It’s been 33 years since the J.League was inaugurated as the professional football championship in Japan. It was the dawn of a new era, which seems even further away in time given how much Japanese football progressed in the last four decades. We went from a country with no appearances at the FIFA World Cup and just two at the AFC Asian Cups to one which is about to feature in its eighth consecutive tournament and won three more continental titles.
Furthermore, the clubs are not 10 anymore. The “Original 10” turned into 60 fully pro-clubs, even with a couple of them which suffered relegation back to the amateur leagues. Next? The hope of winning the FIFA World Cup itself, 100 pro clubs to be on the Japanese territory, and much, much more. But right now, a question sometimes starts to pop up – are these clubs the right ones to be in the top-flight?
Yes, because that’s a question that often comes up in other football movements, which have decades or even one century of history. There are teams living in the second division of the big leagues, and people saying: “Hey, but given their history, attendance and cabinet, shouldn’t they be in the top-flight?”. Well, this page remains a true believer of pitch-first merits, so you can get Ventforet Kofu five years in a row in J1, for example.
But given how the J.League just turned 33, the question starts to be legit. Would you see someone different in any league? Should be some team higher or lower in the football pyramid? That’s why we put together a panel of a few J.League-sphere experts and asked them how they would place each team. This produced an average value and the final composition of J1, J2 and J3 according to this panel.
For their contributions, we want to thank:
- Sam Robson
- Tiago Bontempo
- Ben Maxwell (The J-Talk Pod)
- Alan Gibson (J. Soccer Magazine)
- Dan Orlowitz
- Jonny Nicol
- Sean Carroll
- Alex Bishop (The Asian Game)
If you ask yourselves which kind of criteria we gave our panel, we mentioned some possible ones:
- History
- Attendance / Crowd
- Relevance in the Prefecture
- Successes
- Players produced
- Future potential
Little final note – it happened as well that some clubs didn’t get a place into the Top 60, mostly J3 clubs who were not seen worthy of a pro-spot. In that case, we took the liberty of adding a full point to the average value (whenever you see “NV”, it means “not voted”). And now that explanations are out of the way, we can start.
J3 League
| Team | Average Vote | Highest Rank | Lowest Rank | Current League |
| Azul Claro Numazu | 59,33 | 53 | NV (x3) | JFL |
| Tegevajaro Miyazaki | 56,71 | 48 | NV (x2) | J2 |
| FC Osaka | 55,33 | 46 | NV (x3) | J3 |
| Vanraure Hachinohe | 54,57 | 42 | NV (x2) | J2 |
| Kamatamare Sanuki | 53,75 | 42 | NV | J3 |
| Nara Club | 52,78 | 46 | 58 (x2) | J3 |
| Gainare Tottori | 52,75 | 43 | NV | J3 |
| SC Sagamihara | 52,33 | 46 (x3) | NV (x3) | J3 |
| Fukushima United FC | 50,78 | 40 | 59 | J3 |
| Tochigi City FC | 47,75 | 38 | NV | J2 |
| Honda FC | 46,00 | 31 | NV (x7) | JFL |
| Thespa Gunma | 46,00 | 38 | NV | J3 |
| Giravanz Kitakyushu | 45,63 | 37 | NV | J3 |
| Kagoshima United FC | 44,89 | 35 | 58 | J3 |
| Ehime FC | 44,67 | 36 | 56 | J3 |
| Tochigi SC | 44,63 | 36 | NV | J3 |
| Fujieda MYFC | 44,25 | 32 | NV | J2 |
| Kataller Toyama | 43,56 | 29 | 50 | J2 |
| FC Gifu | 42,89 | 35 | 49 (x2) | J3 |
| Nagano Parceiro | 42,67 | 30 | 50 | J3 |
Starting with the J3 League, we can see how 14 out of the 20 clubs kept their category in the polls. We have two clubs getting up from the Japan Football League… and if Azul Claro Numazu are no surprise (they just got relegated last year by play-offs after nine years in the third division), Honda FC might be a bit. Perennial JFL champions, they never applied for a professional license, but they got enough votes and a decent average to clinch position 49.
You can see there are a lot of “NV”, non-votes, being judged not worthy material for the professional world. Heck, even three J2 clubs got one – Fujieda MYFC, Tochigi City FC, Vanraure Hachinohe, and Tegevajaro Miyazaki – being left out of the Top 60. Among the 20 who made J3 from our polls, 13 clubs got at least one of those non-judgements. Incredible to see how Nara Club or Fukushima United FC avoided what Giravanz Kitakyushu or Gainare Tottori couldn’t.
There are also current pro-clubs which didn’t make the Top 60, specifically two. They’re pretty new to the professional pyramid, but if for Reilac Shiga is no surprise (they just reached the J3 this year, they still have to play a professional match), it’s a bit surprising for Kochi United SC. Yes, they’re also new to the party, having played just one season in the third division, but still, they didn’t make the cut (and now they’re doing a really good job in the “100-Year Vision League”).
If you look at the average votes as well, there’s a group of 10 teams being compacted into six points. Then between tenth-placed Tochigi City FC and eleventh-placed Fukushima United FC, the gap starts to hit (3 points), while SC Sagamihara are another two full average points behind. From there, the group starts to be again pretty close, until we reach the last pro-team from our polls – Azul Claro Numazu, who just made the chart.
