Shogun Soccer Scouting #5: Yuto Ozeki

The Menace Between-The-Lines!

Sep 26, 2024

Hello, welcome to another Shogun Soccer Scouting feature, this time on Yuto Ozeki.

Date of Birth: February 6th, 2005
Age: 19 years old (as of writing)
Nationality: Japan
Position: Central Midfielder (Box-to-box in Midfield 3)
Club: Fukushima United (J3), on loan from Kawasaki Frontale (J1)
Squad Number: #14 (2024 season)
Height/Weight: 1.78m // 60 kg (Source: Soccer Digest)

Yuto Ozeki was born and raised in Kawasaki city and played for local teams (including FC Tama) before joining Kawasaki Frontale’s U-18 team. His talent shone bright and alongside fellow Fukushima United loanee, Yuto Matsunagane, was promoted to the first team for the 2023 season. Ozeki should be no secret to keen Japanese football observers due to his multiple appearances across the youth national team setups (U-17s as well as the U-19s in the Maurice Revello tournament this past spring). He was also selected to be a “training partner” for the Japan National team squad for the 2023 Asian Cup in January of this year. Ozeki made his debut for Kawasaki Frontale in the 23/24 Asian Champions League group stage in December 2023 but was largely outside the squad throughout the season, as a result he was loaned out to J3 side Fukushima United for the current 2024 J.League season.

In his first season getting regular minutes in professional football, Yuto Ozeki has definitely caught the eye playing as part of a Midfield 3 in a 4-3-3 formation. Manager Shuhei Terada is also an ex-Kawasaki Frontale player and his playing style with emphasis on lots of possession through careful build-up play through the central areas has benefited Ozeki immensely to showcase his specific strengths. Overall through just a little over 2000 J3 league minutes in 24 matches, Yuto Ozeki has 6 goals and 4 assists to his name.

VIDEO NOTE: Yuto Ozeki usually plays on the Left side of the Midfield 3, wears #14, and for the most part wears bright yellow boots which makes him easy to identify throughout the videos. Fukushima United kit colors are red with white lettering (home) and white/grey with black lettering (away).

Let’s get started!

Off-Ball: (Re-)Positioning & Runs

In general, Yuto Ozeki has an excellent awareness of space, shows for the ball constantly between-the-lines. He scans a lot and benefits from this through executing precise half-turns or facing forward from receiving with his back to goal. Ozeki isseamlessly involved across all different phases of possession play.

Space: Defensive 3rd (Build-up, dropping deep, or to CBs)

In the defensive 3rd, Ozeki drops deep, close to the Center Backs to receive with back-to-goal in the half-space or receive lay-offs facing forward to then progress the ball further. Splitting the Center Backs is rarely done as that’s not how Fukushima United usually play. Within these spaces he has deft touches to play away under pressure or immediately turn forward into space.

Space: Middle 3rd (Between-the-lines)

Depending on the opponent, Ozeki can stay up higher in Fukushima United’s build-up to take advantage of spaces from team’s pressing high against the defensive line. A common movement Ozeki makes is to drop, pull a marker forward, then whether he receives the ball or not proceed to jump forward into the space vacated in the middle 3rd.

Ozeki frequently squeezes into tight spaces but due to his good ball control and turning ability is able to take advantage of these situations. This bodes well for playing at higher levels where pressure, quickness in closing down, and opposition’s awareness of space between the lines will be far more refined. Out-of-possession and not in the immediate area of play, Ozeki will be sitting in opportune spaces, ready to take advantage when his teammates win the ball.

Space: Final 3rd (Pockets inside/outside box)

In the final 3rd, Ozeki drifts into the spaces created by teammates pulling defenders away as well as gaps in the defensive block. He doesn’t receive on the wing often, even with rare rotations with the winger to cross the ball in himself as he generally prefers central and half-space locations to make plays. Ozeki mostly supports the full back or winger by showing for the ball through pulling wider into the half-spaces. Ozeki can also be a direct goal threat with his box runs, to either post after his own involvement in passing the ball out wide.

Ball Control & Receiving

A thing you will notice about Yuto Ozeki is the positivity of his actions, he constantly thinks about how to try to move the ball forwards. This is exemplified by his body language in the way Ozeki opens his body up to receive, quick back-steps into space, or a first touch that is mindful of his next actions. This is aided by the fact that he scans well and knows how to shield or turn past the oncoming defender, with the added benefit of earning fouls from these actions.

At times he doesn’t scan and gets tackled from his blindside, perhaps overconfident or ball-watching. In these instances his body might be unbalanced (a mix of poor incoming passes & not being able to quite adjust to them in time) and can be easily bumped off the ball. Still, he can be reactive to bounces of the ball at different heights and settles it nicely.

Once in control, Ozeki is great in tight spaces and drives forward with purpose. He is quick at shifting the ball between his feet, using every part of both feet to receive and turn as needed.

