Shogun Soccer Scouting #9: Shin Yamada
Tenacious striker with an eye for goal!
Hello! The J.League season is in full swing now since my last newsletter and I’m back with another scouting piece. No, this is not an April Fools. We’re at #9 in this series now so it’s only right that it’s about a striker… Shin Yamada.
As an aside: For those interested, I hopped on to “The Football Talent Show” podcast back in February to talk about Japan’s football talent pipeline as well as diving into a couple of interesting J.League players that could make the leap to Europe soon with ⚽️ scouts, Adam Lenges & Jacek Kulig.
Periodic reminder, you can find me on Twitter & BlueSky. I’m also trying to post more on SubStack as well.
Anyway, on to the scouting report!
tl;dr (too long; didn’t read)
Natural finisher with all parts of his body using excellent movement in-and-out of the box. Lacks creative passing ability & difficulties in defensive efforts (with some recent improvements this current season).
Date of Birth: May 30, 2000
Age: 24 years old
Nationality: Japan
Position: Striker (lone striker in 4-2-3-1), a few times at Right Wing/Midfield
Club: Kawasaki Frontale (J1)
Squad Number: #20 (2024 & 2025 season)
Height/Weight: 1.75m // 75 kg (Source: Soccer Digest)
Shin Yamada is a Japanese striker born and raised in Yokohama. He rose through the ranks of Kawasaki Frontale’s youth teams from the U-15s to U-18s before continuing his development at Toin Yokohama University. At the university level he led his team to a Japan University Championship victory in 2023 (along with personal accolades such as MVP & Best XI in various other university-level competitions) prior to re-joining Kawasaki Frontale to start his professional career from the start of the 2023 J.League season. His debut season was more about acclimatizing to the professional game as he only got 9 starts and 11.2 90s. Even still, 4 goals and 2 assists in limited time was a decent return as a rookie. It’s the 2024 season where he truly blossomed as his 19 goals made him the joint top Japanese goal scorer in the J.League (and 3rd overall).
Yamada does not have any prior experience with the Japan National Team at any level so far.
DATA NOTE: StatsBomb’s free dataset is missing Kawasaki Frontale’s last match of the 2024 season vs. Avispa Fukuoka but it shouldn’t affect the overall stats too much.
VIDEO NOTE: Shin Yamada wears #20. Frontale’s kit colors are light blue with patterns, white lettering & black shorts (home), white/cream with black lettering & white shorts (away). Most of the footage is from the 2024 season but 2025 season footage is included.
Let’s get started!
Off-Ball Movement: (Re-)Positioning & Runs
Dropping Deep and/or Finding Space Between-The-Lines
Yamada’s role in possession is more of that as a facilitator rather than in hold-up play and that shows itself in how he conducts himself when dropping deep or finding space between-the-lines. Frontale’s tactics means that Yamada is usually well-supported so he’s not forced to be isolated for too long, as while he can shield with his back-to-goal, it’s not his strong suit when receiving already under pressure from a Center Back. He is much better providing lay-offs to close supporting teammates or spreading wide to the wingers from well-timed drop-offs away from the opponent Center Backs.
Runs Behind the Defensive Line
Yamada also offers a threat from his runs behind as he is well prepared off the shoulder of the last defender while Kawasaki Frontale are in possession. These actions are supported by his physical traits as while not the fastest in terms of top sprinting speed, Yamada does have quick acceleration to give himself a head start ahead of defenders while also incorporating curling runs from a defender’s blind side. Yamada’s runs behind have been a fairly reliable source of goals due to his good finishing skills in 1v1 situations that arise from lofted/through balls.
Box Movement, Rebounds, & Reactions
Yamada is the epitome of a penalty-box striker and that can be seen from his clever box movements & uncanny ability to find space as directly challenging defenders for crosses is not his strength. It is in these situations where Yamada’s mental abilities are at the forefront as he has great anticipation paired with quick reactions. He can get ready first before defenders after a turnover for a potential cross. Even when the initial pass or cross is wayward, Yamada always keeps trying, re-positioning himself, and keeping on the blind side of the defender. When making a run he uses both out-to-in and in-to-out directional changes to connect with the ball into the box. Yamada has the presence of mind to re-adjust his body in a split second to receive the ball in the most optimal way to take the shot.
Ball Control & Receiving/Turning
As a striker, Yamada can settle and shield the ball with his back-to-goal against most defenders in the league. However, there are clear difference between when he is receiving the ball already under pressure compared to when he drops away from defenders to receive and then is pressured. In the latter case he can hold on to the ball quite well. Due to his height he is best when receiving on the ground rather than higher in the air, although if given space he is quite adept at taking aerials down into control. He is very Right-foot oriented when it comes to his first touches.
