Urawa Red Diamonds After graduating from Fujieda Higashi High School in 2002, he joined
Urawa Red Diamonds. He became a regular of their first team in the 2003 season. He played mainly as defensive midfielder with
Keita Suzuki. In 2004, he was honoured with the
J.League Cup New Hero Award and selected as a member of J.League team of the year. He was also the Urawa Fans' Player of the Year that season. The Reds won the championship in the
2006 J1 League for the first time in the club history and the first Asian title of the
2007 AFC Champions League. It was reported in October 2007 that Italian
Serie A side
A.C. Siena was keen to sign Hasebe the following January.
VfL Wolfsburg However, he signed for
Bundesliga side Wolfsburg becoming the first Japanese player ever to play for the Wolves. In 2009, he became the second Japanese player to win the Bundesliga title. On 29 April 2010, it was announced that Hasebe extended his contract with Wolfsburg until 2012. On 17 September 2011, Hasebe played in goal for the final nine minutes of an away match against
1899 Hoffenheim. Wolfsburg lost the match 3–1, with Hasebe conceding Hoffenheim's third goal on 85 minutes. On 3 December 2011, he played his 100th Bundesliga match against
1. FSV Mainz 05.
1. FC Nürnberg On 2 September 2013, Hasebe signed a three-year contract with
1. FC Nürnberg.
Eintracht Frankfurt Hasebe moved to Bundesliga side
Eintracht Frankfurt for the 2014–15 season, where he was an instant starter, missing just one competitive match in his first season. In the 2015–16 season, he was also a midfielder for Frankfurt, who only managed to stay in the relegation play-off against Hasebe's former club Nuremberg. Under Frankfurt's new coach Niko Kovač, the Japanese player was called up for the first time at centre-back at the end of October 2016 as a central link in a five-man backline and played in this position from then on. He played in the final of the DFB-Pokal that season, which was lost 2–1 to Borussia Dortmund, although Hasebe's season had already ended in March 2017 due to knee surgery. In the 2017–18 season, he finished eighth in the Bundesliga with Eintracht and also played in the DFB-Pokal final with them again. There, in May 2018, the team won its first title in 30 years after a 3–1 victory over FC Bayern Munich and qualified for the group stage of the Europa League as a result. In the latter competition, he played full time in all 14 of his team's matches the following season and, after victories over Shakhtar Donetsk, Inter Milan and Benfica Lisbon, they advanced to the semi-finals against Chelsea FC, to whom they were defeated on penalties. Due to his strong performances during the season, he was rated "International Class" by
kicker sports magazine in both the winter of 2018–19 and summer of 2019, and was included in the end-of-season team by the Association of Contract Footballers. With his 309th appearance on 6 June 2020 against
1. FSV Mainz 05, Hasebe surpassed South Korean
Cha Bum-kun to become the Asian player with the most appearances in Bundesliga. At the start of the 2020–21 season, the Japanese player was the oldest player in the Bundesliga, at the age of 36. Following teammate
David Abraham's departure from the team in January 2021, Hasebe led Eintracht onto the field as captain for most of the time without a new permanent captain. On 18 February 2022, Hasebe signed a contract extension till 2027. His original contract was due to expire this summer. He will spend one more year as a player before taking on a coaching role in the summer of 2023. On 18 May 2022, Hasebe won
UEFA Europa League title, coming on as a substitute in the final against
Rangers F.C. Following his 40th birthday in January 2024, Hasebe became the fifth 40-year-old player in Bundesliga history, only after
Manfred Burgsmüller,
Mirko Votava,
Claudio Pizarro, and
Klaus Fichtel. On 17 April 2024, Hasebe announced that he would retire from professional football at the end of the
2023–24 season, after roughly 700 games and 22 years, including 380 matches in Bundesliga, which makes him the third non-German player with the most Bundesliga appearances, only behind
Robert Lewandowski and Pizarro. He played in the last matchday of the season against Leipzig, becoming, at the age of 40 years and 121 days, the oldest Frankfurt player in Bundesliga history. ==International career==