Anchor

It’s always tough to come back to old habits. Whether you like it or not, it’s often hard to return to old ways of being, behaving around people, and facing reality. That’s a forced habit for relegated teams, especially when they’re coming back to the lower divisions after having lived a good life in the top-flight.

One of those clubs to endure this change was definitely Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo. So much changed for them that they actually needed a landmark to rely upon, a steady hand through the storm. And if that couldn’t be the new coach, maybe it could have been a player. Yes, but who? Maybe a prodigal son, who came back full of love towards the club.

“Even when I wasn’t playing here, I couldn’t feel disconnected from Consadole. I’ve been with the club since elementary school, and I was very loved by the fans. Returning to the club, even in J2, felt right.” Music and lyrics by Tomoki Takamine, who was born in Hokkaido, and bled red and black throughout his whole professional life.

He doesn’t look back on his (brief) European adventure with regrets: “Going to Europe after joining Reysol was a big one. I think it was a good experience”. And now that he’s back, Takamine captains Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo, his beloved team, and pull them out of the mud in the worst of times in this year’s J2 League. That’s why he was voted as the “Best Signing” in our Regista Awards.

A first return

It’s not the first time Takamine has had to come back to Sapporo on his own legs. He was born in 1997 in Minami-ku, the Southern district of Sapporo, but moved with his family around the Hokkaido Prefecture throughout his formative years. This didn’t mean that Takamine didn’t join Consadole’s youth ranks

Despite this long period spent in Consadole’s youth ranks, Takamine didn’t get promoted to the first team, and he had to face another experience by joining the University of Tsukuba. He was in the same class as Kaoru Mitoma. This university team had a wonderful run in the 2017 Emperor’s Cup, reaching the Round of 16 and then losing against Omiya Ardija.

In the end, though, the goal was clear for Takamine. Already in his freshman year, he confessed his true objective: “I have the idea of going back to (Sapporo) first, gaining experience there, and eventually going beyond that.” And that’s exactly what happened, because Takamine re-joined Consadole first as a special designated player in 2019, then as a full member of the roster in 2020.

Takamine spent three full seasons with Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo, featuring in a lot of matches and several roles under head coach Mihailo Petrovic. He was tried as a left wing-back, left centre-back, and then picked up as a holding midfielder. After more than 100 games in all competitions, he decided to move somewhere else.

Between J1 & Europe

The next stop was Kashiwa Reysol. Takamine moved in the hope of raising his profile, and probably felt his trajectory in Sapporo was over. Little did he know about the mistake of joining Reysol – a club in full turmoil, with two 17th-placed finishes in 2023 and 2024, and Masami Ihara as the head coach. It wasn’t the best time for the Chiba outfit.

Furthermore, Takamine broke his leg in March 2024 and came back just in June. It seemed a rough patch to overcome, but when he came back, someone spotted him from abroad. In fact, KV Kortrijk – a Belgian outfit that had already featured Tsuyoshi Watanabe and many other Japanese players in the last three years – decided to use their chips on Takamine, convincing him to join in the Summer of 2024. 

It felt a decent deal, since many Japanese players used the Jupiler Pro League to try their luck abroad. And in the end, Takamine did play several matches there: 19 games under his belt in the first part of the 2024-25 season, eight of them from the bench. But then Takamine decided to leave mid-season in his rookie year, and there’s some eerie data to check around Kortrijk and Japanese players.

Among the six who featured with the Belgian side, only Watanabe stayed for 18 months. Satoshi Tanaka, now at Sanfrecce Hiroshima, lasted just one season. And the other four – Takamine, Takuro Kaneko, Haruya Fujii, Ryutaro Tsunoda – were kept only for six months. So there was no surprise in seeing Takamine coming back to Sapporo last January to start over (Kortrijk, in the meantime, got relegated).

Sapporo needed a saviour

We talked back in March about how the relegation might have been tough to swallow for the club. Sapporo had (deservedly) spent almost a decade in J1, almost winning the J.League Cup in 2019, and managing several talents in a long stint under head coach Mihailo Petrovic. There was none of that anymore in J2 – everything was dismantled to restart fresh, with a new head coach, new players, etc.

Daiki Iwamasa was a tough choice, and it didn’t work out. The senators were and are almost all at the end of their cycles in Sapporo (e.g. Arano, Fukai, Miyazawa are all over 30). And the talent brought in wasn’t enough to even hope of having a chance at the play-off, let alone a direct promotion. But there was one positive news: the return of Takamine, who was named captain for the 2025 season.

The midfielder hasn’t just been a leader; he’s been the spinal cord of the club in a very grim year. Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo closed the season 12th in the table, and they never ranked higher than 9th. But Takamine has been an MVP candidate all season long, managing the pressure of leading the team, playing out of position, and also… scoring 10 goals (with four braces!) in the process.

In fact, Takamine has been the only Sapporo player to score double-digits of goals, and the top scorer of his team. That came through free-kick masterpieces, rockets from outside the penalty box, and he scored more in 2025 than in his entire career. Sapporo needs an anchor to start over and survive the storm – Takamine has proven he can be that guy, helping the team climb back to J1.