Yamada has good agility to turn to face forward on receive, even from sub-optimal passes and with his tenacious nature (while he is no Ayase Ueda, to give a top-end example) he can, at times, break past a defender on the turn under pressure. When he gets momentum going his forceful dribbling style is complemented by good close control over short & long touches.
Dribbling & Carrying
His physical attributes complement his dribbling style in that with his stocky build and low center of gravity, he has good body balance to keep control in difficult situations. Yamada is very gung ho and tenacious as he can bulldoze his way past defenders which has worked in the J.League but I am not quite sure how that scales to a higher level of European league defenders. The way Shin Yamada dribbles is mostly driving through or across defenders with directional changes with body feints and shifting speed. Overall, his OBV from carrying is very good as it is in the 88th percentile for Center Forwards with at least 50 carries/dribbles and 900 minutes played.
As can be seen in the footage, he’s not a flashy dribbler with a box of tricks. As a result he prefers to get a running start to build momentum and struggles when standing up to dribble 1v1 against set defender(s) from a stationary position.
Shooting
The thing that stands out about Shin Yamada are the distribution of his goals:
Left Foot: 6 Goals from 4.57 xG, 23 Shots, 0.20 xG per Shot
Right Foot: 4 Goals from 4.9 xG, 37 Shots, 0.13 xG per Shot (minus two penalty shots)
Header: 7 Goals from 3.81 xG, 15 Shots, 0.25 xG per Shot
Digging even deeper into the data shows his threat as a instinctive, first touch finisher as he has 6 goals from these type of shots. His 6.45 xG, 29 First Time shots, and 0.22 xG per First Time Shot rank in the 96th, 85th, and 77th percentiles respectively among Center Forwards in 2024.
As we’ve seen from the footage in the “box movement” section, Yamada is all about finding space and having a quick trigger. He can keep a cool head in 1v1s and dink it over the goalkeeper when necessary. In terms of his shooting technique, he has excellent ball striking in being able to hit powerful shots into the corners with his instep or his laces. As an added bonus, he can take good shots from headers despite his lack of ability in aerial duels due to his leap & timing.
To my eyes, he’s not quite the type to dribble past people and take shots but he has been able to generate shots worth 1.53 xG from 6 dribbles and 2.79 xG after 20 carries, the latter of which is in the 80th percentile among Center Forwards with at least 900 minutes played in the 2024 season.
Looking at his shot map, Yamada clearly takes an excellent spread of shots from central areas, within the width of the 6 yard box. His box movement means he gets the goals but he is a player where service is clearly needed. Providing him with good passers and crossers will be a benefit as he can really squeeze a lot out of seemingly low xG chances.
Shin Yamada is the epitome of a penalty box striker.
Passing
Yamada is a competent but not particularly creative passer. Around 80% of his passes are with his Right foot and it’s noticeable that his pass completion rate is below StatsBomb’s pass success rate model for both feet. As we’ve seen in other sections, most of his passing are lay-offs and combination plays rather than penetrating or progressive passes from deep.
It’s even worse when he’s under pressure with both feet as his completion rate falls magnitudes lower when pressured. His lack of utility on his Left foot is a bit odd considering how good he is with his weaker left foot when it comes to shooting.
Overall, Yamada was only in the 69th Percentile in Pass OBV compared to other strikers in 2024. Nevertheless, when it comes to the simple stuff he provides reasonable value. Yamada is very good at lay-offs and spreading the ball wide for the wingers when dropping deep or between-the-lines rather than directly creating chances in the final 3rd/box. He is mostly involved in simple passes to recycle the ball as Frontale seek to find ways to break into the box. Once he plays these simple passes, he evolves into his natural role as a finisher.
Defending/Pressing
What was quite evident during the 2024 season was Kawasaki Frontale’s issues out-of-possession (OOP) and unfortunately, Shin Yamada had a part in this too. As part of a Front Two (with the #10 player, usually Yasuto Wakizaka) pushing up along side him in the press, Yamada wasn’t quite diligent in his duties. Yamada would be unaware of opponent midfielders dropping or sneaking behind the 1st-Line-Of-Press to receive or simply just not bother tracking back to cover these opponents, especially when the build-up moved out to the Full Back and the pass back inside was left open. To be clear, this was a team-wide issue throughout the last year or two of Tohru Oniki’s tenure so the uncoordinated pressing wasn’t entirely Yamada’s fault. Nevertheless, his lack of effort at times was his own responsibility. In general, he is not one that performs a whole lot of defensive actions anyway.
