Rei Hirakawa

Rei Hirakawa's path into the professional game began early: he was still 17 years and 215 days old when he made his J1 League debut for FC Tokyo on 18 November 2017, becoming the club's youngest-ever debutant in the division at the time. That breakthrough followed years in the FC Tokyo academy, which he had joined in 2013 after starting out at Uenohara SC, and where he won the J Youth Cup in 2016 and the Japan Club Youth Soccer Championship in both 2016 and 2017.

His senior career since has moved through loan spells rather than a settled run at one club. Kagoshima United took him on loan in 2019 and Montedio Yamagata in 2021, before FC Tokyo let him go permanently to Roasso Kumamoto in 2022. A move to Júbilo Iwata followed in January 2024, and he joined Tokyo Verdy in December of that year.

At youth international level, Hirakawa represented Japan across several age groups, including six caps for the U17 side in 2017 and two for the U20s, scoring against the United States U20 in a friendly in March 2019. He has not featured for the senior national team. In his first season at Tokyo Verdy, he was a regular fixture in the side, making 34 J1 League appearances alongside outings in the Emperor's Cup and the Levain Cup, though the campaign passed without a goal or an assist to his name.