Ami Takeuchi is a SFIDA Setagaya player.
You know what? I’m not mad about it.
This matters because, after Sunday’s 2-1 defeat to Iga FC Kunoichi Mie, I was variously mad, disappointed, sad, and slightly confused about the general direction of SFIDA Setagaya Football Club.
I have since cooled down.
In fact, while putting together my report on that defeat, bouncing between research and increasingly mournful visits to the SFIDA website, something new appeared on the club’s news page: 20-year-old forward Ami Takeuchi was joining SFIDA from Singaporean champions Lion City Sailors.
I am therefore claiming to be the first person outside SFIDA, Lion City Sailors, Takeuchi herself, her immediate family and probably several dozen football administrators to know about this transfer.
Nobody can prove otherwise.
More importantly, SFIDA have signed somebody who scored 60 league goals last season.
Yes.
Sixty.
Sixty Goals Requires Some Investigation
Takeuchi arrives in Tokyo after a fairly extraordinary spell in Singapore.
The former Urawa Red Diamonds Ladies youth player moved to Lion City Sailors and became something considerably more troublesome for defenders.
In the 2026 Women’s Premier League season, she scored 60 goals in 16 matches as Lion City won the championship. She finished 17 goals clear in the Golden Boot race.
Lion City scored 166 goals across those 16 matches.
Takeuchi and fellow Japanese forward Eri Kitagawa scored 93 of them.
There is prolific, and then there is whatever Godzilla-sized statistical category we need to create for this.
Takeuchi scored nine goals in a 20-0 victory over Hougang United on 4 April. She scored six against Tanjong Pagar. She scored another six as Lion City beat Tiong Bahru 12-0.
Then, in the final match of the season, she scored five against Hougang in another 20-0 victory.
Five goals in a match is impressive.
Although I’m now wondering whether scoring six when your team only wins 12-0 is actually more impressive.
These are the questions football journalism was invented to answer.
There are two fairly obvious theories.
Lion City Sailors were far too good for much of the Singaporean league.
Ami Takeuchi was far too good for much of the Singaporean league.
Both can probably be true.
Singapore’s League Table Is Absolutely Wild
This is where we have to complicate those 60 goals.
And this isn’t meant as disrespect to Singaporean women’s football. Quite the opposite. If we are going to treat Takeuchi’s record seriously, rather than simply staring at the number 60 until our eyes glaze over, we have to consider the environment in which it happened.
The 2026 table is extraordinary.
Lion City finished with a goal difference of +162. Albirex Jurong finished on +134.
At the opposite end, Hougang United were -107, Balestier Khalsa -80 and Tanjong Pagar -67.
Lion City scored more than ten goals per league match on average.
That is not normal competitive balance.
Takeuchi herself has effectively acknowledged the difference. Reflecting on her experience abroad, she said that
“the level of women’s football in Japan and Singapore is quite different”.
Quite.
For now, one can only assume that Nagoya Loveledge away will present a slightly different problem than scoring five against Hougang United.
The spaces will disappear more quickly. Defenders will be more organised. The physical pressure will increase. Those little shooting windows she became so adept at exploiting in Singapore will close.
The Nadeshiko League Division 1 is simply a higher standard.
That doesn’t invalidate what Takeuchi accomplished.
It just makes what happens next considerably more interesting.
There Is More Here Than Flat-Track Bullying
Reducing Takeuchi to somebody who repeatedly dismantled struggling Singaporean defences would also be unfair.
She has continental experience.
Takeuchi scored for Lion City Sailors against Odisha FC in the AFC Women’s Champions League, finding the net in the 83rd minute. She also played a significant role when the title race actually became uncomfortable.
Against Albirex Jurong on 12 June, with Lion City facing the team that had won 14 consecutive matches, Takeuchi scored twice in a 4-2 victory. One was a penalty. The other came in the 90th minute to seal the win.
Those are considerably more interesting goals than number 17 in a 20-0 victory.
There is also something intriguing about the player herself.
Takeuchi is only 156cm tall and began her development within Urawa’s system as a midfielder rather than an orthodox striker.
Her own description of her game is wonderful.
“My strength is my defence… running around like a mouse using my technique to lead to goals.”
SFIDA have apparently purchased a goalscoring mouse.
I approve.
There is logic behind it, too. Her low centre of gravity, acceleration and technical education allow her to move sharply in crowded areas. More importantly for SFIDA, she is accustomed to pressing and working without the ball rather than simply waiting around the penalty spot for somebody to manufacture chances.
The 60 goals are the enormous flashing sign above her head.
The Urawa education underneath them might ultimately matter more.
But Do SFIDA Actually Need Another Goalscorer?
And here is where my excitement begins arguing with itself.
SFIDA already score goals.
Misuzu Uchida has 12 league goals and sits second in the Nadeshiko League Division 1 scoring standings.
Mizuki Horie has eight, placing her sixth, despite recently finding herself starting matches from the bench.
Now Takeuchi arrives from Singapore with 60 goals.
Wonderful.
Can she play centre-back?
Because the problem against Iga FC wasn’t really an inability to score.
SFIDA went 1-0 ahead through another excellent Uchida finish and still lost 2-1.
That has happened too often in various forms.
There’s a case to be made that another dangerous attacker gives SFIDA another method of protecting themselves. Score twice and the defensive mistake matters less. Have Takeuchi pressing from the front, and perhaps opponents find it harder to build attacks cleanly.
But there is another case.
Maybe SFIDA needed somebody who already knows this league, understands its forwards and can help stop the ball going into our own onion bag.
A defender isn’t as exciting as somebody arriving with 64 goals in all competitions.
Sometimes, however, vegetables are good for you.
Anyone here’s a deeper discusson on the matter. In Japanese.
From Singapore to Setagaya
Still, Takeuchi has done something I find difficult not to admire.
She left Japan young.
Instead of remaining another name somewhere within the enormous Japanese development structure, she went to Singapore, adapted to another culture, another league and another role, and became its most devastating goalscorer.
There were language barriers. There was uncertainty over her finishing early on. There was shared accommodation with teammate Eri Kitagawa.
Eventually there were egg prata, chicken rice and 60 league goals.
She returns to Japan different from the player who left.
That matters.
Development does not always have to mean climbing neatly from one domestic rung to another. Sometimes going somewhere you can actually play, make mistakes, score ridiculous quantities of goals and assume responsibility does considerably more than sitting patiently within a supposedly superior environment.
We have seen similar principles elsewhere in women’s football: opportunity can be as important as prestige, because development without meaningful minutes eventually becomes theory.
Takeuchi found minutes.
Then she filled them with goals.
Now Comes the Interesting Part
So yes, I am excited.
I want Takeuchi to arrive in Setagaya, score for fun, and make this entire section about competitive balance look unnecessarily cautious in a few weeks.
But 60 goals in Singapore do not mean 20 goals in the Nadeshiko League.
They don’t mean ten.
They don’t guarantee anything.
What they tell us is that SFIDA have acquired a 20-year-old Japanese forward who has already experienced continental football, won a senior league title, survived the pressure of being an overseas import and developed an almost absurd habit of putting footballs into nets.
Now she returns to a league that will ask considerably more difficult questions of her.
And perhaps that is precisely why this transfer is so interesting.
We already know Ami Takeuchi can conquer Singapore.
Now we get to find out what that conquest actually taught her.
If the answer is enough to translate even part of those 60 goals to the Nadeshiko League, SFIDA may have found something rather special.
If not, the more uncomfortable question remains.
Who are we signing to stop the goals at the other end?
doragon sports 