Aston Villa’s third Asian player who has just signed for the club is ready to make history at Villa Park.
Aston Villa have just welcomed their two new signings, Matteo Ruggeri and Zion Suzuki. They have started training with the first team to prepare themselves for the new season.
In his first interview with Villa TV, Suzuki, who is the first Japanese player in Villa’s men’s team and the third Asian player in the club’s men’s team history, spoke about his ambition, as reported by the official club site, avfc.co.uk.
“I want to make some history at this great club and I’m really looking forward to playing on the pitch.”
The former Parma man has already made a historic move by joining Aston Villa. He is only the third Asian goalkeeper in Premier League history, with Australia excluded. Australia is a member of the AFC but is culturally not considered part of Asia.
Suzuki followed in the footsteps of Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi and Ali Al-Habsi, who played for Premier League sides before him. The former was Japan’s first-choice goalkeeper in the 1990s and early 2000s. He helped the Blue Samurai qualify for and play at the 1998 FIFA World Cup. He signed for then-Championship side Portsmouth in 2001 but never had a chance to make his debut in the top flight.
On the contrary, the latter was an Omani goalkeeper who played regularly in the Premier League for not just one but five clubs. Al-Habsi first signed for Bolton in 2006 before making his mark with Wigan Athletic for five years. He then played for Brighton, Reading and West Bromwich before retiring in 2020.
However, none of them played for an elite club competing in top-level continental competition like Villa. The Lions are playing in the Champions League this season, and Suzuki has a chance to make his European competition debut in the UCL. This is one of the reasons why he opted for Villa after his move to PSG collapsed.
“I think this is the right club to start my first journey in the Premier League. And also they (Villa) are always competing for trophies. I want to play at the highest level and that’s why I’ve decided to come here.”
If Suzuki is already the third Asian player to play for the Lions, who were the first two? They are Pakistan’s Easah Sulaiman and Qatar’s Niall Mason. They might be Asian, but both were born in the UK.
Sulaiman, for example, played for the Clarets and Blue from 2015 to 2020 without making an appearance in the Premier League. He only played once for the first team in the League Cup in 2017 and mainly featured for the reserve team, making 66 appearances and scoring twice. The centre-back was loaned out to Cheltenham, Grimsby and FC Emmen before being released to Vitória Guimarães. The Birmingham-born defender is currently playing for Azerbaijan’s Sumgayit.
Meanwhile, Niall Mason was promoted to Aston Villa’s first team in 2015 and stayed for two years without making a Premier League debut. The Brighton-born centre-back only played 26 games for the reserve team, scoring two goals, before being loaned out to Doncaster Rovers. The Qatari centre-back is now playing for Qatar SC.
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