is a Japanese professional football player who plays as a striker for

Tokyo Verdy Beleza is a women's football team which plays in Japan's WE League. History The club was founded as named ''Yomiuri SC Ladies Beleza'' as women's club of Yomiuri SC (currently ''Tokyo Verdy'') by Yomiuri Shimbun in 1981.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 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 event ...

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 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

. 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 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 Munich ...

, 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. Ueki attended

Waseda University , mottoeng = Independence of scholarship , established = 21 October 1882 , type = Private , endowment = , president = Aiji Tanaka , city = Shinjuku , state = Tokyo , country = Japan , students = 47,959 , undergrad = 39,382 , postgrad ...

, 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 organi ...

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 empha ...

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 league in Japan. The Nadeshiko League consists of two divisions that correspond to the second and third levels of the Japanese women's football pyramid respecti ...

club

Tokyo Verdy Beleza is a women's football team which plays in Japan's WE League. History The club was founded as named ''Yomiuri SC Ladies Beleza'' as women's club of Yomiuri SC (currently ''Tokyo Verdy'') by Yomiuri Shimbun in 1981.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, 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 tourn ...

. 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 it ...

. 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 regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

. 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 use ...

, 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 certif ...

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 occa ...

: 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 in ...

: 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 se ...

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 April ...

Japan * EAFF Women's Football Championship:

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; Anti-government protest in Sri Lanka in front of the Presidential Secretariat; The global monkeyp ...

Individual *

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 ...

Outstanding Players Award:

2021-22 Increment or incremental may refer to: *Incrementalism, a theory (also used in politics as a synonym for gradualism) *Increment and decrement operators, the operators ++ and -- in computer programming *Incremental computing *Incremental backup, wh ...

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