Coventry City’s Tatsuhiro Sakamoto (坂元 達裕) scored his first Premier League goal with his left foot on 31 October. Fans are increasingly hoping to see him selected for the Japan national team.
Tatsuhiro Sakamoto (坂元 達裕), who plays for England’s Coventry City in the Premier League, scored his long-awaited first Premier League goal against Sunderland in the ninth round of the league on 31 October local time. In the 17th minute of the first half, he sent a direct left-footed shot into the bottom-left corner, recording his first Premier League goal rather than his fifth goal of the match. Sakamoto started the game.
The goal made him the 15th Japanese player to score in the Premier League, following Daizen Maeda of Ipswich Town. After coming through Yamagata’s youth system, Sakamoto joined Cerezo Osaka and moved to Belgium’s Oostende in 2022. He joined Coventry in summer 2023 and scored 7 goals in the Championship last season under manager Frank Lampard.
The club achieved promotion, and fans expressed hopes that this performance would lead to a call-up for the Japan national team. Reactions on social media included calls such as “Call him up to Japan” and “I hope he is selected for the national team.”
Japan are scheduled to play Brazil and Paraguay in Singapore in November, and attention is focused on whether the 30-year-old attacker, who has been out of the national team since June 2021, will be selected again.