Valencia Start Sato at 19 on a Familiar Japan Path

Ryunosuke Sato has started three of Valencia’s four La Liga games at 19, with the club last on 1 point.

The Japan midfielder, signed from FC Tokyo on 7 July, is the first Japanese player in the men’s first team. He has no league goals. Valencia have scored once.

Valencia Started a 19-Year-Old While Sitting Bottom

Carlos Corberán picked Sato in attacking midfield for the 22 August opener, a 0-0 draw with Celta at Mestalla, and left him on for 57 minutes. He started again in the 0-1 loss to Real Betis and the 3-1 defeat at Deportivo. On 6 September he was on the bench for the first time, then came on in the second half of a 0-5 home loss to Barcelona.

Valencia beat reporter German Muñoz León put those four matches at 235 minutes, among the higher totals in the squad. The season line is four appearances, three starts, five shots, one on target, one yellow card, zero goals and zero assists. Umar Sadiq has the club’s only league goal.

VALENCIA AFTER FOUR GAMES

• The table: 20th of 20 sides, with one draw and three losses.
• The scoreline: one goal scored, nine conceded, a minus-eight difference.
• The points: one, matching the club’s worst opening across the last ten seasons.
• The next match: Sevilla away on 11 September.

Corberán, in the job since 25 December 2024, last saw this club at the foot of the table around the time he arrived. Hajime Moriyasu did not take Sato to the World Cup. The 26-man Japan squad went out on 15 May. Valencia still handed the 19-year-old a first-team role as soon as the league kicked off.

The Volley at Paterna Was Only the Start

The league has not looked like July. On 22 July, in the first preseason game at the Antonio Puchades stadium in Paterna, Sato scored the preseason debut volley against Eldense in the 22nd minute. Dani Raba found him at the edge of the box. He took it on the left foot, hit it with the right, and the ball went in off the inside of the bar. Valencia won 3-0. He played 45 minutes, struck a post later, and the dressing room put him through a Gangnam Style dance.

The club posted the clip the same week.

https://x.com/valenciacf/status/2080552975395598459

On 13 August he scored again in a 2-0 win over Hercules, finishing in the 54th minute after work from Javi Guerra. In a grey friendly, the teenager from Tokyo was the attacker who wanted the ball. Shirt 39, the number he said he liked at Okayama, was already hard to leave out of the plans for the opener.

SATO’S ROAD TO MESTALLA

1. 8 March 2023: Makes his FC Tokyo debut at 16, the youngest player in that club’s history.
2. January 2025: Joins Fagiano Okayama on a year-long development loan and scores six league goals in 28 games.
3. 12 June 2025: Debuts for Japan in a 6-0 World Cup qualifier win over Indonesia, the youngest Japanese player to appear in a qualifier.
4. 2026: Wins the AFC U-23 Asian Cup, takes the MVP award, and finishes as top scorer with four goals.
5. 7 July 2026: Signs for Valencia from FC Tokyo on a deal running to 30 June 2031.
6. 22 August 2026: Starts the La Liga opener against Celta and plays 57 minutes in a 0-0 draw.

Okayama made him J1 League Young Player of the Year and put him in the fans’ All-Star team. Back at Tokyo he logged six goals and one assist in 19 official games. He has five senior Japan caps and no senior Japan goals. He can play as a 10 or out wide, and Corberán has used him as an attacking midfielder.

What Valencia Bought From FC Tokyo

Valencia announced the deal on 7 July: a five-year contract until 2031, and the first Japanese player to represent the men’s first team. Transfer trackers record an €4 million transfer from FC Tokyo. Transfermarkt had listed him at €2.00 million on 3 June 2026. Kazu Kakiuchi said Sato also had an offer from Feyenoord and chose Valencia.

THE DEAL IN PLAIN TERMS

• The fee: €4 million, per transfer databases, for a player listed at €2 million in early June.
• The term: five seasons, through 30 June 2031, with the number 39 shirt.
• The passport: visa paperwork nearly delayed him; the club cleared it in time for the Celta game.
• The brief: Lisandro Isei, the director of recruitment and scouting, pushed the move as part of a hunt for young players from leagues outside Europe, working under football CEO Ron Gourlay.

