REMEMBER the name: Keijiro Ogawa.
It's a confident message from Western Sydney Wanderers' new signing which will excite the home fans of his new club, as the Japanese forward signs on loan from J1 League side Yokohama FC ahead of the 2021/22 Isuzu UTE A-League campaign.
Joining the Wanderers will take Ogawa outside of Japanese club football for the first time in his career. The 29-year-old has spent the majority of his playing days to date at Vissel Kobe, representing the club for eight seasons.
マシカ選手、ヴィッセル
It was Yamaguchi who gave Kobe the lead with only two minutes played after exchanging passes with Timbe, before beating Tokushima goalkeeper will a low effort.
The goal gave Kobe a spring in their step, and they continued to raid Tokushima’s danger zone and Timbe could have scored the second in the 12th minute but his ferocious left-footed strike was punched out a fruitless corner by the Tokushima goalkeeper.
The game went into the half-time break with Kobe leading 1-0 and in the second half, Atsuhiro Miura introduced former Barcelona midfielder Andres Iniesta, who came in for Tatsunori Sakurai, and the move added some punch to Kobe’s attacking line.
“Both [Lincoln] Correa dos Santos and [Andres] Iniesta are great players and playing with them is not that difficult. I think that the combination will get better as we play more games.”
On his impressions of participating in the full game for 90 minutes, Timbe said: I’m really happy to be able to play for 90 minutes. I think I was able to gradually improve my understanding of the conditions and the tactics of the team and join the team.
“I found the condition gradually improved and the feeling improved during the match, so I think it was a good 90 minutes in that sense as well.”