Shogun Soccer Scouting: Kuryu Matsuki

A detailed look at FC Tokyo's mobile midfield engine!

Hello and welcome to the first in hopefully a feature series of Shogun Soccer Scouting! Today I’ll be talking about Kuryu Matsuki.

• Date of Birth: April 30, 2003

• Age (as of writing): 20 years old

• Nationality: Japan

• Position: Central Midfield

• Club: FC Tokyo

While Kuryu Matsuki isn’t a household name outside of Japan (yet), I do imagine quite a lot of people (European clubs, media, and the fanalytics community) do know about him. Even from his high school days playing for the famous Aomori Yamada High School he was already garnering acclaim and his performances for the youth national team would’ve placed him within the sights of many scouts. Indeed, back in 2021 he already had a trial session with Olympique Lyon.

Most of this analysis is from watching matches in the 2023 J.League season, mainly from July onward as I wanted to focus on the player he is right now (and that’s what footage I have available). This is my first time going deep into analyzing a single player as those familiar with my newsletter I tend to give tactical and data overviews at the team level instead so any feedback, comments, etc. will be greatly appreciated. More details about the resources used, extent, and limitations of this analysis can be found in the section at the very bottom of this newsletter.

Let’s get started!

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Team Context

He joined FC Tokyo, a mid-table J.League club, at the start of the 2022 season after leading Aomori Yamada to a high school national championship. Matsuki’s arrival at the club coincided with former Barcelona academy director, Albert Puig’s appointment as manager. Puig played Matsuki as one of the box-to-box midfielders in a 4-3-3.

However, Puig wasn’t able to instill his playing style onto the team successfully with FC Tokyo continuing to flounder in mid-table (sometimes dipping close to the relegation battle) even after a year-and-a-half at the helm (details of which I have written in many newsletters or blog-posts in the past if you’re interested…). The Spaniard was sacked during the summer of 2023. In his stead arrived, Peter Cklamovski, a former assistant under Ange Postecoglou, who has had somewhat mixed results in J1 and J2 as a manager in the past few years. The big difference has been that the Australian manager switched Matsuki to become one part of a double pivot in a 4-2-3-1. As mentioned before, this analysis will be looking more at Matsuki’s role as a central midfielder since the start of Cklamovski’s tenure as FC Tokyo’s manager.

Despite his young age he has firmly established himself as a starter for FC Tokyo, having played 27 90s in 2022 and while he’s only played minutes totaling up to 19 90s in 2023 (so far), this is because he’s missed quite a few games due to international duty with the U-20 and U-22 teams.

NOTE: Matsuki wears #7 (dark blue uniform with red highlights/stripes or an all-white uniform ) and often wears orange-ish or white boots. I don’t have enough free annotations on Metrica Play so I’m not going to be able to highlight him every scene in the videos below so keep those facts in mind! Also note that there is quite an overlap between his clips in the defense section and the attack section simply due to the fact that you often get both from him in a single sequence of possession play.

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Defending

Tackling, Interceptions, Loose Balls

This is the area that Matsuki excels in the most and the easiest thing to spot. He has such quick awareness of danger and also has the physical attributes to execute on that awareness, from short bursts of speed or shifting his feet to re-position. Watching Matsuki, what surprises me is how often the ball just seems to fall right to him as he has a knack for knowing where a loose ball might end up. Matsuki uses these situations as an opportunity to immediate start the counterattack, playing passes forward or sideways within one or two touches to a teammate as he is intercepting/collecting the ball, showing his ability to think several steps ahead. He is very good at lunging in with his legs to get his body between the opponent and the ball to either take complete possession or to simply knock it away.

Marking, Box-Defending, Pressing

Under Cklamovski in the second half of the season, Matsuki, as part of the double pivot, diligently covered for his Center Backs behind him when they pushed out of the box. Otherwise, he kept guard at the edge of the box next to his midfield partner to intercept cut-backs or to push out forward when the ball is passed back inside from the wings. When it comes to 1v1 defending Matsuki makes himself big when approaching an opponent and gets his body low to block pass lanes. He follows movement of his immediate opponent with small quick steps to keep himself from being caught flat-footed, opponents find it hard to dribble past him.

While Matsuki does usually keep a close mark, he can be prone to ball watching and/or not scanning his surroundings at times and let runners into the box or simply not see players coming behind him to get on the end of a cross. As a result he can be a bit hit-or-miss in the air inside his own box despite his great jumping ability.

