November 23rd, 2015 – a sunny Winter afternoon in Tottori. The city is well-known for its amazing beaches, which bring a lot of relax to the tourists traveling there. Unfortunately, there’s no relax awaiting the visitors that day. The last matchday of the J3 League sees Gainare Tottori hosting leaders Renofa Yamaguchi, who have been dominating the division as a newly-promoted team, but now they’re crumbling under the pressure of the finish line.
Despite scoring multitudes of goals and having (still to this day) the player with the most prolific J3 season ever (Kazuhito Kishida, 34 goals and one more on that match), Renofa just couldn’t close the deal. In the end, they won just one of the final five matches (including an incredible 0-0 draw at home against the J.League U-22 team, after beating them 8-0 a few months earlier). And despite having defeated them in the last meeting, Machida Zelvia were heavily breathing on their necks.
It’s an incredible team, looking ten years after: Jun Ichimori in goal (with Masaaki Murakami being the back-up!); Kenji Dai, Kyohei Kuroki, and mostly Ryuta Koike in defence; Yoshihiro Shoji, Takaki Fukumitsu, Kazuki Kozuka, and Yatsunori Shimaya as midfielders; Kishida up-front closing any offensive action. But on that November afternoon, things took another wrong turn. Twice. Renofa conceded right away, only to draw and concede again with 15 minutes to go.
Only a legendary strike from Kiyohiro Hirabayashi – who took a two year-break to play futsal! – avoided the worst and brought Yamaguchi to J2. Renofa have been able to survive there for 10 seasons, even producing some fun players… but their demotion was on the cards for a few years. And now that they’re back to J3, you have to wonder: what’s their perspective? Is there space for the Yamaguchi Prefecture to taste again some J2 football?
The Rise to the Pro-World
Compared to other clubs, Renofa Yamaguchi were born very early. It was 1949 when the Yamaguchi Prefecture Football Teachers Association first formed a football club. That turned into “Renofa” only in 2006 – with “reno-“ coming from “renovation” and the suffix “-fa” being taken from the words “fight” and “fine”. Renofa Yamaguchi dominated the Chugoku Soccer League, especially when they returned there for good in 2006 – winning three times in eight years.
Only 2013 though was the good year to be promoted to the Japan Football League, also taking advantage of the fact that many team were going up towards the future J3 League. And immediately Renofa finished fourth and racked up an average of 2,297 spectators, which was enough to enter the pro-world. We told you already about the 2015 season – so we better skip it to the second-division, where Renofa immediately left an impact.
In 2016, Yamaguchi even travelled in the playoffs zone, being seventh until Matchday 30. Unfortunately, they didn’t make it, but it seemed the beginning of something. Instead, Renofa floated around the league with some high variation: eighth in 2018 and eleventh in 2024 (respectively under Masahiro Shimoda and Ryo Shigaki), the club also had terrible seasons (20th in 2017, dead last in 2020, again 20th in 2023). But the players they produced were very good.
I mean, we mentioned some of the incredible players who populated the team who won the J3 League title in 2015, but even after that, Renofa were able to nurture some amazing talent. Ado Onaiwu had the time of his life on loan; then we could mention Masato Nakayama, Takahiro Ko, Keita Yamashita, Kaili Shimbo, Kazuma Takai, Kosuke Onose, Takaya Numata, Ryuho Kikuchi, and even Ota Yamamoto last year. Yeah, last year – speaking of that…
2025: Credits are rolling
With the kind of season they were having in 2024 under Shigaki, it felt that nothing could go wrong in 2025. Yes, they lost defensive anchor Renan and their creative wing-back Kaili Shimbo, but they got a lot of experience in return (Masashi Kamekawa, Takumi Miyayoshi, Naoto Misawa). Plus, the loan of youngster Ota Yamamoto turned out to be very profitable – the loanee from Kashiwa Reysol scored 10 goals.
Unfortunately, from Matchday 7 – after a loss in Akita against Blaublitz –, Renofa Yamaguchi never left the drop zone. They were always either third-last or second-last; they let go Shigaki after a 2-0 loss in Ehime and replaced him with Genki Nakayama. The average point-per-game ratio between the two wasn’t so different (0.96 v. 1.06); and in the end, Renofa didn’t score that much, having bagged just 36 goals (and it took them until the last game against RB Omiya to score more than two in one match).
Not just that – Renofa had only 13 players scoring goals in J2 for them last year, which is the second-worst performances among those teams. And last but not least, Renofa did well at home (gathering 23 points), but they were the worst team away from their stadium (just 13 points and two wins – against Jubilo Iwata and Roasso Kumamoto). In the end, it seemed written that they were going to drop back to J3.
Adapt or Die
Renofa Yamaguchi are facing the same dilemma that other teams dropped from J2 have faced: can they go back? Some indicators around the Prefecture would say no. Population in Yamaguchi is decreasing; same goes for the people going to the stadium. In 2016, the average spectators were 6,654, on the wave of their spectacular brand of football and the promotion to J2. Now we’re at 5,767 – which is not bad, but Renofa faced the worst drop (-5,2%) among non-relegated teams.
And there’s another factor: the J3 League is very different from 2015. Back then, there were only 13 teams, and some of them had neither purpose or will to go up. The squad Renofa had was very good, and they could count on the “surprise factor” of coming up from the JFL (which keeps working even in this league). But coming back to J2 from a J3 drop is something that only 4-5 teams achieved. And often they have to do it right away, otherwise it’s a tough mountain to climb (ask Matsumoto Yamaga how it’s going…).
I think the best choice that for now Renofa Yamaguchi have taken is about the manager: Michiharu Otagiri isn’t just the man who basically brought Kataller Toyama back to relevance and to the J2 League, but he’s also done very well in his stint with Nara Club in the second part of the 2025 season. He’s coached in J3 for more than 100 matches, and all of those have come recently. Furthermore, the first outing of Renofa against Kumamoto saw some glimpses of good football.
About the roster, it could be a playoffs contender: they kept around some of the senators, they brought in some interesting signings – Naoki Nomura from Oita Trinita, Kensei Nakashima from Nara Club, Kazuki Oiwa from Shonan Bellmare, and mostly Kosuke Fujioka from FC Imabari (who has already 48 goals in J3 under his name). I think they could be on the run for a spot in the playoffs, but only time will tell if the sun we’re seeing in Yamaguchi promises dawn or dusk.
