Tottenham signs Japan defender Takai from Kawasaki Frontale
Financial details were not disclosed, but British media reports said Europa League champion Tottenham paid a fee of £5 million ($6.82 million) for the 20-year-old.
Takai, a product of Frontale's youth academy, was part of the side that missed out on the Asian Champions League Elite title after suffering a 2-0 defeat to Saudi Arabia's Al-Ahli in the final in May.
He has also made four appearances for Japan's national team.
Takai is the third center back to join the north London club this summer, further bolstering its defense after the arrivals of Luka Vuskovic from Hajduk Split and Kevin Danso, whose loan move from RC Lens was made permanent.
Tottenham ended its 17-year trophy drought with its Europa League victory last season, but also endured its worst domestic campaign for nearly half a century and finished 17th in the Premier League.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Kyodo News
9 hours ago
- Kyodo News
Football: Japan defender Takai joins Tottenham on 5-year deal
LONDON - Japan defender Kota Takai has joined Tottenham Hotspur on a five-year deal from J-League first-division side Kawasaki Frontale, the English Premier League football club announced Tuesday The 20-year-old, capped four times by the Samurai Blue and named the 2024 J-League's best young player, joins the Europa League champions led by new manager Thomas Frank. The 192-centimeter Takai came through Kawasaki's renowned youth development program and played for Japan at the Paris Olympics last summer before making his senior national team debut in September. Spurs are looking to bounce back from their 17th-place finish in the Premier League last term under former Yokohama F Marinos boss Ange Postecoglou, who was dismissed over the summer despite his success on the continent. "I'm expecting lots of situations where I'll be marking man-to-man, and how I manage to defend against strong forwards on my own will be the most important thing," Takai said recently ahead of his move to the Premier League. "I'm not too worried about my build-up play. I'm looking forward to how much I can do defensively."
Japan Times
11 hours ago
- Japan Times
Tottenham signs Japan defender Takai from Kawasaki Frontale
Tottenham Hotspur has signed Japan defender Kota Takai on a five-year contract from J. League side Kawasaki Frontale, the Premier League club said Tuesday. Financial details were not disclosed, but British media reports said Europa League champion Tottenham paid a fee of £5 million ($6.82 million) for the 20-year-old. Takai, a product of Frontale's youth academy, was part of the side that missed out on the Asian Champions League Elite title after suffering a 2-0 defeat to Saudi Arabia's Al-Ahli in the final in May. He has also made four appearances for Japan's national team. Takai is the third center back to join the north London club this summer, further bolstering its defense after the arrivals of Luka Vuskovic from Hajduk Split and Kevin Danso, whose loan move from RC Lens was made permanent. Tottenham ended its 17-year trophy drought with its Europa League victory last season, but also endured its worst domestic campaign for nearly half a century and finished 17th in the Premier League.
Japan Times
17 hours ago
- Japan Times
Wimbledon changes line-calling system after embarrassing blunder
Wimbledon chiefs have made a change to their electronic line-calling system to remove the possibility of human error after being forced to apologize for an embarrassing operator mistake. Officials apologized to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Sonay Kartal following the malfunction during their fourth-round match on Centre Court on Sunday. After an investigation, organizers admitted the technology was turned off in error on a section of the court for a game, with the mistake only becoming apparent when a shot from Britain's Kartal that clearly missed the baseline was not called out. Responding to criticism of the blunder, All England Club officials have taken away the option of manually turning off ball-tracking. "Following our review, we have now removed the ability for Hawk-Eye operators to manually deactivate the ball tracking," the All England Lawn Tennis Club said in a statement to BBC Sport. "While the source of the issue was human error, this error cannot now be repeated due to the system changes we have made." Had the call been correct, it would have given Russia's Pavlyuchenkova a 5-4 lead in the first set, but instead umpire Nico Helwerth ruled the point should be replayed, with Kartal going on to win the game. The Russian, who won the match in straight sets, accused the official of home bias, saying, "Because she is local, they can say whatever. You took the game away from me." Wimbledon had issued a statement on Sunday saying the system had been "deactivated in error" for one game by those operating the system. Prior to Wimbledon's announcement of the system change, All England Club chief executive Sally Bolton told reporters on Monday that the technology was "working optimally." "The issue we had was human error in terms of the tracking system having been inadvertently deactivated, and then the chair (umpire) not being made aware of the fact that it had been deactivated," she said. "We've spoken to the players, we've apologized to them, we've very quickly moved into reviewing everything that had happened yesterday afternoon and putting in place the appropriate changes to the processes." A fully automated system has replaced human line judges at Wimbledon in 2025, in line with the Australian Open and the U.S. Open. But the glitch in Sunday's match follows concerns raised by other players about the technology, including British stars Emma Raducanu and Jack Draper. Around 80 former line judges are employed as match assistants, with two on each court offering support to the umpire. But Bolton said there was no need to put them back on the courts. "The system was functional," she said. "It had been deactivated. We didn't need to put line judges back on the court again, we needed the system to be active." Automated line-calling technology has largely become standard across tennis, with all regular events on the men's ATP Tour and many WTA tournaments using it.
