Wani, Marukawa!
The wonder boy from Hiroshima who took Indonesian football by storm.
Little was known about Taisei Marukawa, a Japanese winger who played several seasons in Malta and Latvia, when he came to Indonesia at the start of the season. The 25-year-old had a quite unique start to his professional career after graduating from Chuo University. He took the European pathway instead of playing in his home country, signing with Maltese side Senglea Athletic FC. Two further stints at Valletta–where he played 22 minutes of Europa League football, albeit a qualifying round–and Noah Jurmala in Latvia didn’t quite work out for the Hiroshima-born player. Then Aji Santoso and Persebaya Surabaya came calling.
“(Taisei) Marukawa, his agent told me, was offered to many teams but not even one wanted to sign him.” — Aji Santoso, head coach of Persebaya Surabaya.
It was said that the main reasons why teams were hesitant on signing the Hiroshima Minami High School graduate are his frail body type and lack of minutes with his previous clubs. Aji Santoso saw something different in him, though. He was convinced that he can be a key piece in Persebaya’s campaign this season and boy, was he right about him.
His first appearance came against Persikabo 1973 on September 11th, 2021. It was a dream start for his tenure with ‘The Green Force’, as he delivered a perfectly weighted through pass from his own half to his teammate, Jose Wilkson–who he had played with in Senglea Athletic. In October, he chipped in four goal contributions, two each for goals and assists, thus winning the player of the month award in the process.
It was the year-end form that was his best, actually. 10(!) goal contributions in a stretch of seven games between January 2021 and December 2022 is quite simply, ridiculous. Marukawa went on to win the Player of the Month award for the second time in December and turned Persebaya Surabaya into a serious title contender with him, Bruno Moreira and an up-and-coming talent Marselino Ferdinan bolstering the attacking line, even though in the end they came up short of their pursuit for their first league title since 2004.
Aji Santoso predominantly lines his team up in a 4–2–3–1 formation. The frontline would usually consist of Marukawa being deployed as the right winger, Bruno Moreira down the opposite flanks, 17 year-old wonderkid Marselino Ferdinan as the 10 and either Arsenio Valpoort or Samsul Arif leading the line. This attack has been lethal (okay, maybe not Valpoort), scoring 56 goals in the whole league campaign, which puts them at the top for goals scored (so far, Bali United with 54 still has a game in hand to play). With 27 goal contributions this season, that means Marukawa is directly responsible for 48% of Persebaya Surabaya’s goals.
What makes him dangerous at this level is that he is comfortable with both feet. Marukawa is adept on either cutting inside from the right wing or carrying the ball down the touchline. This aspect of his game makes him unpredictable and keeps opposing defenders guessing on their toes. In fact, he takes nearly as many shots with his right as he has with his left (31 with the right, 30 with the left)! The 360°-ness is valuable and important to Persebaya’s system, as he is often faced with a 1v1 situation down the right hand side or even a 1v2 as he attracts multiple opponents to create space for teammates.
The two-footedness in his arsenal means that he can also operate on both flanks. The nature of positional play means that being able to play in several parts of the pitch is a must and Marukawa excels in that. Let’s take a quick look at Persebaya’s attacking structure in their recent 3–0 win against the champions Bali United. All the attacking lines are filled with players not in their designated positions, with Marukawa occupying the left wing at the 13-minute mark. Later on in this game, he could also be seen creeping into the central position as Samsul Arif goes wide. This fluid movement is what allows him to create opportunities from various areas, which we will take a look at with his shot and chance creation maps.
Taisei Marukawa has been an excellent finisher this season, as can be seen with his goal tally (17) compared to his expected goals (11.08). Now pardon me for spewing out some numbers because I am going to dive into his underlying statistics. His xG per 90 sits at 0.36*, which actually are really strong numbers, especially for a winger in this league. His shot selection is also not bad at 0.13 non-penalty xG/shot, meaning that he has a cool head when making a decision on whether to shoot the ball or not. We can also see the diverse locations of the shots taken by Marukawa from pretty much every angle due to him being ambipedal.
While it is common to see inside forwards leading the goalscoring charts in Europe, the same could not be said with Indonesian football. Only him and Ciro Alves of Persikabo 1973 can be considered as a wide forward instead of an out-and-out no. 9 in the top ten goal scorers, which makes his output more impressive.
In the attacking phase, the Japanese usually roams from his original wide position into the central part of the pitch where he can influence the game better with his vision and playmaking. This link-up play between him and Samsul Arif is a prime example on what Persebaya’s number 10 can do from the ‘Zone 14’. With the latter dropping off to help his teammates on the build-up, Marukawa spotted him as a third man option, filled in the striker spot, then finds Samsul Arif–who we have to give credit as well for his ability to notice and run into the open space–with a wall pass in behind.
As can be seen in the graphic below, Marukawa mainly operates either in the right half-space or just outside the box when creating chances for his teammates. Ten (10) assists this season ranks the highest in BRI Liga 1 2021/22, though 1.21 open play key passes p90 means that the assist count is *probably* boosted by his teammates’ superb finishing (we’ll have to look at his expected assists numbers to properly judge it). With his passing, he is able to penetrate opposing defences and that is also shown with how many chances that were created in the penalty box here.
His reading of the game is also up there at this level. The BRI Liga 1 Player of the Year candidate understands and is aware of several situations in all phases of the game. Let’s take a look at his goal against Persela Lamongan. Notice how he sells the goalkeeper into thinking that he’s going to pressure the right centre back, then stopping and quickly turning his body to intercept the ball down the centre before scoring the goal to bring Persebaya 1–0 up against Laskar Joko Tingkir.
There are also quite a lot of examples of him interchanging positions with Bruno Moreira, Arsenio Valpoort and others due to the focus on positional play under Aji Santoso, which I have mentioned before. An example of it is mentioned here by my friend Irzi (@irzirzn) on Twitter –I strongly advise to go check out his account, quality stuffs right there! Marukawa pulled his defender out of position, Bruno attacked the space in behind. A recurring theme with this Persebaya team.
Lastly, unlike most of the local players who does not take pictures when carrying the ball *coughs Febri Hariyadi coughs*, Marukawa always keeps his head up when dribbling. This means that he can receive information of what’s going on around him. His goal against Bhayangkara FC is a thing of a beauty and what enables the winger to go right past through the whole defence is that he always keeps his body straight, scans the situation and makes the right decision in the process leading to the goal.
All in all, I strongly believe that he has been the best performing player in Indonesian Liga 1 this season. With his contract running down by the end of the season, the question is whether he’ll stay in Indonesia or embark on a new adventure in another, stronger league. The quality of play here, to put it bluntly, is far cry from the top Asian leagues. If he wants to go into the next level, then he should try moving into somewhere like Thailand where he would play against better opposition. It’d be interesting to see how Marukawa fares when facing tougher competition, however I feel that he’s going to stay in Indonesia to gain some stability in his career.
Currently linked with a move to PSIS Semarang at the time of writing, he’ll surely still be fondly remembered as one of Persebaya’s best players in recent history even if he decides to leave the East Javanese outfit. I have my own concerns about how he’d fit with the rumoured club, but wherever he goes, the unknown boy from Hiroshima has already written himself in Indonesian football folklore with his performances this season as one of the best imports from the Land of the Rising Sun. Wani, Marukawa!
I usually ramble a lot more on my Twitter, @myusufraihan, so kindly please check my account out! :)
*Expected goals model and all visualisations created by author
