Shinji Kagawa
Minamino joined Cerezo Osaka youth team at age 12 and progressed through the academy. While at the Cerezo academy, players such as Shinji Kagawa, were in the first team, and Minamino would watch them up close and train with them. Minamino said of the club's youth team in 2014: "Cerezo Youth, it was another physical coach of the now of the top teams are, but I was also a physical coach of my youth era, I it was insanely tight, really."