With her trusty brolly, Danelle Tan embraces challenges as a pro footballer in Japan

TOKYO – Danelle Tan is poised on a bar stool at SR Coffee Roaster, her favourite Japandi (Scandinavian-Japanese) cafe in Nihonbashi, Tokyo’s Wall Street where grand financial institutions sit alongside trendy cafes and bars.

Around her are bookshelves and plants, and she tucks into an iced latte and chocolate chip cookie.

Dressed in a grey windbreaker, jeans and trainers, in her tote bag is an umbrella, which has become an essential item for the professional footballer.

Rain, snow, and hail are weather conditions that she has experienced since moving here in July 2025 to play for Tokyo Verdy Beleza, hence her trusty brolly.

In a catch-up interview with The Straits Times, a day before Typhoon Dujuan wrecks havoc on the city, Tan laughs as she recounts how she never used to check the weather back home, which has resulted in some mishaps.

“I would go to training without an umbrella, and it would pour in the afternoon, and I would go back to my apartment in the rain,” she says.

“One of my teammates Shino Matsuda always asks why I don’t have an umbrella, and I would tell her I didn’t check the weather app, and now she is the one who tells me if it’s going to rain on the day so that I’ll bring one with me.”

Winter blizzards and earthquakes – she once slept through a 5.0-magnitude quake – are unfamiliar conditions the Singapore forward has had to adapt to.

Tan adds: “There was a game last winter when it was snowing so heavily and there was also hail. I also had snowflakes all over my eyelids, and when I was running towards the goal, I couldn’t see much with the snow blowing into my eyes.”

Only 21, Tan is already a well-travelled footballer who has had stints in Singapore (Still Aerion and Lion City Sailors), England (London Bees), Germany (Borussia Dortmund) and Australia (Brisbane Roar).

Her latest port of call is Japan, after she signed a one-year contract with Beleza in July 2025 and inked a one-year extension after that, a move that she says shows “this is a place where I can really grow as a player”.

After 14 months in Japan, Tan is now conversant in Japanese after taking online lessons, and among the cultural nuances she has learnt include how locals “meander around saying no”.

Technology has made it easy for her to navigate Japan’s train lines, although the Shinjuku and Tokyo stations “remain a maze”.

She has also missed countless Chinese New Years, birthdays and weddings of family and friends, though the “homely person” considers herself fortunate that she can video-call her loved ones more often due to the less prohibitive time difference.

During the season, a typical day sees her wake at 7am before hitching a 10-minute ride from teammate Rin Sumida to the training ground in Kanagawa, more than 40km from their home stadium in Tokyo.

Training starts at 9am, but everyone reaches the clubhouse an hour early.

After a two-hour session, the players stay back to work on their game or go to the gym before hitting the showers.

At around 12.30pm, they tuck into a lunch buffet “with really good food” at the clubhouse, before getting a massage or acupuncture.

She adds: “We are usually done by 3pm. A lot of my teammates go straight home and take naps, but I love going to cafes after training to read a book. I’ll be home at around 6pm, cook or buy dinner, get in bed at 9pm to read a bit and sleep at around 10pm.”

They get up to two days off a week, one of which falls after a match-day. She uses this time to go on road trips with her teammates.

Gleefully, she recalls how Matsuda’s sister once invited her over for a sushi omakase – her husband caught the fish and prepared it himself at home.

When her schedule permits, she makes a 75-minute trip via public transport to Tokyo to attend bilingual Sunday service at a church.

SR Coffee Roaster is near the church, and sitting among the books in the wood-accented interior, perhaps she imagines the autobiography she is writing – which she aims to launch in early 2027 – will sit on its shelves one day.

“I’m a big book fan since young and it’s always been a dream of mine to write one. I was thinking, why do I have to wait until I’m older or when my career is done to write a book?” she says.

“I thought it would be awesome to write one in the midst of it, while everything is still fresh on my mind, to show the highs and the lows, the moments that don’t make Instagram reels, and a live account of what it’s really like to be chasing and living this dream.”

What she cannot pen yet is the next chapter of her career, as she is focused on establishing herself at Beleza.

In her first season with the club, who finished third in the 12-team WE League, she had 14 appearances and two goals across all competitions.

She also made her AFC Women’s Champions League debut, scoring once in three games as Beleza reached the final, where they lost 1-0 to North Korea’s Naegohyang.

This season has been challenging, as she has not had as many minutes on the pitch.

When ST went to watch Beleza’s 1-0 League Cup win over hosts Chifure AS Elfen Saitama on Sept 19, Tan enjoyed support from away fans who brandished banners with the Singapore flag and, she was not brought on.

For the top-tier club who have traditionally produced players for the national team, competition for a starting berth is stiff, and she has made the match-day list four times – all as a substitute, coming off the bench once – in their six games in all competitions this season.

Tan says: “As much as it’s a struggle to get game time, the training level is very high, and so while I’m young, I have room to grow and I can take years to really develop and train at the highest level.

“We play one game but train five or six times a week. Being able to consistently put in the reps and compete at this level is also just as important, so this is the right place to be for now. Having such welcoming teammates and supportive fans also really helps to keep me going.”

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