Yokohama FC Youth
Yokohama FC Youth is the under-18 team of Yokohama FC, a club with an unusual origin. When Yokohama Flügels were merged out of existence at the end of 1998, their supporters founded a new club rather than follow the merger, and Yokohama FC began in 1999 with no parent company behind it. The youth team followed in 2001. With little money and, for years, no ground of its own, it grew up in the shadow of Yokohama F. Marinos and Kawasaki Frontale. It reached the Premier League in 2020, and in 2024 won the EAST division. The team trains at the club's LEOC Training Centre in Yokohama.
Kanagawa · founded 2001 · head coach WADA Takumi
2026 season
Currently 12th in the Premier League EAST with 6 points from 14 matches (1W 3D 10L, 15-30). Updated daily.
Playing style
The team's attacking plan has a name: the near zone, or pocket — the space between the corner of the penalty area and the corner of the six-yard box, just behind a centre-back who has been pulled across. Players make coordinated runs into that space to break a defence open. The idea is taught in the same words from the under-12s upward, so that a player promoted into the under-18s already knows what is expected. WADA Takumi, head coach since 2024, is the person most associated with it. He played for Shimizu S-Pulse, Yokohama FC, Tokyo Verdy, JEF United and Avispa Fukuoka before coaching in the club's academy.
Honours
| Competition | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Premier League EAST | 2024 | In WADA's first season |
| Premier League Final | 2024, runners-up | 0-3 against Ohzu |
| Premier League Kanto | 2020 | The pandemic replacement league |
| Japan Club Youth (U-18) Championship | 3rd, 2022 | |
| Premier League play-off | 2019 | First promotion |
The team has been in the Premier League every season since 2020, one of them, 2023, in the WEST. The 2020 title came in a regional league set up for the Kanto teams after the national competition was cancelled.
History
- 1999 — Yokohama FC is founded by supporters of the dissolved Yokohama Flügels.
- 2001 — The youth team is founded. A junior-youth team follows in 2006.
- 2000s — No permanent ground, and competition for players from much richer neighbours. The academy recruits players other clubs have passed over and develops them slowly.
- 2018 — SAITO Koki signs a professional contract while still in the youth team.
- 2019 — Promotion to the Premier League.
- 2020 — Champions of the Premier League Kanto, in the first season at that level.
- 2022 — A pitch at the training centre is opened and named KOKI SAITO FIELD. The team finishes third at the Club Youth Championship.
- 2024 — WADA Takumi moves up from the junior-youth team and wins the Premier League EAST in his first season; the national final is lost to Ohzu. Three academy players sign professional contracts in the same year.
- 2025 — IWASAKI Ryosuke and TSUKUDA Sota are promoted to the first team.
Development pathway
- The under-12 strengthening category. The club runs a selected group at under-12 level, and most of the current under-18 squad has been in the club's system since then. Six or seven years of the same coaching language is what makes the near-zone idea work.
- One site with the first team. The LEOC Training Centre is shared with the professionals, which ended years of moving between public pitches. Academy players see the first team's standards every day.
- A route to the first team, not only to the league. In September 2026 four of the under-18s held first-team numbers, and one of them, SAITO Kakeru, had signed a professional contract in June.
- Recruiting for intelligence. The club says its scouts look for football intelligence, the desire to improve and a fit with the club's way of playing, ahead of physical size or early maturity.
Former players
- SAITO Koki (forward, Queens Park Rangers) — through the junior-youth and youth teams, a professional contract in 2018 while still a youth player, then Lommel and Sparta Rotterdam, and called up by Japan in 2025.
- SAITO Kosuke (midfielder, Tokyo Verdy) — through the junior-youth and youth teams to the first team in 2015, and part of the side that took Yokohama FC into J1.
- SUGITA Hayato, OGURA Hinata, TAKASHIO Hayase, HAYASHI Kengo, SHIMIZU Yuto, HATA Jui and MAEDA Kantaro — academy graduates in the current first-team squad.
- TSUKUDA Sota (defender) and IWASAKI Ryosuke (midfielder) — the 2025 promotions, both with Yokohama FC.
Players to watch in 2026
Players worth knowing in the 2026 season:
- SAITO Kakeru (forward, third year, no. 9) — signed a professional contract with Yokohama FC in June 2026 (first-team no. 45) and played for Japan at the 2026 AFC U-17 Asian Cup.
- FUKUOKA Yudai (midfielder, third year, no. 8) — registered with the first team (no. 46).
- YAMAGISHI Katsuto (goalkeeper, third year, no. 1) and NISHIKATA Eitaro (goalkeeper, second year, no. 16) — both registered with the first team, as nos. 50 and 40.
The rest of the squad is not named here, because the club and the J.League have not published English spellings for them. Almost all of them came up through the club's own junior-youth team.
Notes
Full profile in Japanese, with the current squad list and every result: 横浜FC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.