Matsuki performs a variety of roles in the 4-4-2 mid~high press, either next to the striker pressing the opponent back-line or covering deeper as part of the double pivot depending on the positioning of his teammates at the start of the transition. While he is aggressive when he chooses to push out (as seen in the defending section), he also chooses these moments wisely, keeping the line or block if the opportunity is not on.

In terms of discipline (keeping in mind Matsuki has played far more minutes in 2022 compared to this season), data from FBref:

• 2022: 1.26 fouls per 90, 5 Yellow Cards & 1 Red Card

• 2023: 1.42 fouls per 90, 4 Yellow Cards 1 Red Card

When looking at those (raw) numbers in the wider league context, he is no where near the top in terms of fouling which is good. This is despite the nature of his role in the team and the difficulties of FC Tokyo to adjust to trying to play in a more possession-style which has led to many turn-overs and counterattacks. For the amount of defensive work he does, his relatively low amount of fouls is a good sign of his ability to win the ball cleanly. This is an aspect he’s improved upon since his debut 2022 season but he can still make a rash or unnecessary challenge at times.

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Attacking

Ball Control & Dribbling, Receiving

Matsuki can use both feet but favors his left foot, especially when dribbling. The biggest issue here is that he doesn’t have a great first touch, with the ball spilling away from him at times. On the other hand, when he does have it in control, Matsuki can make quick touches to slip past pressure especially after making a tackle or collecting a loose ball in crowded areas. This is also how he is able to earn lots of fouls, as even after a poor first touch he reacts quickly and is able to get back into control before his opponents.

When receiving or taking ball on facing forwards, Matsuki is very good and can drive quickly forward for a pass or dribble. He’s not much of a 1v1 dribbler, technique-wise he keeps it simple with a few shoulder and body feints. In any case he is mostly one to be driving/carrying into space in transitions rather than squaring up to take on opponents. One of my biggest issues with Matsuki is that he doesn’t try to turn to face forward despite having space, especially in his own defensive 3rd which can be detrimental to Tokyo’s build-up (while one can also acknowledge that many times, his teammates don’t pass the ball well to give him these opportunities either). He doesn’t set himself up to turn or even fake turning so he is already limiting his options even prior to receiving the ball at times, which can then make it easy for the opposition to read his next actions.

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Passing & Goal Threat

As mentioned in the defending section, Matsuki is a great switch in transition situations as he has the foresight to quickly pass it in one or two touches from his own ball wins or latching on to loose balls/interceptions. He has a variety of passes in his arsenal: through-balls, long diagonals, short quick combo passes to feet but also has a cool head to make the simple pass instead. Matsuki can use either foot, is quick to switch it to whichever one he wants to use to make the best pass and doesn’t hesitate to do so. However, his best passes do still come from his stronger left foot. In general, he is a good but not excellent passer, as he does get the weight of pass wrong at times especially on his weaker right foot. From deeper areas in the build-up when he drops into the back-line he doesn’t really try to play a whole lot of line-breaking passes and is more productive receiving the ball in the mid-3rd and further forward.

In terms of being a goal threat, Matsuki does have habit of trying to shoot from long-range. He can strike the ball quite well but this is an aspect that can be problematic in terms of his decision-making in the final 3rd. Matsuki’s attacking output is mostly defined by his immediate actions following an interception or tackle. Perhaps on a better team in possession he would be able to show his creativity more in the final 3rd, which we can see in spurts at FC Tokyo.

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Movement & Physical Attributes

Matsuki has a multitude of tasks as the central midfielder in the double pivot. He will frequently drop to support the build-up, either in between the Center Backs or into the spaces vacated by the Full Backs pushing forward. A problem is that he is not very good at turning and facing forward under pressure nor recognizing these sorts of situations. While he does scan his surroundings, he often doesn’t take the risk to try to turn forwards and slipping past his opponent or simply facing forward despite ample space available. With FC Tokyo’s struggles there are lots of times where Matsuki is indeed making the right choice to not turn but he sometimes exacerbates Tokyo’s inability to play out from the back by not utilizing the space around him.

Matsuki has the speed to follow attacks as they develop and make runs from deep to support. Matsuki can keep making these medium-long distances runs late into games showing his great energy levels. He has a willingness to move forward to take up space when strikers/wingers drop deeper, and can make runs into the box competently. He also continuously re-positions himself as the ball moves around (with or without his involvement) and tries to also make decoy runs to create space for his teammates. Despite all this, Matsuki hasn’t really been able to rack up the goals or assists in either of his two professional seasons so far.

