The greater good

March 2019, Japan. It’s a simple Wednesday night, the second-last of the Winter season. While the Top 4 teams of the past year are in action between that night and the one before in the continental stage, other Japanese clubs have to play again. And it’s not a league match, but a Cup tie. And it’s not even Emperor’s Cup, but the Levain Cup.

In Sapporo Takenori Sugeno finds some redemption saving a penalty in injury time, while Sagan Tosu achieve their first seasonal victory under Spanish manager Carreras in Chiba and Yuki Soma confirms to be a sensational youngster for Nagoya Grampus (and Japanese football) against Oita Trinita. And even if also two J2 League teams are committed to the competition, numbers aren’t there.

Among the eight fixtures of the second matchday, only in Nagoya you can see (slightly) more than 10,000 fans enjoying the game. None of the three superstars in Kobe is even on the bench and while there have been some enjoyable games – like the Shizuoka Derby or the clash between Shonan Bellmare and Yokohama F. Marinos –, the average-attendance of those eight games is 7,400.

To put in perspective, seven out of the 22 teams in 2018 J2 League had a better attendance all year long. And English users of Wikipedia didn’t even bother creating the page.

The elephant in the room

Which purpose does the the J. League Cup serve? Who is for?

Fans aren’t filling stadiums for these games and unfortunately – despite some beautiful exceptions – winners often have come from the Top 6 in the league. Unless a Shonan Bellmare pull out a masterpiece, the winner has come from that zone of the table for the last six seasons before 2018 final. And the only exception were… Kashima Antlers, a powerhouse of Japanese football, which though had a horrible season in 2012, ending eleventh.

To make it interesting, the format was changed many times. Having J2 teams in the competition isn’t even something new: it happened already between ’99 and 2001. Then it became a tournament for J1 teams-only, but the creation of AFC Champions League created some problems in the schedule. Despite that, though, numbers weren’t going that up and basically the last games were the only ones to draw some attention. And unlike the Emperor’s Cup, Saitama Stadium became the venue for the last act in place of the National Olympic Stadium in Tokyo.

J. League Cup became a chance to field young players, but it clashes also with the existence of U-23 teams. Imagine the Osaka clubs and FC Tokyo mastering the time to field enough players for J1, the League Cup and also J3. This must be exhausting, since FC Tokyo U-23 showed up with only 14 players for their J3 game against Fujieda MYFC. Unless there’s a surprise, what’s this for?

The verdict is already in the air. They should probably ditch the J. League Cup (or Nabisco Cup, or Levain Cup: I’ve lost the count of the change of names during this decade) to do something else. Yes, but what? How can you use this chance to build something better? Well, there could be a change – tough, debatable and surely to spread some discussions among Japanese football’s followers – which could help.

A new J1 League

In Summer 2016, J. League clinched a great deal with DAZN for 10 years. A never seen before agreement, especially if you think that China had another blockbuster deal for their TV-rights, but it was an internal one. For J. League, it was different: a foreign company opted to invest on Japan and its championship, likewise other companies in that period (EA Sports, Mastercard, etc.).

Winds of change that can guarantee, yes, the chance of buying big guns: do not run with your thoughts to Vissel Kobe. Think instead of other acquisitions in the last two seasons.

Hiroshi Kiyotake coming back to Cerezo Osaka from Sevilla (five years ago, it’d be a joke to write), Jô coming to Nagoya after a majestic season in Brazil, Leandro Damião quoting the Kawasaki Frontale’s offer as a “no-brainer” or even Fabrício coming back to Japan – he played briefly for Kashima Antlers in 2016 – after a solid offer from Urawa Red Diamonds to Portimonense. Those deals wouldn’t have seen the light of day without those commercial agreements.

But this means also another thing: with the solid structure of the league and the strict controls made every year, there’s room for improvement. And a 20 teams-league could be the next step. J1 League has been with 18 clubs for a long time: the last expansion goes back to 2005, when the league added two squads from 16. The structure has been the same for 15 seasons and it’d be hard to change, but there’s the space to do that.

If you match this change with the erase of the J. League Cup, J1 teams would actually play less game than now. Instead of featuring in at least 40 games every season, it’d be reduced to 38. And they would be all meaningful, since J. League Cup is a loss of time for some teams or just a way to rotate the team. Instead, you would have still to use your manpower properly, but in the league. And about the Champions League team (also AFC CL would need a reform, but that’s another story…), recovering those games from the Top 4 would still be possible somehow.

