Of all Leeds United’s dud buys in recent times perhaps none have had worse luck at Elland Road than Yosuke Ideguchi.
Leeds United signed the Japanese midfielder from Gamba Osaka in January 2018 for a fee reported by talkSPORT to be in the region of £500,000.
But rather than have him try and force his way into the Leeds team midway through the season, he was sent out on loan.
Leeds had recently developed a partnership with Spanish second-tier side Cultural Leonesa through director Ivan Bravo. Ideguchi was sent to the Spanish club to help them in their relegation battle.
Ideguchi struggled in Spain. He played just five times as Cultural eventually did suffer relegation to the third tier of Spanish football. His poor spell in Spain ultimately cost him what looked a cast-iron place in the Japan World Cup squad.
Upon his return to West Yorkshire, things had changed. Marcelo Bielsa had been appointed as manager and featured in pre-season. However, despite Bielsa admitting his admiration of the player to the YEP, the language barrier proved an issue and Ideguchi was told he could leave.
“He’s a player who during the six weeks of pre-season worked very well and very hard. I saw a very positive evolution. But I don’t know if he will stay with us or not.
“Usually I choose two players for each position so they have a possibility to play. I’m going to be sincere. He’s not a second option in any position of our team so it wouldn’t be fair for me to say I want him to stay because I couldn’t offer him the time as a player he deserves.”
He headed to Germany, joining Greuther Furth in Germany’s second tier and scored on his debut. But that was the high point. The midfielder suffered a serious knee injury which restricted him to just games for the club.
So this summer, he left Leeds, re-joining former club Gamba Osaka and heading back to Japan. No Leeds fan will begrudge him future success and it appears that is on the horizon.
In his most recent game for Gamba he scored twice, his first goals since returning, in a 4-1 win over Matsumoto Yamaga.
The 23-year-old is also back in the international fold. He is the most capped member of an all domestic-based Japan side currently in action at the 2019 East Asian Football Championship in South Korea.
He set up the winning goal in Japan’s opening game 2-1 win over China and he will hope to have a similar impact in their clash with Hong Kong at the weekend.
After two years of awful luck since making his bold West Yorkshire move, it seems Ideguchi is finally bouncing back. At 23-years-old, there still appears plenty of time for him to one day grace the European game yet again.