Dribbling & Ball-Carrying

Ozeki can carry the ball with good speed driving forward while shielding the ball reasonably well. However, he is not able to really dribble past people 1v1 without that initial burst of momentum paired with quick touches he gets from a take-on or receiving a pass into space. As a result, Ozeki lacks the ability to create separation from his closes marker to create shots from good locations by himself as he gets forced wide.

On the flip side, he is agile, can make quick turns/spins (especially cutting around the ball with the outside of his boot) and feints to make small windows of space to slip passes through. Ozeki is also adept at earning fouls from shielding ball properly and luring tackles from defenders. It’s also clear that even after dribbles/carries across long distances that Ozeki still has the energy and focus to make good decisions at the end.

I do think at higher levels, a concern might be that defenders who are not just stronger but also much quicker to react to Ozeki’s initial first touches, can get their bodies in the way before Ozeki is able to fully build up steam in his dribbles/carries. So this might be a point of friction to watch in how he acclimatizes to better leagues, he’ll want to get plenty of minutes in a possession dominant team at these levels to practice and hone his skills in riding that contact.

Rather than going on long distance, winding, dribbles/carries or facing up 1v1 to a defender from a static position, Ozeki is much more adept at quick touches and flowing pass-and-go moves. As seen in previous sections, he mainly creates time and space for himself before receiving rather than after.

Passing

Ball Progression & Retention

A signature part of Ozeki’s skill set is his ability to punch passes to break through the lines to teammates into feet or into space. If Ozeki can’t turn forward, then he can patiently retain the ball, combine with the Center Backs and wait for better opportunities to progress to arise as Fukushima United try to bait the press.

Ozeki is comfortable using both feet and being both the provider and receiver of ball progression as well. There is always a risk to playing the more vertical line-breaking types of passes that he provides. While usually accurate, it can lead to turnovers due to the tight spaces he is usually passing into. I think Ozeki needs to be a bit more careful with diagonal passes from the half-spaces to the center as those have been the culprit for some dangerous counterattacks.

Chance Creation

In the final 3rd (or from even deeper areas at times), Yuto Ozeki’s imagination and interplay with his teammates is very fun to watch. He has a large variety of passes in his repertoire with sharp vertical passes into feet, little flicks/lay-offs, as well as carefully weighted through balls into space. There are lots of examples below where while Ozeki himself is not making the direct shot assist, he is giving it to the person (or the person before) who eventually does in that “hockey assist” kind of sense.

Long Passing & Crossing

Ozeki prefers his right foot for longer passes out to either wing but can hit with his left if necessary. His longer range passes are more lofted passes out wide or behind the defense rather than long diagonal type passes as Fukushima United have a strong preference for short lateral ground passing in their playing style. As a result Ozeki mostly sticks to short-medium passes.

In terms of Ozeki’s crossing ability, they are mostly lofted with his right foot from either wing toward the far post but there’s not a whole lot to write about as Ozeki doesn’t shift wide very often anyway.

Shooting & Set-Pieces

Ozeki is not active in set-pieces, he doesn’t take them himself and mostly sits outside box as he is not much of an aerial threat anyway. It’s much of the same in defensive set-pieces, as he mainly hangs at the edge of the box to pick up loose balls and start counter attacks.

His shooting opportunities come from making runs into the box for crosses and pouncing on loose balls rather than creating shooting windows for himself off the dribble. Like with his other actions, Ozeki is comfortable shooting with either foot which is always a plus.

Defending

As you’ll see from his data in a later section, at a cursory glance, Ozeki is not very active in terms of his defensive output. He can be a bit reckless when sliding in so needs to be careful with that aspect of his game but he’s only picked up two yellow cards in 2024 so far. Otherwise some clumsiness leading to fouls. In addition, he is not much of an aerial presence or at least rarely gets into these type of contests. Indeed, on defensive set-pieces he is mostly sat outside the box to be the first outlet for counterattacks or to pick up loose/2nd balls himself.

While not a consistent ball-winner he does press well and works hard out-of-possession. Besides his pressing, Ozeki has very good awareness to cut out passing lanes while jockeying from side-to-side. Overall, Ozeki knows his defensive role in the team and performs well within Fukushima United’s defensive framework.

Pressing & 1v1 Situations

As a midfielder of a 4-3-3 set-up, in the press Ozeki is tasked with:

Ready to jump on opponent midfielder operating between-the-lines and if ball is passed backward, continue to press forward.
Quick sprints wide to close down diagonal passes behind the Front 3 press.

The nature of the three-man midfield means Ozeki has to do a lot of running to cover the width of the pitch especially when Full Backs are pinned back or when Wingers are bypassed. Ozeki dutifully supports teammates to double-team when opportunity arises to win ball. In general Ozeki has quick reactions for the press/counter-press situations, and approaches his mark well and forces the opponent backwards.

Physical Attributes

As can been seen from previous sections, Ozeki is a box-to-box midfielder with involvement in all thirds of the pitch, sometimes all in the same possession sequence! Naturally he covers a lot of ground and has the stamina to do so. He is tenacious, keeps running to chase across/back as the ball is passed away in pressing situations, and makes lots of lateral sprints to support or cover in wide areas for the Full Back or Winger.

