The Lowdown On Tadanari Lee

All the info on Saints potential new signing

Tadanari lee was born in Tokyo on December 19th 1985 which makes him 26 years old, he started hic career with FC Tokyo in 2001 but didnt make the transition to their first team and joined Kashiwa Reysol in 2005 in J league 1 (the top flight in Japan) 8 appearances and no goals were his total as they were relegated to J2.

The following year he made 31 appearances and 8 goals as they won promotion and he stayed with them in J1 until 2009 when he joined Sanfrecce Hiroshima mid season, having stats of 108 appearances and 24 goals in his time at Kashiwa Reysol.

He didnt score in his 8 appearances in the remainder of the season but in 2010 he played 30 times scoring 11, 2011 saw him beat thhat hitting 15 goals in 32 games (The J league leading scorer hit 19 to put this in perspective) which stirred up interest globally.

Internationally he first nailed his colours to the mast of South Korea and played a non competitive game in 2004 for their U21 side, however he experienced racism and declined to play further, between 2007/08 he made 12 appearances for Japan's U23 side scoring 4 times.also playing in the countries Olympic qualifying team in 2008.

In January 2011 he was selected for the full Japan squad for the AFC Asian Cup, he only managed two appearances off the bench, but in the second in the final he came on with 12 minutes of extra time remaining and scored the first goal of the game with virtually his first kick.

Since then he has added a further 7 caps from the starting line up during 2011 but only added to his goal tally once in a friendly against Vietnam.

2011 was very much his year, prior to that his career had been solid but unspectacular, but he is now hot property, the problem Saints may have with his work permit is whether he has played enough International games in the time period, Saints will of course argue that he has played most during the last year so qualifies as a regular International and Japan do have the only FIFA A listed team in the Asian confederation being currently ranked 19th in the World, but the relatively short period of time he has been an international may be a stumbling block.   

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