Kashiwa Reysol U-18

2026 season

Currently 3rd in the Premier League EAST with 27 points from 14 matches (8W 3D 3L, 18-9). Updated daily.

Playing style

The club's phrase is keeping the ball to take control. Play starts with the goalkeeper and moves through short passes, and players are taught to read and manipulate the opponent rather than to bypass them.

Under SHIDA Tatsuro that has been sharpened rather than softened: possession is explicitly for progressing the ball and breaking the opponent's shape, and it is paired with high intensity and immediate counter-pressing when the ball is lost. One detail says a lot about the programme — the U-18 side has three goalkeeping coaches, because the goalkeeper here is treated as the eleventh outfield player and the start of the build-up.

Honours

In 2012 the academy also won the Chiba qualifier for the Emperor's Cup, which produced something no other Japanese club has managed: a competitive match between Kashiwa Reysol's first team and Kashiwa Reysol's under-18s.

History

• 1969 — The parent company's football club runs the first JFA-approved football school in Japan.
• 1986 — Hitachi Football School Kashiwa opens, in the amateur era.
• 1993 — With the birth of the J.League the school becomes Kashiwa Reysol Youth. In Chiba it is the outsider: Ichiritsu Funabashi and RKU Kashiwa dominate.
• 2003 — YOSHIDA Tatsuma, a former player at the club, becomes under-15 coach. He replaces a system where each age group did as its coach preferred with one shared idea — possession football, and an attachment to the badge — from under-12 to under-18. At the time it was called eccentric.
• 2010–2014 — Promotion through the regional leagues, the Club Youth title in 2012, and the Premier League EAST title in 2014. The generation born in 1990 alone sent eleven players into professional football.
• 2015 — Quarter-finals of the U-17 Club World Cup, and a mutual support agreement with Nittaidai Kashiwa High School.
• 27 August 2016 — In a J1 match against Kawasaki Frontale, every Japanese player in the starting line-up was a graduate of this academy. It is the moment the programme is measured by.
• 2024– — SHIDA Tatsuro's side plays the same football with more intensity, and the club keeps travelling: the Al Kass tournament in Qatar puts it against Real Madrid, Bayern and PSG most years.

Development pathway

• One idea, twenty years. The possession philosophy has been shared across every age group since 2003. A player arriving at 15 has already spent years inside it, which is why the senior side can play a demanding game with young players in it.
• Belonging, taught deliberately. The stated aim is not "produce professionals" but "produce players who understand, experience and love Reysol's football and are proud to play here". From under-12, players are told they are the club's future. It sounds sentimental; it shows up as professional discipline.
• The same ground as the first team, and a canteen. The academy trains at Hitachi Kashiwa, where the professionals train. Nutrition has been part of the programme since around 2005, with meals provided on site — the unglamorous requirement behind a physically demanding style.
• Two ways in, and a way back. Twelve clubs across Chiba are affiliated to the academy's alliance group, which spreads the playing model and finds players early. And since 2015, players not promoted from under-15 to under-18 can continue at Nittaidai Kashiwa High School under coaches the club sends — a bridge across the usual divide between club academies and school football.

Former players

• SAKAI Hiroki (right-back) — a Japan international with a long career at Hannover, Marseille and Urawa Reds.
• HOSOYA Mao (forward) — a Japan international and the current first team's main striker.
• KOGA Taiyo (defender) — the first team's defensive leader.
• NAKAYAMA Yuta (defender/midfielder) and NAKAMURA Kosuke (goalkeeper) — both Japan internationals, and both in the all-academy line-up of August 2016.
• NAKATANI Shinnosuke (defender) — now captain of Gamba Osaka.
• KOKUBO Leo Brian (goalkeeper) — has spent his career in Europe, and was in Japan's squad at the Paris Olympics.
• ITO Tatsuya (winger) — moved directly to Hamburg from here as a teenager.
• SASAKI Masato (goalkeeper), TAKETOMI Kosuke, OSHIMA Koki, TANAKA Hayato, MORI Kaito, KOBAYASHI Yusuke, AKINO Hiroki and NAKAGAWA Hiroto — all professionals.
• KUDO Masato (forward) — the striker of the 1990 generation, who played in Japan and in North America. He died in 2022, aged 32, and the club's players are still pointed towards him.

The type is recognisable: midfielders who can organise, centre-backs comfortable on the ball, and goalkeepers who can start the build-up.

Players to watch in 2026

Players worth knowing in the 2026 season:

• KAMO Yuito (midfielder, third year, no. 10) — already registered with the first team as well as the academy.
• MAKIBUCHI Hyogo (forward, third year, no. 9) and SUGIYAMA Shunnosuke (forward, third year, no. 11) — the front line.
• NISHIKAWA Genki (goalkeeper, third year, no. 1) — first choice in a squad with four goalkeepers and three goalkeeping coaches.
• OCHIAI Kanata (defender, second year, no. 15) — from JFA Academy Fukushima, one of the few not raised at the club.
• MOGI Yuto Chukwusomu (forward, second year, no. 36).

Almost the entire squad came up from Kashiwa Reysol U-15, so they have shared the same football vocabulary for years. The handful recruited from outside exist to make that comfortable group compete.

Notes

Full profile in Japanese, with the current squad list and every result: 柏レイソルU-18.

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.