J2 League
| Team | Average Vote | Highest Rank | Lowest Rank | Current League |
| Renofa Yamaguchi | 42,22 | 35 | 54 | J3 |
| FC Ryukyu | 42,00 | 33 | 48 (x3) | J3 |
| FC Imabari | 41,67 | 34 | 51 | J2 |
| Zweigen Kanazawa | 40,22 | 34 | 50 | J3 |
| Blaublitz Akita | 40,00 | 36 | 49 | J2 |
| Roasso Kumamoto | 37,22 | 33 | 52 | J3 |
| Iwaki FC | 37,00 | 22 | 54 | J2 |
| Mito HollyHock | 31,78 | 23 | 36 | J1 |
| Tokushima Vortis | 29,67 | 21 | 33 (x2) | J2 |
| Fagiano Okayama | 29,33 | 23 | 35 | J1 |
| Oita Trinita | 28,22 | 23 | 33 | J2 |
| Montedio Yamagata | 28,00 | 21 | 32 | J2 |
| Ventforet Kofu | 27,89 | 23 | 34 | J2 |
| Matsumoto Yamaga | 27,33 | 13 | 37 | J3 |
| Sagan Tosu | 25,22 | 15 | 36 | J2 |
| Yokohama FC | 24,33 | 20 | 28 | J2 |
| V-Varen Nagasaki | 23,89 | 20 (x3) | 31 | J1 |
| Avispa Fukuoka | 22,78 | 18 (x2) | 39 | J1 |
| RB Omiya Ardija | 21,44 | 5 | 28 (x2) | J2 |
| Shonan Bellmare | 20,11 | 16 | 25 | J2 |
Well, nine clubs are out of their space – four from the top-flight, five promoted from the third division. None of them got a non-vote, but you can see several well-known faces from these years in the J1 League. Some lowest ranks are really low – just look at Renofa Yamaguchi and Iwaki FC, who both got a 54th placed-vote from some of our jurors.
Five of these clubs got as the highest rank a vote that would let them being a J1 club – hell, RB Omiya Ardija even got a Top 5 vote. And if you look at the average, 11 clubs are in just 11 points, and all of them have either played or they’re currently featuring in J1. They might look similar on the surface, whether because they have a new stadium, they’ve been in the top-flight for multiple years, or they even played the AFC Champions League (yes, Ventforet Kofu did that).
But then, between Mito HollyHock and Iwaki FC, there’s a gap that looks like a Grand Canyon. Almost six points of average are separating the two realities, although one might say that Iwaki FC – with a constant J2 presence and the support of Under Armour – looked way more developed than Mito HollyHock. But I guess the recent promotion to J1 and the long-standing position of the Ibaraki-based outlet in J2 made the difference.
The real outliar here are Matsumoto Yamaga: among all the 60 teams, Yamaga are the ones who classified the best compared to their actual ranks. They even got some J1 preferences, and in general they climbed to the 27th place, in front of sides who have played in the top-flight in the last years, compared to Matsumoto (who lastly featured in J1 in the 2019 season).
J1 League
| Team | Average Vote | Highest Rank | Lowest Rank | Current League |
| Machida Zelvia | 19,67 | 9 | 31 | J1 |
| Vegalta Sendai | 19,33 | 2 | 31 | J2 |
| Albirex Niigata | 18,33 | 14 | 28 | J2 |
| Kyoto Sanga | 17,56 | 14 | 20 | J1 |
| Júbilo Iwata | 16,33 | 8 (x2) | 46 | J2 |
| JEF United Chiba | 16,11 | 11 | 24 | J1 |
| Tokyo Verdy | 16,00 | 6 | 24 | J1 |
| Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo | 16,00 | 1 | 25 | J2 |
| Cerezo Osaka | 12,11 | 10 (x3) | 17 | J1 |
| Shimizu S-Pulse | 11,78 | 9 | 13 (x3) | J1 |
| FC Tokyo | 11,78 | 8 (x2) | 19 | J1 |
| Kashiwa Reysol | 9,44 | 7 (x2) | 13 | J1 |
| Nagoya Grampus | 8,78 | 3 | 14 | J1 |
| Vissel Kobe | 8,33 | 2 | 18 | J1 |
| Gamba Osaka | 6,33 | 3 (x2) | 16 | J1 |
| Sanfrecce Hiroshima | 6,22 | 3 | 19 | J1 |
| Yokohama F. Marinos | 5,11 | 2 | 7 (x2) | J1 |
| Kawasaki Frontale | 4,67 | 2 (x2) | 10 | J1 |
| Urawa Red Diamonds | 3,00 | 2 (x4) | 5 | J1 |
| Kashima Antlers | 1,22 | 1 (x8) | 3 | J1 |
Only four clubs got the chance to climb back to the top-flight, and those choices are not casual. Vegalta Sendai have a long history in the top-flight, which lasted almost 15 years before dropping to J2; Albirex Niigata just got relegated, but while coming back to J1, they produced some wonderful talents, and reached a J.League Cup final. Same for Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo, and Júbilo Iwata… well, they even won the J1 League a few times.
Well, if there’s something immediately popping up to our eyes, it’s Kashima Antlers. They’re not just first – in our panel’s view, only one person didn’t put them as the most iconic J.League team. It was a Bulgarian victory, but it’s probably justified not just by the status they accumulated over the years (having won so much in their history), but also by the fact they’re the reigning champions and they look on the brink of a new dynasty, built under new head coach Toru Oniki.
More surprising facts? I’d say the no. 1 vote for Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo is a starter. As lowest rank, I’m particularly surprised by Gamba Osaka (16th) and Sanfrecce Hiroshima (19th), given their history in the top-flight. Last but not least, we’ve talked about Júbilo Iwata, and the span between their highest rank (8th, twice) and lowest (46th!) is incredible. But that’s also the beauty of this small panel we’ve put together.
In conclusion, we have an ideal J.League. And then there’s the real one, where Tegevajaro Miyazaki just won one of the four groups in the “100-Year Vision League”, while another group winner – Kataller Toyama – was about to get relegated a few months ago and now they seem unstoppable. That’s the beauty of the J.League: it’s turning 33 years old, and yet the tides don’t want to stop. And we’re all witnesses.
