five games and would only be back when they face FC Bayern Munich. In Group D, Japan will face Indonesia, Vietnam and Iraq at the Asian Cup. A total of 24 teams are playing for the Asian title, and Japan have already won the tournament four times.
Marc Lettau, VfL’s sports director, commented on the importance of the tournament: “The Asian Cup is as important in Asia as the European Championship is for us. The nomination of Takuma Asano is therefore also something special for us as a club. We will of course be following the action closely and wish Takuma every success!”
Japan will kick off their campaign on Sunday (January 14, 12:30 pm) against Vietnam in Doha. Japan’s dress rehearsal will be against Jordan on January 9.
With a view to coach Thomas Letsch’s team, the question now arises as to how VfL will line up in any five matches without Asano. The coach has several ideas in mind, as he reveals: “There are various options. We have Lukas Daschner, Moritz Kwarteng, Moritz Broschinski or Matúš Bero. Philipp Förster can also play the position, but in a different way of course. Christopher Antwi-Adjei is also a candidate. These are all different types of players to Takuma, so of course we have to adapt our game a bit. We have options, so we’ll also test one or two things in the two test games on Saturday and Sunday. There won’t be two variations on Saturday and two on Sunday, because it’s important to me that many players get 90 minutes. In both matches, we will hopefully gain insights that we can then refine in order to find the right mix for Bremen.” cb / gp
VfL kick off the rest of the season against Bremen on Sunday (January 14, 3:30 p.m.)