As seen in previous sections, his physical speed supports his quick reading of the game and allows him to intercept passes or come across to tackle a dribbler. Matsuki uses his body well, making his body big to shield the ball with his back, and uses arms to hold opponents off. On and off the ball he is quite agile, quickly opening up his body to receive or turn, making quick touches on the dribble in tight spaces but his at times wayward first touch means he’s not able to do this as consistently. This agility also allows him to earn lots of fouls. Matsuki is quite physically robust overall, out-muscling opponents and getting himself between the ball and the opponent when he makes his long lunges to tackle or intercept the ball. He also has a great leap when challenging for headers.

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Miscellaneous & Data

For FC Tokyo, Matsuki is commonly takes set pieces, both free kicks and corner kicks from either side of the field. With his left foot he can make in-swinging or out-swinging crosses with fairly good accuracy. Matsuki has a good long shot and generates a lot of power, able to take long range direct and indirect free kicks with decent accuracy. I don’t have the data available to really comment further on whether his set pieces regularly creates good chances or not. From the matches watched for this analysis I didn’t get that impression.

Courtesy of StatsBomb

Looking at the data you can see a lot of value comes from his passing but not in terms of ‘deep progression’ but from areas further forward. StatsBomb’s OBV also shows how much Matsuki provides value through his defensive actions as well as winning fouls, all of which align with what was shown in previous sections.

NOTE: The radars below don’t show the same spread of stats across seasons as Matsuki’s role has changed and the templates are therefore different.

Courtesy of Ben Griffis’ “Soccer Prospect Research & Radar Creation” app

Courtesy of Ben Griffis’ “Soccer Prospect Research & Radar Creation” app

When comparing his 2022 and 2023 season (keeping in mind the change in the group of stats provided as well as the slightly different sample pool of comparison), one can see that he has become far better as a creative outlet this season. His defensive numbers have improved quite a bit but I imagine a lot of that can simply due to playing deeper. Like mentioned previously, the data shows he’s not much of a 1v1 dribbler but excels as a ball carrier into space on transitions, often self-made through his impressive defensive abilities as shown in previous sections.

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Summary

Kuryu Matsuki has made a quick start to his professional career, holding down a starting spot in a J1 team from his debut season. His performances at this level as well as his frequent appearances for Japan youth sides have surely not gone unnoticed to European teams.

As Kuryu Matsuki is right now, you want him to be receiving or winning the ball when he’s already facing forwards. His body shape issues when receiving the ball prevent him from being a true asset in the build-up but he can drive into space well if afforded the room. He’s not a great dribbler especially with his first touch issues and can be decent on the half-turn though but again, I think he can improve and do more of it in the right opportunities especially if he scans his surroundings more regularly in these situations. While his ball-winning abilities could potentially make him a good #6 defensive midfielder, his issues with turning into space, receiving the ball, and his first touch is probably the biggest hindrance for a team trying to play him there. He’s better off playing as the box-to-box #8 that he was in 2022 or playing in a double pivot like he has for the second half of 2023.

I think the next step would be to really start to get more “end product” in tallying up more goals and assists as he has shown the potential to do so since his debut. At the same time, he is already a good facilitator and is actively involved in possession even without being the player to play the killer pass. He would also become a much more complete player if given coaching to recognize instances of turning on the ball into space and the confidence to do that in tight situations from deeper. This may then allow him to play more progressive passes from his own defensive 3rd as that’s one of the few pass types that he doesn’t do very often.

The German Bundesliga suits his front-foot all-action type of play-style as he thrives greatly on transition moments. I won’t say he’s ready for the Premier League despite his good physicality, it may be worth watching him in national team setups, outside of the J.League context or see him in another European league to gauge his readiness for a larger physical step up. Kuryu Matsuki is a fantastic prospect with a varied skillset that can be moulded further with the right coaching environment.

Thanks for reading!

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Resources, Limitations, etc.

• Video analysis: Metrica Play, DaVinci Resolve 18

• Tactical diagrams: Tacticalista

• Time period: 2023 Season only (mostly from July onwards)

• Footage: Broadcast footage, no tactical camera

• Stats: FBref, Transfermarkt, WyScout

• Player radars: StatsBomb & Ben Griffis

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