September 9th, 2020 – it’s a good day in Tokyo. At the Ajinomoto Stadium, the hosts are facing Yokohama FC and they were down, but they already equalized. They just need a final push to make it to the finish line and make the match theirs. That comes around the 85th minute: there’s a cross in the middle of the penalty area, and a few scrambles, but the no. 24 is able to stop the ball, control it, and the send it in the upper part of the net. It’s 2-1 and FC Tokyo can celebrate a solid win.
We’re in COVID times, and head coach Kenta Hasegawa is still in his good phase with the club; in fact, FC Tokyo are third after this win, and they’ll spent the majority of that 2020 season in the Top 3, only to drop in the table in the last matches. But in such a full season, with a packed schedule, everyone can be useful, including that no. 24: he’s a forward, he spent a lot of time playing for the U-23 team in J3, and he seems now ready to help out.
Taichi Hara is such a strange player. He’s 1.91 m, but he basically never featured as a centre-forward. He’s been probably one of the best players coming out of the experience of the FC Tokyo U-23 team in the third division, yet he played just 38 games with the senior team – furthermore, 30 of them came from the bench, so he just started eight of those games. And he went to Europe pretty young (at 21 years old), but his journey was all over the place.
Basically, Hara is a living contradiction, and probably it’s even funnier now to see he’s leading the charge for a team who was destined to avoid J2, and now is fighting to win the title. Taichi Hara proved to be a massive resource for Kyoto Sanga, coming back as a question mark and becoming then a key-player for head coach Cho Kwi-jae. A story of redemption, confusion, surprises and deserved comebacks.
Tokyo, and a never-blossomed love
Born in Hino, Tokyo, in 1999, Hara was supposed to become one of the jewels at FC Tokyo. He started featuring in their youth ranks since he was 13, and the fun things is… Hara wasn’t tall back then – he was just 175 cm, so he was actually playing as a defender. Once though he spurted right off his boots, Hara was converted into a forward and got inspired by Robert Lewandowski. Injuries halted his growth, but he did enough to lead FC Tokyo U-18 to win the national championship.
This naturally brought him to the U-23 team in the J3 League. At 17, he was already playing a few matches: 5 goals in 18 games in 2017, 4 goals in 23 matches in 2018 – which also brought for him the promotion towards the first team. But 2019 was the real season where everything clicked in J3: Hara scored 19 goals in 30 games, including six games in a row with a goal between June and July, plus four braces. He was the top-scorer of the season, and couldn’t be ignored anymore.
Hara then spent 2020 in the senior team, playing 26 league matches with just three goals and featuring as well in the cups, both nationally and internationally (in the AFC Champions League). Hasegawa hoped to see Hara thrive with the first team, but he wasn’t able to replicate what he showed in J3, which was a bummer. Hara himself recognized this exact issue on the pitch: “I need to be more efficient in front of goal.”
After starting the 2020 J.League Cup final as a right-wing, and winning his first trophy, Hara felt the need of leaving Japan and Tokyo. When asked about why, the striker explained it clearly: “I’ve been with the club since I was in second grade, and they’re a team I love from the bottom of my heart. I’m sad and anxious about leaving, but I know life only lasts once, so I’ve decided to change my environment and take on the challenge. […] I want to show everyone how much I’ve grown.“
A strange European journey
His choice was Europe was Croatia, which is fine – some Japanese player featured there, from Masahiko Inoha to Takuya Ogiwara and Takuro Kaneko. Problem is that Hara chose to sign for NK Istra 1961, a bottom-table team from the first division. But the bet worked: Hara scored just two goals in 14 games, but then had an incredible run in the Croatian Cup, where he scored six goals in four matches, bringing NK Istra to the final (then lost 6-3 to Dinamo Zagreb, but Hara scored a brace).
This led to Hara being attention from Deportivo Alavès, which is a nice leap and provided a two years-contract; Alavès had just avoided relegation in LaLiga and it seemed a nice deal for the forward… until it wasn’t. Hara had just to make the bench for the opening game against Real Madrid, and then he was dropped on loan to Sint-Truiden, which is a usual étape for Japanese players. It was a very strange dynamic, but it could very well be that Alavès didn’t judge Hara as ready for LaLiga.
Nonetheless, the forward did well in Belgium: his loan was a solid deal for Sint-Truiden, since Hara scored eight goals in 28 matches. After that, the striker returned to Spain, and Alavès got relegated – which could have opened some opportunity for him at a fairer level. Instead, Hara came back just to feature in 16 games, mostly from the bench, and score just two goals (one in the league and one in the cup).
This led to another loan, always to Sint-Truiden, although this time less successful: 11 games, no goals at all. It seemed Hara’s career was a dead-end, despite him being just 24 years old. With his contract with Alavès running out, there was just one way from there – the comeback to home. Hara joined Kyoto Sanga back in July 2023, at a time when the club in the full battle to avoid relegation. Little did everyone know how much beneficial this deal would have been for everyone.
The sparkle for Sanga’s success
Hara didn’t lose any time in proving that his signing was a success: he started his first three games from the bench, only to score against Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo at home, and then started all remaining games but one to collect seven goals in 13 matches. Especially in the last three games – with three assists and two goals for a seven points-final stretch of the season – he was fundamental to avoid bigger troubles.
Hara’s performances and Sanga’s success seem to be tied together. In 2024, when the forward struggled, Kyoto were dead-last between May and June. When the striker picked up the pace between July and September – scoring six goals in nine games –, Kyoto Sanga picked up 22 points from 27 available and climbed the table from 19th place to 15th. Sanga lost just three games in the second part of the season and easily avoided relegation, with Hara scoring eight goals in 37 games.
In 2025, the support cast improved a lot in Kyoto, despite losing captain Sota Kawasaki mid-season. Hara left the centre-forward role to Rafael Elias, and instead provided a lot of assists (10!). Furthermore, he was called up by Japan’s head coach Hajime Moriyasu for the 2025 EAFF E-1 Championship, becoming the first debutant for the Samurai Blue from Kyoto Sanga since… March 2003, when Zico called up Teruaki Kurobe for a friendly game against Uruguay (Kawasaki did get a call-up from Moriyasu, but hasn’t played yet a match for Japan).
This ignited some rumours as well in the Summer, with Hara linked to Birmingham City, although nothing happened in the end. Sanga fans will certainly be pleased about that, because their striker has been a solid candidate for the “Best XI”, and turned Kyoto around from relegation contender to stable mid-table team. An enigma that changed not just his career, but the whole perception about a team who struggled once.
