Taishi Brandon Nozawa is a 22-year-old Japanese goalkeeper who plays for FC Tokyo in the J-League. He has 87 professional appearances across the top 3 tiers of Japanese football but nailed down the starting spot with F.C. Tokyo on a full-time basis this past season.
The first and most important question you have to ask of a goalkeeper is “Can they stop the ball?” In Nozawa’s case, the answer is pretty clearly “yes.” He beat his xG in the 2024 season, though not by an outlandish amount. He’s big, listed at 6 ‘3 (1.93M), and that helps him stop all of the shots he should and a few that he shouldn’t. My one technical note would be that he seems to end up on his stomach quite a lot when diving. Nozawa is fairly strong on crosses thanks in part to his height. He also seems quite strong, it’s difficult for opponents to jostle him on set pieces and crosses. When shot-stopping and handling crosses he does well to hold on to the ball and not parry it back into danger.
Nozawa is extremely aggressive coming off his line to sweep up through balls. He’s very confident on the dribble so he often comes well off his line, gets to the ball first, and then dribbles around an onrushing striker. It’s quite rare for him to get burned coming off his line as his speed and decision-making are quite good. His passing and distribution are mostly quite simple but he almost never gets his team into trouble. He is good at starting counter-attacks by getting the ball back in play quickly but safely to a teammate.
Nozawa is a young and effective goalkeeper with a great physical profile so I think a step up from the J-League is likely to happen. He’s not the sort of god-tier shot-stopper that gets a move to a top-5 league but I could see him doing well in the level below the top-5 leagues.
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