Kashima Antlers Youth

2026 season

Currently 2nd in the Premier League EAST with 27 points from 14 matches (9W 0D 5L, 38-24). Updated daily.

Playing style

The whole club, from the first team down, works to what it calls the Zico spirit, after the Brazilian who joined Kashima in 1991 and set its standards. It is written in Portuguese and used as an assessment scale in the academy as well: TRABALHO (hard work and self-sacrifice for the team), LEALDADE (honesty towards the game, the club and yourself) and RESPEITO (respect for team-mates, opponents and officials).

On the pitch that shows up as intensity in duels, a heavy sprint volume and pressing from the front. Modern positional ideas have been added, but keeping the ball is not treated as an end in itself: the side goes forward quickly and organises hard in transition. The usual shape is 4-4-2.

Honours

The competition that decides the national under-18 champion has been renamed twice — All Japan Youth (U-18) Championship until 2010, then the U-18 Championship, and the Premier League Final since 2019 — and Kashima have won it twice. In 2025 they drew 1-1 with Vissel Kobe U-18 and won 3-2 on penalties; in 2015 they beat Gamba Osaka Youth 1-0. The 2025 Club Youth final was won 3-0 against Vegalta Sendai Youth, and the J Youth Cup final against Sanfrecce Hiroshima Youth went to penalties after a goalless draw.

Winning all three national titles in the same year is what Japanese reporters call the treble, and it is the reason the side goes into 2026 as the team everyone measures themselves against.

History

• 1992 — The academy is founded as Kashima Antlers join the new J.League.
• 1995 — ICHIKAWA Tomoya, a goalkeeper, is promoted to the first team, one of the earliest graduates to make it. He is now the academy's chief goalkeeping coach.
• 1998 — SOGAHATA Hitoshi is promoted. He goes on to spend two decades as the first-choice goalkeeper through the club's most successful years.
• 2000 — NOZAWA Takuya is promoted and later wears the number 10.
• 2010s — DOI Shoma, SUZUKI Yuma and MACHIDA Koki come through and become first-team regulars.
• 2015 — A first national title at under-18 level, beating Gamba Osaka Youth 1-0 in the final.
• 2018 — Premier League EAST champions again, but beaten 2-1 by Sanfrecce Hiroshima Youth in the national final.
• Early 2020s — FUNABASHI Yu and SHIMODA Eisuke are promoted, both from the Tsukuba junior-youth base — the first clear return on the club's three-base system.
• 2025 — The treble: Club Youth Championship, J Youth Cup and Premier League Final.
• 2026 — Premier League EAST again, this time as holders. They lost the opening round to Kashiwa Reysol U-18, then beat RKU Kashiwa 3-1 in round three; the return meeting with that side is likely to shape the title race.

Development pathway

Three things explain how the club keeps producing players.

• A philosophy that is written down. The three Portuguese words above are not decoration: they are used to judge academy players, and graduates including DOI Shoma, SUZUKI Yuma and MACHIDA Koki name them as the most important thing they were taught.
• Three junior-youth bases across one prefecture. Below the U-18 team, the under-15 age group is run from three separate sites so that talent from the whole of Ibaraki can be reached without moving home: Kashima JY in Kashima city in the east, next to the first-team clubhouse; Kashima Norte JY in Hitachi in the north; and Kashima Tsukuba JY in Tsukuba in the south, a growing city, which produced FUNABASHI Yu and SHIMODA Eisuke. Each base has its own full-time coaches and trainers and works to the same training standard. NEMOTO Yuichi, himself a graduate, coaches at Tsukuba.
• A school partnership. Academy players attend Kashima Gakuen High School under an arrangement that lets them combine a heavy training and touring schedule with a normal high-school qualification. For families outside Ibaraki being asked to let a 15-year-old move, that matters as much as the football.

Coaching staff in 2026: head coach NAKANO Yoji, who is also academy director; OGASAWARA Mitsuo, a club great, as academy advisor; HONDA Takuya coaching the youth team; and MOTOYAMA Masashi, another graduate, running academy scouting.

One caveat worth stating plainly: the Kashima first team also recruits heavily from Japanese universities, from abroad and from other J.League clubs. The academy is a strong supply line, not the only one.

Former players

• SOGAHATA Hitoshi (goalkeeper) — the club legend of the academy's first generation.
• NOZAWA Takuya (midfielder) — the technician who wore the number 10.
• DOI Shoma (midfielder) — long-serving, and the side's emotional reference point.
• SUZUKI Yuma (forward) — Kashima's main striker and a Japan international, known for how much defensive work he does.
• MACHIDA Koki (defender) — established himself in the Japan squad after moving to Belgium.
• FUNABASHI Yu and SHIMODA Eisuke (midfielders) — the Tsukuba junior-youth pair promoted in the early 2020s.
• OKAWA Yugo (defender) — captain of the 2025 treble-winning side, promoted to the first team in 2026.
• ICHIKAWA Tomoya (goalkeeper) and NEMOTO Yuichi (defender) — both now coaching in the academy they came through.

The range is unusual: goalkeepers, defenders and creative midfielders alike, rather than one type of player.

Players to watch in 2026

Players worth knowing in the 2026 season:

• MONOI Jigen (forward, third year, no. 8) — from Kashima Norte JY.
• MOTOSUNA Anthony Udemba (defender, third year, no. 3) — joined from FC Fresca Kobe, played at the 2025 U-17 World Cup and has already been named on a J1 bench.
• KATO Tsukamu (forward, third year, no. 18) — another Kashima Norte JY product.
• YOSHIDA Minato (forward, third year, no. 40) — from FC Tama JY (a Tokyo club), originally from Kanagawa, and a key figure in the 2025 treble side.
• TAKISAWA Shu (forward, second year, no. 11) — Kashima JY, originally from Iwate in the north.
• TAKAKI Eito (forward, second year, no. 13) — Kashima JY.
• ISHIWATARI Tomoya (forward, second year, no. 17) — Kashima JY.
• DOI Kuga (forward, first year, no. 9) — Kashima Tsukuba JY, already in the first-year group.

The mix — players from the three Ibaraki bases alongside boys scouted nationally — is the squad-building idea in miniature.

Notes

Full profile in Japanese, with the current squad list and every result: 鹿島アントラーズユース.

Where a player has no official English spelling published by the JFA or the J.League, the name is shown in Japanese.

See also: Premier League standings and how youth football works in Japan.