{"id":155597,"date":"2025-07-08T10:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T10:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/155597\/"},"modified":"2025-07-08T10:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-08T10:48:10","slug":"done-deal-kota-takai-is-announced-as-spurs-first-new-summer-signing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/155597\/","title":{"rendered":"DONE DEAL: Kota Takai is announced as Spurs\u2019 first new summer signing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"lsKpjn\">It\u2019s like a new signing &#8211; in fact, it is an actual new signing! <a href=\"https:\/\/cartilagefreecaptain.sbnation.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tottenham Hotspur<\/a> have announced their first new signing of the summer (because Vuskovic, Danso, and Tel don\u2019t count): Kota Takai from J1 League club Kawasaki Frontale.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We are delighted to announce the signing of Kota Takai from J1 League side Kawasaki Frontale, subject to international clearance and work permit \u270d\ufe0f<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/SpursOfficial\/status\/1942494368088351229?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">July 8, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"G64Tr4\">This transfer has been a few weeks in the making, and not exactly a shining example of Johan Lange moving in secrecy, as we have come to expect. Numerous legitimate reports had declared this was happening with Kawasaki Frontale themselves announcing <a href=\"https:\/\/cartilagefreecaptain.sbnation.com\/2025\/7\/1\/24459553\/kawasaki-frontale-confirm-departure-of-spurs-linked-kota-takai\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">via a statement last week<\/a> that Takai was heading offshore to sign with another club.<\/p>\n<p id=\"k3xo8n\">Kota Takai is a talented, young center back, skilled on the ball and aggressive in defense. Stylistically, he almost brings to mind Cristian Romero; albeit much, much more inexperienced and less physically developed. He does though come with a level of pedigree, earning the J1 League Young Player of the Year award in 2024, and securing four caps thus far for Japan\u2019s national team &#8211; no mean feat for a player of his age.<\/p>\n<p id=\"WjYDKa\">At only 20 years of age, time is on Takai\u2019s side, and Spurs will be hoping this will be yet another young signing that can develop into a quality player for the first team. Whether this will be as depth for the senior squad this season, or further in the future with a loan planned for 2025\/26, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n<p id=\"gyFvj1\">It\u2019s a new signing &#8211; let the gif party commence!<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s like a new signing &#8211; in fact, it is an actual new signing! Tottenham Hotspur have announced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3797],"tags":[3508,1294,7,16267,16266,2739,2751,1270,3286,28,1093,27263,6,239,969,474,4075,4074,6087,534,3166,27264,16269,16268],"class_list":{"0":"post-155597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio-spurs","8":"tag-announced","9":"tag-as","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-captain","12":"tag-cartilage","13":"tag-deal","14":"tag-done","15":"tag-first","16":"tag-free","17":"tag-front-page","18":"tag-is","19":"tag-kota","20":"tag-nba","21":"tag-new","22":"tag-san-antonio","23":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","24":"tag-sanantonio","25":"tag-sanantoniospurs","26":"tag-signing","27":"tag-spurs","28":"tag-summer","29":"tag-takai","30":"tag-tottenham-hotspur-news","31":"tag-tottenham-hotspur-transfers-rumors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114817224136829930","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}