Urabe started as Ishizaki's rival back in elementary school, and like his eventual friend, he had a cocky streak that came out when he was barking orders at teammates. He made the cut for Nankatsu SC early on.
By middle school, Urabe had matured into the captain of Otomo's soccer team, anchoring what fans know as the "Otomo Quartet" alongside Takeshi Kishida, Masao Nakayama, and Koji Nishio. When he reached Nankatsu High School, he initially planned to quit soccer after graduation to help run his family's tofu shop. But Coach Gamo had other ideas—he recruited Urabe into the R.J.7, a ruthless training squad designed to push Japan's youth players to their limits. Playing the antagonist role during those brutal sessions actually worked; the training hardened him and his teammates, and they ended up dominating most of the All Japan Youth squad. The whole thing was a psych test, basically—Urabe's real goal was to stress-test and strengthen the actual team. Once the Asian preliminaries kicked off and everyone found out what he'd been doing, he officially joined All Japan Youth after Misaki suffered a serious injury. He made his mark in the final against Brazil, stepping in for Ishizaki and cementing his decision to keep playing the sport.
Later, in Road to 2002, Urabe and Ishizaki both signed with Jubilo Iwata.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
