"Takuma Asano is a talented young striker and a forward who belongs to the future," Wenger said in 2016 when announcing the surprising new signing for Arsenal, "He has an impressive start to his career in Japan and we look forward to his development in the coming years." Wenger was right and wrong. Takuma Asano did get off to a good start to his career in his home country — but it would take "a few years" for him to get better.
Takuma Asano first appeared on the fast track to success when he was 18 years old and joined J-League champion Sanfrecce Hiroshima in 2013, and before entering the first team, he played in an adult team game that helped the team retain the title. By 2015, Hiroshima had won the league title for the third time in four seasons, with Asano being their chief striker, scoring nine goals in 34 games and having won Rookie of the Year. Since then, Asano has also made a name for himself in international competitions. In 2016, Japan finally defeated South Korea 3-2, and Takuma Asano's two goals helped the team win the U23 Asian Cup, which was also his first title, before he was selected for the Rio Olympic team later that year, and although Japan was eliminated in the group stage, he scored two goals.
His performance caught Arsene Wenger's attention, and before joining Arsenal, he coached Nagoya Orcas in Japan. In July 2016, the 21-year-old Asano moved to London, where his new manager believed he could become the team's rising star. However, Asano immediately ran into problems as his application for a labor certification was denied. At the time, players from outside the EUROPEAN Union either had to play a certain number of international matches or cost more than a certain fee – Asano was clearly not up to par and was therefore banned from playing in the Premier League. However, the potential wenger hopes to tap is clear. As a quick and skilled dribbling hand, his direct style may appeal to Arsenal, as Arsenal's transfer application was rejected by Vardy in the same summer he joined the Gunners.
Of course, his compatriots had no doubt that Asano was capable of doing great things. In 2016, European media quoted Japanese journalist Koichi Harada as saying: "He is a player between Hazard and Walcott. He's very fast, able to find space behind the defender, and he's not only a goalscorer, he's also a chance-maker. His nickname is 'Jaguar' because he runs fast and can score goals. He is now imitating the Jaguars to celebrate the goal. ”
Over the next three seasons, Asano was loaned to Germany as Arsenal tried to reapply for his labour certification. Helped Stuttgart win the Bundesliga in 2016-17, but the next two top-flight seasons, either at Stuttgart or Hanover 96, were less successful, scoring just one goal in 28 games. He has been struggling to secure a work permit, and club-level problems may have affected his national team status to some extent. In 2018, he was selected for the World Cup qualifiers in Japan, but coach Halihodžić directly listed Asano's problems at Arsenal as the reason he was not selected for the warm-up friendly, and then removed him from the 23-man squad of russia.
By 2019, Asano was at a crossroads in his career. Hannover general manager Horst-Hurth, unhappy with his loan period, deliberately excluded the striker from the squad in the last two months to avoid activating the mandatory buying terms, although they were eventually relegated from the Bundesliga. Asano himself is losing faith. "I was injured many times this season and couldn't keep playing and couldn't leave any results," he wrote on his personal blog. "Looking back now, I think it was a tough and frustrating season. The only thing I can have confidence in is to feel that 'growing' is possible every day. I want to do my best from here again to connect growth with results! ”
He had a year left on his Gunners contract, was 24 years old and needed a fresh start, so he was allowed to transfer and leave. He spent two seasons with Partizan Belgrade, where he played regular football in Europe for the first time and eventually recovered. In the 2020-21 season, he scored 18 goals in 33 Serbian Premier League games, thus returning to Germany last summer to join Bochum. Although he is still far from the Bundesliga goalscoring machine – one goal in 24 games in all the games of the 2021-22 season – he remains an important, hard-working cog for the promotion team and even helped beat Bayern Munich this season.
After disappearing from the international arena for two years, he was re-admitted by the Japanese team, and he almost became the core of the team as his national team successfully qualified for the World Cup in Qatar. In fact, he started last month's 2-0 win over Australia, which gave Japan a seventh consecutive World Cup qualification. Wenger always said that Takuma Asano was the goal of the future. He turned out to be right. Just a little longer than expected.