is a Japanese

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 last played for Estonian

Meistriliiga Meistriliiga (, known as the A. Le Coq Premium Liiga for sponsorship reasons) is the highest division of the Estonian Football Association annual football (soccer), football championship. The league was founded in 1992, and was initially semi-p ...

club

Viljandi Tulevik Viljandi JK Tulevik, commonly known as Viljandi Tulevik, or simply as Tulevik, is a football club based in Viljandi, Estonia, that competes in the Esiliiga, the second tier of Estonian football. The club's home ground is Viljandi linnastaadion. ...

Club career

Latvia

Before the start of the

2012 Latvian Higher League The 2012 Latvian Higher League was the 21st season of top-tier football in Latvia. It began on 24 March 2012 and ended on 10 November 2012. FK Ventspils are the defending champions. The league comprised ten teams, one more than in the previous s ...

season Saito signed a contract with

FB Gulbene FB Gulbene ''(formerly "FB Gulbene-2005")'' is a Latvian football club based in Gulbene. The club plays its home matches at the Gulbenes Sporta Centrs stadium with capacity of 1,500 people. They were promoted to the Latvian Higher League for the ...

. Soon after joining he made a great impact, scoring all of his team's goals in the first round of the championship. All in all he scored 9 goals in 14 matches for

Gulbene Gulbene (; german: Schwanenburg) is a town in northeastern Latvia. It is an administrative center of Gulbene Municipality. The area of this region is , with a population of 29,797 inhabitants (69,369 sealen, 10,015 urban, 19,782 rural populat ...

and was the club's leading scorer. In June 2012 Saito went on trial with the

Azerbaijan Premier League The Azerbaijan Premier League ( az, Azərbaycan Premyer Liqası) is a professional league for men's association football clubs. At the top of the Azerbaijan football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. It is conteste ...

club

Khazar Lankaran Khazar Lankaran FK ( tly, Xəzər Lankon Futboli Klub, script=Latn, az, Xəzər Lənkəran Futbol Klubu) is an Azerbaijani football club based in Lankaran that last played in the Azerbaijan Premier League during the 2015–16 season. Since the ...

, but he wasn't offered a contract then. On July 1, 2012 he signed a contract with the

Latvian Higher League Latvian Higher League or Virslīga is a professional football league and the top tier of association football in Latvia. Organised by the Latvian Football Federation, the Higher League is contested by 10 clubs. The full name of the league is Op ...

club

FK Ventspils FK Ventspils is a Latvian football club, based at Ventspils Olimpiskais Stadions in Ventspils city and is one of the most popular football clubs in the country. The club played in the Latvian Virsliga since 1997. It was abolished in 2020, but h ...

. Scoring 6 goals in 17 matches for Ventspils, all in all, Saito became the second top-scorer of the

in 2012 with 15 goals in 31 matches.

FC Ufa

After the successful season in Ventspils Saito moved to the

Russian National Football League The Russian First League (russian: Первая лига, Pervaya liga), formerly called Russian First Division (russian: Первый дивизион) and Russian Football National League (FNL) (russian: Первенство Футбольн� ...

club

FC Ufa FC Ufa (russian: ФК «Уфа», ba, Өфө, Öfö) is a Russian football club based in Ufa that will play in the second-tier Russian First League in the 2022–23 season. History During the summer of 2010, Rustem Khamitov, the second Preside ...

in February 2013.

Viljandi Tulevik

On 23 February 2018, Saitō signed a contract with Estonian

club

. On 1 May 2018 he left the club due to family reasons.

Club statistics

References

External links

* * * * 1988 births Living people Association football people from Tokyo Japanese footballers Association football forwards J1 League players Japan Football League players Japanese expatriate footballers Meistriliiga players Expatriate footballers in Singapore Expatriate footballers in Latvia Expatriate footballers in Russia Expatriate footballers in Belarus Expatriate soccer players in Australia Expatriate footballers in Estonia Japanese expatriate sportspeople in Singapore Japanese expatriate sportspeople in Latvia Japanese expatriate sportspeople in Russia Japanese expatriate sportspeople in Belarus Japanese expatriate sportspeople in Australia Japanese expatriate sportspeople in Estonia Yokohama F. Marinos players Zweigen Kanazawa players Albirex Niigata Singapore FC players FB Gulbene players FK Ventspils players FC Ufa players FC Slutsk players Riga FC players Caroline Springs George Cross FC players Viljandi JK Tulevik players {{Japan-footy-forward-1980s-stub