Yui Hasegawa

Tokyo Verdy Beleza

Having progressed through the youth set-up of Tokyo Verdy Beleza, Hasegawa was promoted to the senior team in 2013. She made her Nadeshiko League debut on March 23, 2013, as a sixteen-year-old, against FC Kibi IU Charme. Despite her young age and relative inexperience in the first team, she quickly established herself as a regular starter in midfield, amongst other more accomplished senior teammates in the Japan national team at the time. The 2015 season proved to be a breakout year for her in senior football. She scored her first league goal in the Nadeshiko League against Iga FC Kunoichi on September 23, 2015, and played a key part in leading the team to win the championship that year, ending a five-year drought for the domestic title. Hasegawa's time with the club coincided with one of the most successful periods for the club. During her eight seasons with Beleza, she won multiple trophies with Beleza; including five successive league titles, five Empress's Cup, three League Cup, and the inaugural AFC Women's Club Championship. She won the domestic triple crown twice with Beleza, having done so consecutively in the 2018 and 2019 season. Hasegawa was first selected to the Nadeshiko League Best XI in the 2017 season. She would repeated that feat again in 2018, 2019, and 2020, until she left Japan to play overseas in 2021. At the age of 21, she reached the milestone of 100 league appearances for Beleza on May 3, 2018, in a scoreless draw against…

Youth

Hasegawa has been featured throughout all youth levels of the Japan national team set-up, since she was first called up to the U-17 national team in 2011 at the age of 14. She began her international career as a 15-year-old at the 2012 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Azerbaijan, where she started in two matches against Brazil in the group stage and Ghana in the quarter-final. Japan were knocked out in the 1–0 quarter-final defeat, and Hasegawa ended her first international tournament with 2 goals, from a brace against New Zealand. The following year, her development was accelerated yet again as she was called up to the U-20 national team to participate in the 2013 AFC U-19 Championship despite still being 16. As the U-20 squad had failed to qualify for the 2014 FIFA U-20 World Cup that year, Hasegawa returned to her original age group to play in the 2014 FIFA U-17 World Cup in Costa Rica. She started all six matches in Japan's remarkable run that saw them emerge as the champions. A cornerstone of Japan's attack, she scored three goals against Paraguay, New Zealand and Mexico, as she went on to receive the individual honour of the adidas Silver Ball – the second best player of the tournament – behind teammate Hina Sugita who won the Golden Ball.

Senior

On March 1, 2017, Hasegawa won her first senior cap for the Japan national team when she made her debut as a half-time substitute against Spain at the 2017 Algarve Cup. In the following match, she scored her…

Primarily a defensive midfielder, Hasegawa began her career as an attacking midfielder in Japan. She is known for her composure on the ball, passing vision, football intelligence and her ball-winning ability. Early in her career playing with Nippon TV Tokyo Verdy Beleza, she most often operated as a left wide midfielder in a 4-3-3 formation, although her versatility allows her to occupy many positions in midfield. Hasegawa is described as a player who possesses exceptional ability on the ball. Her quick feet, acceleration and low centre of gravity make her an adept dribbler and press resistant. She possesses a wide variety of passes in her arsenal, and when combined with her passing range and ball-carrying capability, she has earned her rank among the best players in her position in terms of ball progression. She possesses a keen tactical awareness and sense of positioning which makes her a penetration threat with or without the ball. Hasegawa is also an effective player on the defensive end where her intense counter pressing in the final third regularly helps her side to quickly regain possession through intercepting opposition play. Since joining Manchester City, Hasegawa has primarily operated as a defensive midfielder where she dictates and controls match tempo from deep while providing defensive cover for the defensive line. In her first season in the new position, she consistently ranked high in the defensive metrics such as interception, ball won back in the middle…

Hasegawa was born in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture on January 29, 1997. She subsequently moved to Toda, Saitama with her family during her childhood. She attended high school at Hinode High School (now Meguro Nihon University High School). She graduated from Nihon University in 2019. Hasegawa began playing football in kindergarten at the age of six under the influence of her older brothers, and initially played amongst boys before joining a girls' football club around the age of nine. In 2009, aged 11, she was accepted into Menina, the nation's top youth academy of the club, she would later play for Tokyo Verdy Beleza. She would regularly travel by train from her home in Saitama to Tokyo daily after school for team practice before returning home late at night. Over a four-year period from 2011 to 2014, she was a central figure behind Menina's successive titles at the JFA U-18 All Japan Youth Women's Football Tournaments. While at the academy, she befriended and rose through the ranks with fellow players such as Risa Shimizu and Yuka Momiki, all of whom would go on play for the Japan national team together.