In 2025 so far in this season under new manager Shigetoshi Hasebe, there have been quite a lot of improvements to Frontale’s OOP issues. I do think Shin Yamada does look better tactically when defending, properly marking the opponent’s midfielder, making sure to check his cover shadow before approaching the Center Backs, etc. but it’s still a work-in-progress. For example there were still apparent issues vs. Avispa Fukuoka and Kashiwa Reysol earlier in the new season but he was quite adept vs. FC Tokyo most recently. This is something to monitor over the next few months as Frontale as a team and Yamada individually continue to mature under Hasebe’s new guidance.
Physical Attributes
Speed & Agility
As covered in the “Dribbling/Carrying” section, Yamada has very good body-balance and high agility with an added bonus of having good leaping ability for headers. When it comes to pace, while not the fastest in the league at his top speed (his 34.6 km/h maximum speeds puts him at the 60th percentile among forwards in 2024) I do think he has good acceleration over first few feet to create separation from defenders. All of this can be seen from the footage throughout this report, this tracks with his willingness to make runs behind as well as make sprints in-and-around the box to get on the end of chances.
Yamada doesn’t cover a huge amount of ground every game, only 8.8 km per 90 but what stands out is the number of sprints and high accelerations. All of which presents a picture of a player who really chooses his moments to pounce (this can also be due to how Frontale’s strikers operate compared to a more all-action team like Shonan).
Physicality & Heading
Yamada is rather short but makes up for it with his tenacity and very good body-balance due to his stocky body profile. As could be seen in previous sections, Yamada uses his body well in riding through challenges when shielding the ball to feet and forcing his way past opponents. While he has shown to be able to handle contact, Yamada has struggled against the top-end of J1 defenders (especially ones with national team/European experience). Of course, his clear weakness is aerial balls from long balls or clearances when under pressure against opponent Center Backs.
2023 (J1): 11.2 90s, 1004 league minutes
2024 (J1): 22.4 90s, 2012 league minutes
2025 (J1, after Matchday 7): 3.9 90s, 350 league minutes
Data & Miscellaneous
From his radar, we can see stats that align with the previous sections. Yamada is not very active in defense. He mostly makes short and simple passes and is not very creative nor progressive. One also needs to factor in Kawasaki Frontale’s team strength, at least in attack. His teammates provide lots of service and are reliant on him to focus on finishing. So he does not have to worry too much about creating himself besides facilitating and lay-offs between-the-lines or dropping off the last line.
Below are the data viz from the other sections all in one place:
Summary
Shin Yamada is a striker who really popped up to make a name for himself in the 2024 season. However, he can be very inconsistent in terms of his active involvement in a game (especially considering his out-of-possession issues) but has a keen nose to score goals out of nowhere when you need him most. A criticism one can have that is that he can be very 0-or-100 in his impact on the game.
Of course, all this needs to be contextualized with his role in the team, Shin Yamada is all about getting touches and shots inside the box. It helps that he has been playing for a Frontale team loaded with attacking talent and despite their mid-table troubles in recent years, by all accounts they still had the best or close-to-best attack in the J.League throughout the time Yamada has been at the club.
Yamada has a short, stocky, robust build and far more tenacious in using his body than you’d expect from a player of his size but one may still have concerns of him going up against European league-level defenders, especially with his back-to-goal. His passing isn’t much to talk about besides doing the simple stuff at a reasonable rate while aside from his acceleration over the first few meters he doesn’t quite possess the top elite speed to pair with his smart runs in-behind. I believe better consistent coaching can alleviate his defensive issues as he’s shown spurts of conducting himself better in the press and in the mid-block in this current 2025 season under a new manager.
A prospective team will want to play Yamada as a striker in 4-4-2/4-2-3-1 variants. Paired with a creative #10 or another striker that can support his movements as a receiver for his lay-offs and combinations, provide through-balls behind the defense, or passes to wingers for crosses into the box.
Yamada is an excellent mover in-and-around the box, has the mental attributes to anticipate opportunities, and is active in making runs for his teammates. His ability to score with both feet and his head makes him a daunting opponent.
I think he has a ceiling that probably limits him from advancing beyond a non-top 5 European league (so his best destination would be in the band of Belgium/Netherlands/Portugal in my opinion) but nonetheless Shin Yamada has obvious qualities as a Number #9 that should attract interest from abroad.
Thanks for reading!
Resources, Limitations, etc.
Video analysis: DaVinci Resolve 18
Tactical diagrams: Tacticalista
Time period: 2024 J1 Season & 2025 J1 Season (18 games)
Footage: Broadcast footage, no tactical camera
Stats: StatsBomb/Hudl, FBref, Transfermarkt, WyScout
Player radars: Ben Griffis