24 league appearances: 23.01 90s (totaling 2071 minutes as per Transfermarkt)

Speed & Agility

Ozeki has demonstrated he is quite an agile operator. He has a very flexible body, especially his hips, that excels at receiving the ball on the half-turn and twisting or spinning his way past defenders in tight spaces. This is supported by his light touches and quick changes of direction.

While Ozeki doesn’t have a great top speed, he has quick acceleration to burst past defenders in the first few steps, especially with the space made ready to receive beforehand and noticeably from when he is closing opponents down in the press. His lack of speed over longer distances does make him susceptible to being easily jockeyed out wide by defenders. Unfortunately, I don’t have physical data on hand to see whether these claims stand up.

Data & Miscellaneous

A lot of what we see from his stats radar aligns with what we’ve seen in the footage. Relatively very good long passing completion percentage with the caveat that he would have low number attempts due to team style. Great progressive carries due to his space-finding and turning forward on receiving. Despite 6 goals and 4 assists as of writing, there is actually still room to improve a bit more in this regard!

“Smart passes” is a WyScout metric with the definition of “A creative and penetrative pass that attempts to break the opposition's defensive lines to gain a significant advantage in attack.” so it is a lot more subjective compared to other stuff on the radar. However, it’s clearly seen from the footage in previous section that he does try risky line-breaking passes and a lot of them do come off. Ozeki’s role on the team as a ball progressor lends itself to being the guy to push the team forward in this manner. It would be nice to have footed-ness data (ditto for speed/physical data) as I’ve mentioned numerous times that he does seem to use both feet quite often for a variety of actions. The defensive metrics don’t pop but as explained in previous sections, he does work hard off the ball and if pressure data was available, he would stand out fairly well in my opinion.

In terms of Ozeki’s mentality he does show signs of visible frustration on mistakes, however he properly re-focuses and tracks back regardless. He is very communicative with his teammates and as a player that loves to get touches on the ball, even when he is not picked out by teammates he is always getting into a position to call for it again and again.

Summary

Yuto Ozeki is a ball progression machine that calls for the ball in all central areas of the pitch with the vision and awareness to receive in good spaces and execute actions upon receiving the ball. Playing in a fluid three-man midfield structure he is a player that wants lots of ball touches, ideally as a box-to-box with license to drop deeper to dictate play or as the receiver between-the-lines to speed up the attack.

Ozeki has great agility receiving the ball on the half-turn which supports his close control to evade pressure in tight spaces. I still would like to see him handle quicker, tougher contact when receiving against better defenders and defensive blocks as, at times, J3 teams simply weren’t defending well in these games by not pressuring quickly enough or standing off too passively without cutting out options. I haven’t seen him in international play but perhaps there’s footage there to gauge this aspect too.

Ozeki has crisp and imaginative passing, although coming with a lot of risk - the ratio still leans fairly high toward the “reward” side of the equation whether it’s ball progression or creating chances. A reason for Ozeki’s high usage, high output is because he is on a ball dominant team (2nd in the J3 league in terms of average ball possession).

On the defensive side of things, while his numbers don’t pop in terms of active ball-winning, it’s clear from the footage that he is an active presser, willing to make up for his own mistakes, and works hard to cover the usual gaps that appear when defending in a 4-3-3 shape. In particular, he is quite adept at cutting out passing options and forcing opponents backward or make sub-optimal passes.

In regards to his future, Ozeki’s future preference seems clear in his choice of kit number at Fukushima United, #14, in reverence to his Kawasaki Frontale idols, Yasuto Wakisaka and Kengo Nakamura. However, I am a bit skeptical of Ozeki being able to fully make the jump into the Kawasaki Frontale starting XI next year as there is a lot of competition in the Midfield, not to mention the steep difficulty curve going from J3 straight to J1. His hero, Wakisaka, is still the undisputed play-maker in the side while Ryota Oshima has also returned to fitness recently (although the latter can easily get injured for the millionth time… NOTE: Oshima is indeed unfortunately injured again). The summer acquisition of So Kawahara and the existence of Yuki Yamamoto, Ze Ricardo, and Kento Tachibanada also pose multiple experienced roadblocks for him to push his way past.

Regardless of where exactly he ends up next season, Ozeki will want to be in a team that is brave and willing to play into the tight spaces that he craves, one that emphasize his impact between-the-lines rather than simply dropping deeper. I think he can be encouraged to continue to attack the box even more and get more goals and assists for higher appraisal in the eyes of potential suitors (including parent club Frontale). Fukushima United could still get promoted to J2 via the play-offs which would probably be the ideal scenario for his development, but either way a step up into a higher league in the J.League pyramid should be the goal considering how elite he is at the J3 level this year. I do think Yuto Ozeki is a player that can make it in Europe eventually but he’ll still need to continue to gain significant playing minutes at higher J.League levels first.

Thanks for reading!