Kawasaki Frontale U-18

2026 season

Currently 11th in the Premier League EAST with 9 points from 14 matches (2W 3D 9L, 23-38). Updated daily.

Playing style

Kawasaki's football is built on two verbs the club uses constantly: tomeru and keru — to stop the ball and to kick it. The idea, which became the language of the whole club under the first-team coach of the early 2010s, is that a player who can stop the ball exactly where he wants it under pressure creates time and space for himself, and can then pass accurately into it. Every age group is coached in the same terms, so that a player promoted to the first team already knows the vocabulary. MORI Yusuke, head coach since 2025, has kept that technical base and added intensity: winning second balls and the duels at the edge of the play.

Honours

The 2022 final, played at the National Stadium in Tokyo, was lost by a single goal. Two years later the team reached the Club Youth Championship final and lost to Gamba Osaka Youth. The club is still waiting for its first national title at under-18 level.

History

• 1998 — The under-18 and under-15 teams are founded, one year after the club became Kawasaki Frontale. The goal from the start is players who can compete technically, rather than a team that wins early.
• 2006 — An under-12 team completes the pathway.
• 2010s — The first team's ideas about stopping and passing the ball spread to the academy. TANAKA Ao, ITAKURA Kou and MITOMA Kaoru come through in these years.
• 2013 — A first J Youth Cup semi-final.
• 2016–2017 — Third place in the Club Youth Championship two years running.
• 2021 — Prince League Kanto champions in the club's twelfth season in that league, then promotion through the Premier League play-off.
• 2022 — Premier League EAST champions at the first attempt; runners-up in the national final.
• 2023 — Anker Frontown Ikuta opens. The under-15 level splits into two teams, Ikuta and Todoroki, to widen recruitment across the city.
• 2024 — Runners-up in the Club Youth Championship. The under-15 team wins its own national club youth title the same summer.

Development pathway

• One third of the first team. The academy's published targets include a specific one: that players from the academy should make up at least a third of the first-team squad. In September 2026 the first-team list on the J.League site included twenty-one current academy players registered as type-2 players — FUJITA Asuto and OGAWA Hiroto with first-team numbers — alongside the graduates already there.
• More than one road up. The club states plainly that not everyone goes straight from the under-18s to the first team. Some sign professional contracts while still at the academy; others go to university and come back. MITOMA went via the University of Tsukuba, WAKIZAKA Yasuto via Hannan University, YAMADA Shin and HAYASAKA Yuki via Toin University of Yokohama.
• Everything on one site. Since 2023 the under-12, under-15 and under-18 teams all train at Anker Frontown Ikuta, which has a full-size artificial pitch, an indoor arena and facilities for meals after training. Younger players see the under-18 standard every day.
• School first. The academy puts schoolwork at the start of its definition of player development, on the reasoning that the thinking a player does in class is the same thinking he does in a match.

Former players

• TANAKA Ao (midfielder, Leeds United) — through every Frontale age group from under-10 to the first team, then Fortuna Düsseldorf and Leeds. Scored the winner against Spain at the 2022 World Cup.
• ITAKURA Kou (defender, Ajax) — captain of the under-18s in his final year, then Groningen, Schalke and Borussia Mönchengladbach before Ajax.
• MITOMA Kaoru (winger, Brighton & Hove Albion) — turned down promotion from the under-18s to go to university, joined the first team four years later, and moved to Europe via Union Saint-Gilloise.
• TAKAI Kota (defender, Tottenham Hotspur) — from the under-12s to the first team, and to the Premier League in 2025.
• MIYOSHI Koji (midfielder) — Antwerp, Birmingham City and Bochum in Europe.
• MIYASHIRO Taisei (forward, Vissel Kobe) and YAMADA Shin (forward, Celtic) — both called up by Japan for the 2025 EAFF E-1 Championship.
• WAKIZAKA Yasuto (midfielder, Kawasaki Frontale) — the club's number 14.
• OZEKI Yuto, MIYAGI Ten, YUI Kota, MATSUNAGANE Yuto and HAYASAKA Yuki — academy graduates in the current first-team squad.

Players to watch in 2026

Players worth knowing in the 2026 season:

• OGAWA Hiroto (midfielder, third year, no. 8) and FUJITA Asuto (defender, third year, no. 3) — both promoted to the first team for 2027, and both in Japan's under-18 squad at the J-Village Cup in March 2026.
• KINOSHITA Katsuyoshi (midfielder, third year, no. 10) — the team's top scorer in the league so far, with seven goals.
• KIMURA Kazato (midfielder, second year, no. 17) — in Japan's under-17 squad for the Limoges International Tournament in September 2026.
• TSUSHIMA Haru (defender, first year, no. 26) and UENO Koshiro (defender, no. 44) — both selected for Japan at the 2026 U-16 International Dream Cup.
• IWATA Kantaro (goalkeeper, third year, no. 1), YAMAKAWA Yohei (defender, third year, no. 2) and HIROSE Neo (forward, third year, no. 11) — senior regulars.
• ODA Shuto (no. 6), KAWAMURA Kyu (no. 9), SASAKURA Takuma (no. 18), SOGO Seiyo (no. 22), KATO Ko (no. 20) and ZEN Tenkai (no. 14) — the second-year group.
• KOMURA Futo (no. 21), WATANABE Taichi (no. 31), ARAI Mizuki (no. 38) and NAKANO Taiga (no. 34) — first-years already in the squad.

Nearly all of the registered players came up through the club's under-15 Ikuta team. WATANABE Taichi is the one registered player from the Todoroki side, the second under-15 team set up in 2023.

Notes

Full profile in Japanese, with the current squad list and every result: 川崎フロンターレ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.