Sato was the third summer arrival after Justin de Haas and Aliou Dieng. At his unveiling on 10 July he said he had already been in contact with Corberán before he left Japan. “He expects me to create moves that lead to goals, and to be versatile,” Sato said. He also said coming to Valencia “was what I was wishing for, and I didn’t hesitate to choose the club.”

The developmental loan to Fagiano Okayama is the year that made the buy look adult. Tokyo had used him sparingly in the league after that 16-year-old debut. Okayama gave him a full J1 season, six goals, and the young-player prize. Valencia paid for that year, not for a World Cup run.

Only Kubo and Inui Made La Liga Stick

Sato is the first Japanese footballer in Valencia’s first-team squad, and he is not the first Japanese footballer in this league. Shoji Jo opened the door at Valladolid in January 2000. Most of the names after him lasted a season or two and went home. Takashi Inui and Takefusa Kubo are the ones who stayed long enough to own the record books.

JAPANESE PLAYERS WITH A LA LIGA TRAIL

Kubo’s 219 games and 29 goals are the July 2026 count, taken before this season added more. He also came through FC Tokyo as a teenager. Inui’s 166 games ran through Eibar, Betis and Alaves. Jo’s 15 games and two goals were a half-season on loan. The rest of the Japanese list in this league is mostly one-year or two-year stays.

Jo Opened the Door at Valladolid

Jo arrived from Yokohama F. Marinos in January 2000 and went home after those 15 matches. Yoshito Okubo later put together 39 league games at Mallorca. Shunsuke Nakamura, Shinji Okazaki, Yoshinori Muto and Gaku Shibasaki all passed through without turning Spain into a long home. The pattern is short, then a flight back to the J.League or a move to another country.

Valencia Had Japan Ties Before Sato

He is the third Japanese player on the club’s books, after Hiroshi Ibusuki at VCF Mestalla in 2013/14 and Wadi Suzuki in Juvenil A. Neither made the first team. Kang-in Lee, who is Korean, had been the Asian name in the senior side before Sato. The club toured Japan in 1979 with Mario Kempes and again in 2004 with Pablo Aimar, Roberto Ayala, Rubén Baraja and David Albelda. It has run academies and camps in Japan for 15 years and keeps a VCF Nippon Supporters’ Club. The first Japanese first-teamer still had to be bought from FC Tokyo.

Kagawa Was the Idol, Kubo the Example

Sato named Shinji Kagawa as the player he copied as a boy, and he said Kagawa called to congratulate him on the move. Kubo, already at Real Sociedad, sent a welcome message that was played at the 10 July unveiling. Sato pointed at Kubo’s output as the map he wants to follow.

They say LaLiga is difficult for Japanese players, but that doesn’t matter, the important thing is to work hard and give your best. Take Kubo is producing good results and is an example to follow.

Ryunosuke Sato, Valencia unveiling, 10 July 2026

He also said he is comfortable as a number 10 or as a winger, and that he first played as an 8. “If I had to name one in particular, it would be Guido,” he said of his new teammates. The honour line was plain: first Japanese player in the first-team squad, and a duty to help a club that needed a better season than the last one.

Kubo’s career is the exception the quote leans on. Mallorca, Villarreal, Getafe, then Real Sociedad, and still in this league. Sato has four games. The quote will age with the minutes, not with the unveiling.

Corberán Has Not Dropped Him After Four Games

Muñoz León’s local read on 10 September was that Sato is still likely to keep a starting place because nobody else is carrying the attack. Supporters who loved the Paterna volley now want more of that in league play. The 5-0 against Barcelona was his first night as a substitute, and it did not take him out of the conversation for Sevilla.

SATO’S FIRST FOUR LEAGUE GAMES

• 22 August, vs Celta: Started at attacking midfield, 57 minutes, 0-0 at Mestalla. “I feel happy to have started a game on a stage I’ve been aiming for,” he said. “It was a special moment.”
• 25 August, vs Betis: Started, four shots, one on target, one yellow card, 0-1 loss.
• 30 August, at Deportivo: Started, 3-1 loss, Valencia’s only league goal of the season scored in this match.
• 6 September, vs Barcelona: First league game from the bench, on in the second half of a 0-5 defeat.

Corberán said after Barcelona that the staff would look for solutions to change the dynamic. Sato is still one of the solutions he keeps writing down. Valencia visit Sevilla on 11 September with one point, one league goal, and a 19-year-old Japanese midfielder who has started three times. The path in this league is old. His share of it is four games old.