Cerezo Osaka announced the loan signing of Macedonian international Besart Abdurahimi from Belgian side Sporting Lokeren today.
Sporting Lokeren had once announced the deal on Twitter about a week ago, but later deleted the tweet probably because it was a wrong timing.
ロケレンの公式アカウントがアブドゥライミ移籍のツイートを削除してますね。先走っちゃったということでしょうか。 https://t.co/Po1417qbuq pic.twitter.com/6dgJDKHABB
— CRZ Tweets (@crz_tweets) 2016年7月20日
Besart, or “Bes” as his new teammates call him according to football writer Hisashi Oda, arrived in Japan on July 19 and completed the medical, but had to wait for work permission before the official announcement.
Abdurahimi has played in several countries so far, including Belgium, Israel, and Kazakhstan. Therefore he may not have difficulty to adapt to new environments.
10番がきめた！ pic.twitter.com/1mQfQfeE0K
— Ryoooooosuke⭐️⭐︎ (@ErgoSum58) 2016年7月25日
He has already joined the team’s training session, and played a training match against Osaka Sangyo University and scored a goal yesterday. According to supporters who saw him playing the game yesterday, he mainly played as a left winger and even when he was placed in the center, he kept playing on the left side. Even so, the manager Kiyoshi Okuma may choose to employ him in the center as right and left attacking midfielders, Shohei Kiyohara and Kenyu Sugimoto, have shown good performance so far and Yoichiro Kakitani hasn’t fully recovered yet.
The reason behind and the process of this loan signing are not known, although it has been pointed out that his agent has another client playing in Japan, Urawa Reds’ Branko Ilic, and might offer Abdurahimi to Cerezo.
Besart Abdurahimi has become the third signing of the summer after Hotaru Yamaguchi and Ahn Joon-Soo, and the first Macedonian to play at Cerezo Osaka. Welcome to Cerezo Osaka, Bes!