is a Japanese professional

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player who plays as a striker for Tokyo Verdy Beleza in the Japanese

WE League The , officially the , also known as the for sponsorship reasons, is the top flight of women's association football in Japan, starting from the 2021–22 season. It is the first fully-professional women's soccer league in Japan. History On 3 J ...

and the Japan national team.

Early life and education

Ueki was born in

Kanagawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kana ...

on 30 July 1999. She started playing football in 2011, the year

Nadeshiko Japan Nadeshiko may refer to: * ''Dianthus superbus'' subsp. ''longicalycinus'', a flowering plant native to Japan ** A feminine given name in Japan, after the flower * Yamato nadeshiko, a Japanese term used to praise the idealized Japanese woman * Nad ...

won the

2011 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup was the sixth FIFA Women's World Cup competition, the world championship for women's national association football teams. It was held from 26 June to 17 July 2011 in Germany, which won the right to host the even ...

in a dramatic victory over the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. In fact, she started playing a few months before they won the World Cup, but when she shared this with

Saki Kumagai is a Japanese footballer who plays for German club FC Bayern Munich and the Japan national team. She plays primarily as a defensive midfielder but has also been deployed as a central defender. Kumagai is one of the most successful East Asian ...

(current captain and member of the winning squad in 2011), Kumagai jokingly said to her "you should change it to say that you were inspired to start football after watching our victory, and ultimately made it to the national team yourself. It'll make for a better story!" From the day she first started football, Ueki has always played as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

and has never played in any other position throughout her career so far. She has said in multiple interviews that her role model since she was young is fellow Japanese forward

Mana Iwabuchi is a Japanese professional footballer who plays as a forward or attacking midfielder for Women's Super League (WSL) club Tottenham Hotspur on loan from Arsenal and the Japan national team. She previously played for Aston Villa, Bayern Mun ...

, and she achieved one of her goals during the

2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup The 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup was the 20th edition of the AFC Women's Asian Cup, the quadrennial international women's football tournament in Asia competed by the national teams in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). India was selected a ...

when she was selected to pair alongside Iwabuchi for the first time as the two starting strikers in Japan's semi-final against

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. Ueki attended

Waseda University , abbreviated as , is a private university, private research university in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Founded in 1882 as the ''Tōkyō Senmon Gakkō'' by Ōkuma Shigenobu, the school was formally renamed Waseda University in 1902. The university has numerou ...

, one of the most selective and prestigious universities in Japan, majoring in

sports science Sports science is a discipline that studies how the healthy human body works during exercise, and how sport and physical activity promote health and performance from cellular to whole body perspectives. The study of sports science traditionally inc ...

. While at college she took courses in

sports management Sport management is the field of business dealing with sports and recreation. Sports management involves any combination of skills that correspond with planning, organizing, directing, controlling, budgeting, leading, or evaluating of any organiz ...

and

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

as well, declaring that "after I've retired from playing, I want to work to spread women's football and I am studying so that I have as many options as I can to do so." After a gruelling few years juggling classes in the day and practices with the club team in evenings, she successfully graduated in March 2022.

Club career

She joined

Nadeshiko League The , commonly known as the , is a semi-professional women's association football Sports league, league in Japan. The Nadeshiko League consists of two divisions that correspond to the second and third levels of the Japanese association football ...

club Tokyo Verdy Beleza from the youth team in 2015, and was first called up to the senior team in June 2016. She marked her debut with a goal as a substitute in a League Cup match against Speranza Osaka. As of August 2022, she has scored 50 goals in 119 appearances in all competitions for Beleza. In the inaugural

2021–22 WE League season The 2021–22 WE League, also known as the 2021–22 Yogibo WE League (Japanese: 2021–22 Yogibo WEリーグ, Hepburn: 2021–22 Yogibo WE Rīgu) for sponsorship reasons, is the 1st season of the WE League, the top Japanese women's professional l ...

, Ueki was chosen amongst the recipients of the Most Outstanding Players award.

International career

In 2016, Ueki was selected to the Japan U-17 national team for the

2016 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup The 2016 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup was the fifth edition of the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup, the biennial international women's youth football championship contested by the under-17 national teams of the member associations of FIFA. The tournam ...

. She played in 6 matches and scored 4 goals, and Japan finished as runners-up in the tournament. In 2018, Ueki was selected to the Japan U-20 national team for

2018 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup The 2018 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup was the ninth edition of the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup, the biennial international women's youth football championship contested by the under-20 national teams of the member associations of FIFA, since its i ...

. She played in all 6 matches and scored 5 goals, including a crucial goal in the their semi-final victory over England and helped Japan win the title. On 4 April 2019, Ueki debuted for the senior Japan national team against

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. Later that year, Ueki was named to Japan's squad for the

2019 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup was the eighth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international Women's association football championship contested by 24 women's national teams representing member associations of FIFA. It ...

; however, she was forced to withdraw due to injury on 31 May. 2022 proved to be a true breakout year for Ueki with the national team, as she began to establish herself as a starting striker and finished the

as Japan's top scorer with five goals, and joint second-highest goalscorer of the tournament as a whole.

National team statistics

International goals

Personal life

One of Ueki's main hobbies is reading

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

, also known as Japanese comics or graphic novels, and she revealed that she has a collection of over 1000 copies of such books at home. She was even invited to make a cameo appearance in a television drama adaptation of the manga series '' Shiyakusho'' that aired on

TV Tokyo JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as and known colloquially as , is a television station headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by the subsidiary of listed certified b ...

from October to December 2019. Ueki-02-JPN-2020

Honours

Tokyo Verdy Beleza *

: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 *

Nadeshiko League Cup The Nadeshiko League Cup (Japanese: なでしこリーグカップ) is a cup competition for women's football clubs in Japan. The competition began as the L.League Cup in 1996 and it was abolished after the 1999 edition. It reappeared on the occ ...

: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 *

Empress's Cup , since 2018 renamed "Empress's Cup JFA Japan Women's Football Championship" ( ja, 皇后杯 JFA 全日本女子サッカー選手権大会) or The Empress's Cup, is a Japanese Women's football competition. As an elimination tournament, it can be ...

: 2014, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 *

AFC Women's Club Championship The AFC Women's Club Championship is the top-tier women's football club competition in Asia. It involves the top clubs from countries affiliated with the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Designed as pilot tournaments, the format will change i ...

: 2019 Japan U19 *

AFC U-19 Women's Championship The AFC U-20 Women's Asian Cup is an association football tournament for women's national teams under the age of 20, organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). It is organised by the Asian Football Confederation every two years, and serv ...

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

Japan *

EAFF Women's Football Championship EAFF E-1 Football Championship is an international football competition in East Asia for national teams of the East Asian Football Federation (EAFF). The competition between women's national teams is held alongside men's competition. History ...

2019 File:2019 collage v1.png, From top left, clockwise: Hong Kong protests turn to widespread riots and civil disobedience; House of Representatives votes to adopt articles of impeachment against Donald Trump; CRISPR gene editing first used to experim ...

2022 File:2022 collage V1.png, Clockwise, from top left: Road junction at Yamato-Saidaiji Station several hours after the assassination of Shinzo Abe; 2022 Sri Lankan protests, Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretari ...

Individual *

Outstanding Players Award: 2021-22

References

External links

* * *
Japan Football Association
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ueki, Riko 1999 births Living people Association football people from Kanagawa Prefecture Japanese women's footballers Japan women's international footballers Nadeshiko League players Nippon TV Tokyo Verdy Beleza players Women's association football forwards