20-year-old forward Towa Yamane has moved to J2 side Zweigen Kanazawa on a seven-month loan, the club announced last Thursday.

This was completed using the scheme of (something which can be translated into) “loan transfer for youth development” which enables a player from 18 to 23 years old to move to a lower division club even when a transfer window is closed.

Towa Yamane joined Cerezo Osaka in 2017 from Sanfrecce Hiroshima Youth and since then he has played 71 games and scored 13 goals for Cerezo Osaka U-23 in the J3 League.

Zweigen Kanazawa is a team where his former teammates Shohei Kiyohara and Ryoga Ishio play for now and also his father, Iwao Yamane, retired there in 2011.

Cerezo Osaka have actively used loan transfer to have young players, who are too good for the U-23 team but too early to play for the first team, gain more and better experience in the J2 League. Yamane’s transfer is seen to be the latest case of it.