The Young Guns

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21 y.o. Koo Ja-Cheol has come off the bench again for Wolfsburg so it seems it hasn't taken him long at all to find some action on the pitch which is good.

18 y.o. Heung-Min Son has had 8 hit outs with Hamburg for a return of 3 goals! Not bad, not bad at all. He's been in Germany for a while now (was with the Hamburg youth academy) however really seems to be finding his groove.

Another kid we don't hear much about is 19 y.o. Nam Tae-Hee who is playing for Valenciennes in France. He's had 15 appearances thus far though I'm not entirely sure what sort of impact he's having at the club. Still, good work from the kid to even be playing at this level (though was missing last week).

As for 22 y.o. Lee Chung-Yong he's now up to 55 games with Bolton and has already won a 'Bolton Player of the Year' award. Most people here know him already though, part of the benefit of playing EPL I suppose.

[Steelinho]

There's also Suk Hyun-Jun, a 19-year-old giant (190 cm) striker at AFC Ajax, who hasn't yet had a massive impact but is considered a major prospect for next season onwards (scored in a friendly against Chelsea, too).

Michihiro Yasuda is on a weird six month "loan" deal at Vitesse, where it's essentially a full transfer as he is out of contract with Gamba, but if he doesn't succeed at Vitesse and earn a contract renewal, he's guaranteed a return to Gamba for another season (they re-sign him on a yearly basis).

Maya Yoshida has been at VVV Venlo since the start of the Dutch season, but his performances have fluctuated and he's far from have a regular starting spot.
VVV also signed Robert Cullen (Japanese-born to Irish parents) in the last window, where he was out of contract with Roasso Kumamoto. He was once a very exciting youngster at Jubilo Iwata, but went downhill quick and wasn't even favourite at Kumamoto. He's also 25, so I guess he doesn't really count as either young nor a gun.

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a nice round up of a number of the Japanese in action in Europe over the weekend (despite all the typos). Nagatomo's first goal for Inter Milan being the highlight.

http://www.goal.com/en/news/14/asia/201 ... nter-milan

[Steelinho]

a nice round up of a number of the Japanese in action in Europe over the weekend (despite all the typos). Nagatomo's first goal for Inter Milan being the highlight.

http://www.goal.com/en/news/14/asia/201 ... nter-milan

Fairly poor form from the editors. Cesare can't be blamed, English is his second language in about four or five others (first being Italian, as I'm sure is obvious).