is a Japanese professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

Standard Liège Royal Standard de Liège, commonly referred to as Standard Liège (; nl, Standard Luik ; german: Standard Lüttich ) or simply Standard in Belgium, is a Belgian professional football club based in the city of Liège. They are one of the most ...

in the

Belgian Pro League The Belgian Pro League,(officially the Jupiler Pro League due to sponsorship reasons with Jupiler), is the top league competition for association football clubs in Belgium. Contested by 18 clubs since the 2020–21 season and reduced to 16 team ...

and the Japan national team.

Club career

Sanfrecce Hiroshima

Kawabe joined

Sanfrecce Hiroshima Sanfrecce Hiroshima ( ja, サンフレッチェ広島, translit=''Sanfuretche Hiroshima'') is a Japanese professional football club based in Asaminami-ku, Hiroshima. The club plays in the J1 League, which is the top tier of football in the coun ...

in 2008, alongside other products of the club's academy. After his debut in 2012, he was offered a full pro contract by Sanfrecce. Despite this achievement, he found too few minutes on the pitch and decided to go to

Júbilo Iwata is a professional Japanese association football team that currently play in the J2 League. The team name ''Júbilo'' means 'joy' in Spanish and Portuguese. The team's hometown is Iwata, Shizuoka prefecture and they play at Yamaha Stadium. For ...

on loan. In January 2018, he came back to Sanfrecce after a three-years loan to Jubilo.

Grasshopper Club Zürich and Wolverhampton Wanderers

On 8 July 2021, he signed a 3-year contract with

Grasshoppers Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are among what is possibly the most ancient living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grasshop ...

in the

Swiss Super League The Swiss Super League (known as the Credit Suisse Super League for sponsorship reasons) is a Swiss professional league in the top tier of the Swiss football league system and has been played in its current format since the 2003–04 season ...

. Due to delays with his work permit, he only made his debut on 7 August 2021 against Lausanne-Sport, being named in the starting lineup and playing 60 minutes. He scored his first goal in a 3-1 away victory over

FC Sion Football Club de Sion, commonly known as simply FC Sion or Sion, is a Swiss football team from the city of Sion. The club was founded in 1909, and play their home matches at the Stade Tourbillon. They have won the Swiss Super League twice, and ...

on 31 October 2021, scoring the opener in the 32nd minute On 5 January 2022, Kawabe joined

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

side

Wolverhampton Wanderers Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club (), commonly known as Wolves, is a professional football club based in Wolverhampton, England, which compete in the . The club has played at Molineux Stadium since moving from Dudley Road in 1889. The club's ...

on a three-and-a-half year deal, with the club intending on loaning him back to Grasshoppers in the near future. He returned to Grasshoppers on 19 January 2022 and will remain until the end of the 2022–2023 season. He finished the season at Grasshoppers with 34 appearances, playing every game since gaining eligibility. In his first season in Europe, he scored seven goals and supplied three assists. In the first game of the 2022–23 season, he scored both goals in a 2-1 home win against

FC Lugano FC Lugano is a Swiss football club based in Lugano. The club was refounded as AC Lugano in 2004 as a result of relegation and the financial situation of FC Lugano, which was founded in 1908. In 2008, the club reverted to its original name, FC Lu ...

. As a result, he was voted " SFL Player of the Round" by the viewers from among five nominees. On 25 May 2023, Grasshoppers announced that Kawabe would leave the club at the end of the season.

Standard Liège

On 7 July 2023, he permanently joined

for a reported fee of £1.3 million.

International career

He made his debut for

Japan national football team The , nicknamed the , represents Japan in men's international Association football, football. It is controlled by the Japan Football Association (JFA), the governing body for football in Japan. Japan was not a major football force until the e ...

on 25 March 2021 in a

friendly Friendly may refer to: Places * Friendly, West Yorkshire, a settlement in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England * Friendly, Maryland, an unincorporated community in the United States * Friendly, Eugene, Oregon, a neighborhood in the United States * ...

against South Korea. On 7 June 2021, he shot his first international goal, the final goal in a 4-1 victory over

Tajikistan Tajikistan (, ; tg, Тоҷикистон, Tojikiston; russian: Таджикистан, Tadzhikistan), officially the Republic of Tajikistan ( tg, Ҷумҳурии Тоҷикистон, Jumhurii Tojikiston), is a landlocked country in Centr ...

in the

2022 FIFA World Cup qualification The 2022 FIFA World Cup qualificationAlso the "FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Qualifiers". was the qualifying process which decided the 31 teams that would join hosts Qatar, who received an automatic spot, at the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Parallel tour ...

Career statistics

Club

Nippon Sports Kikaku Publishing inc./日本スポーツ企画出版社
"2016J1&J2&J3選手名鑑"
10 February 2016, Japan, (p. 143 out of 289)

International goals

References

External links

Profile at Júbilo Iwata
* * * 1995 births Association football people from Hiroshima Prefecture Living people Japanese men's footballers Men's association football midfielders J.League U-22 Selection players Japan men's international footballers Sanfrecce Hiroshima players Júbilo Iwata players Grasshopper Club Zürich players Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. players Standard Liège players J1 League players J2 League players J3 League players Swiss Super League players Japanese expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Switzerland Japanese expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland Expatriate men's footballers in Belgium Japanese expatriate sportspeople in Belgium {{Japan-footy-midfielder-1990s-stub