Oh, just one last tip: with a 20 teams-league, having 2.5 relegations would be useless. That number should go up to 3.5, with three squads going down to J2 and the fourth-bottom playing a double-legged play-off against a team from second tier. But this would also mean that J2 League would face a change.

Making things even

On the last podcast from 2018 season, Ben Maxwell, Jon Steele and Stuart Smith – all main characters from the “J-Talk Podcast” – reflected on how J2 seems unfair compared to J1. Tokyo Verdy’s crusade last year was a good example: after playing 42 games (plus three games on Emperor’s Cup), they had to face two more fixtures – winning 1-0 at Omiya Ardija and Yokohama FC – before crumble in the play-off against Jubilo Iwata, which they lost 2-0.

It was unfair. Jubilo played indeed 42 games all season, but the J. League Cup game haven’t the same weight of J1 League matches. Basically, there were ten games of difference between those two sides. This is unfair and you can adjust that only bringing two teams up from J2 to J1, leaving the second tier with only 20 clubs and a stable structure. This doesn’t mean, though, that some changes wouldn’t be advised.

Founded in 1999 with 10 teams, J2 League saw a great development during 2000s, touching 22 teams in 2012, after Matsumoto Yamaga and Machida Zelvia got promoted from Japan Football League (J3 League is gonna come only from 2014). From there, nothing particularly changed: three promotions (two direct spots and one through play-offs) and an increasing number of relegations (the first conceived was in 2012, with Machida Zelvia being the first team ever-relegated to the third tier), which now are two.

Only in 2018, the relegation/promotion play-off came back, but with this strange structure, J2 League is heavily penalized. Instead, with a new format for J1, things would get even for the second tier: three direct promotions, a fourth to conquer through a double-legged play-offs against the 17th placed-team in J1. And what about relegations? It’d be nice to have the same system towards J3 (three direct relegations and one play-off), but… J3 League needs its time.

The real deal

You can observe the development of Japanese football as further as you go down the pyramid. J3 League is a good example of that: started in 2014 with 13 teams (and one of them was the J. League U-22 Selection, a strange experiment went downhill pretty fast), now it features 18 teams. Yes, three of them are still the U-23 teams, which we all hope to see them gone after this 2019 season, maybe with one of the JFL teams coming up for 2020 (FC Imabari are the main favorites).

But you can see how the league changed: there have been excellent relegations, like seeing the Oita Trinita rebirth in real time, or strange stories, like the championship won by a team which didn’t feature the requirements to go up in J2 (Blaublitz Akita in 2017). Five clubs have gone up and – for now – all of them were able to stay up. Zweigen Kanazawa even led J2 in 2015, just like Renofa Yamaguchi in 2018 or FC Ryukyu right at the early stages of 2019.

Some clubs have reached pro-football from JFL – Kagoshima United, Azul Claro Numazu and now Vanraure Hachinohe – and some clubs are facing new lows due to being relegated to J3 – Kataller Toyama, Gainare Tottori, Giravanz Kitakyushu and now Kamatamare Sanuki and Roasso Kumamoto. You can see in history in real time, because the narrative is powerful.

Rebirths, delusions, joys and disappointments. J3 League is going to be the most interesting division of Japanese football in the next 10-15 years because we’re going to witness so many changes.

Realities from J2 – or even J1! – could magically find themselves struggling into this league because the football scenario will change. And this will work also in reverse: FC Imabari, Iwaki FC, Nara Club, Okinawa SV are all teams to watch out for in the next seasons.

The dream of J3 would be to have enough teams to build two groups into this division, one North and one South. We could potentially have a North Division – with new realities like ReinMeer Aomori, Cobaltore Onagawa, Iwaki FC and Fukui United – and a South Division with new faces like Veertien Mie, FC Imabari, Tegevajaro Miyazaki and Okinawa SV. This will happen. Just like it happened for J3’s foundation in 2014.

And who knows, maybe we’ll have the first relegations from J3 in the next decade. But this opens a spot also for another reform.

JFL, the salt of life

I don’t think JFA has the plan of opening a new pro-division, so Japan Football League will reasonably stay as the fourth tier and the door to professional football. The highest amateur tier is now hostage of the great power of Honda FC, but you wonder why there are only 16 teams. Couldn’t they be 18, maybe also with a special fund from JFA coming from the DAZN agreement?

I don’t have to remind that, but JFL has been a good lab to develop realities that now makes 20,000 people in J1. So, they have to be supported financially and structurally, thinking about an expanded format for JFL. Ditching the two stages-formula from this season is already a step ahead, but who knows what it might happen with solid funding and a new perspective.

That’s the beauty of Japanese football. You know there’s a lot ahead of us, but you still don’t what.