Japan and South America, a long-standing relationship. The tie between the country of the Rising Sun and Brazil, with the Masato Kuru’s trip of Japanese people from their country to Brazil in search of wealth. The huge interest from South America over J.League – we could recommend so many pages around that, and we even interview of one the founders of such projects.
But on the pitch, there was a time when a trophy connected Japan to South America. It started as something mostly financed by Japan – and precisely by Suruga Bank, a financial institution born in 1985 in Numazu, Shizuoka Prefecture. They probably saw into these South American ties an opportunity for an easy publicity stunt. It ran for a decade, and most of the time – looking it from Europe – we asked ourselves why that happened.
But in the end, that competition kept following the evolution of Japanese football, and how the distance of that movement shrank further and further compared to South America. We had memorable finals, several teams involved on both sides, and it’s a bummer that hasn’t been played since 2019 – probably because Suruga Bank revoked their support from 2018, and neither JFA or CONMEBOL saw a benefit anymore in running it.
To recap, the finals we lost in these five years would have been:
- 2020: Kawasaki Frontale v. Independiente del Valle
- 2021: FC Tokyo v. Defensa y Justicia
- 2022: Nagoya Grampus v. Athletico Paranaense
- 2023: Sanfrecce Hiroshima v. Independiente del Valle
- 2024: Avispa Fukuoka v. LDU Quito
But how we got here?
The Experiment and the Start
To think that everything started way before the end of the millennium with the “Sanwa Bank Cup” – an unofficial competition created by J.League and sponsored by the Sanwa Bank, a famous financial entity from Osaka, who later suffered the consequences of the Japanese asset price bubble in the 90s. But back then, they decided to host a single match between the winners of the J.League Champions’ Final and the title holders from a prestigious league.
After that experiment – and others we’ll mention at the end of this piece -, the J.League felt something was missing. The J1 brought you to the AFC Champions League, the Emperor’s Cup did the same and gave you the access to the successive year’s Japanese Super Cup. Even when you won it, the J.League Cup brought you nowhere – and Saburo Kawabuchi with Kenji Onitake felt that was unfair.
So they went to CONMEBOL, proposing to Nicolas Leoz and Eudardo Deluca the creation of a new competition. The idea? Bringing together the J.League Cup winners and the Copa Sudamericana title holders. And that’s when, in 2008, the Suruga Bank Championship saw their first outing with a very, very particular match.
Despite Gamba Osaka were on the run to win the AFC Champions League, they just won the J.League Cup in ’07 – and they found themselves playing a strange match against the 2007 Copa Sudamericana winners, Arsenal de Sarandí. In front of almost 20k spectators, Gamba lost 1-0 at the end, thanks to a late goal by Arsenal’s captain, Carlos Castiglione. But it was just the beginning.
Memorable Moments
2010 was probably the first memorable one, because Japan finally got the better of their opponents. After Gamba Osaka and Oita Trinita losing, FC Tokyo won in front of their home fans against LDU Quito. It was strange, because the game came just after the World Cup break, plus that home side was going to be relegated a few months after. Nevertheless, Masashi Oguro was the hero – scoring an equaliser in injury time.
To us, the 2014 final was probably the most emotional of all – Japan concluded a five victories-streak with Kashiwa Reysol winning against Lanús. There was a red card, Reysol won it just in injury time, and the Argentinian side didn’t take very well – even when the final whistle was blown, there were some brawls between the two teams. Very unusual, but it encapsulated the tie.
Then in 2015 we had a Copa Sudamericana winner play TWICE in Japan – yeah, because River Plate won the 2014 edition, but then won as well the 2015 Copa Liberadores. So the club from Buenos Aires travelled twice to Japan – first to play the Suruga Bank Champions in August (won 3-0 against Gamba Osaka), and then in December to play the FIFA Club World Cup (where they lost in the final against Barcelona).
In 2017, there wasn’t just the last Japanese win in this tournament, but also a touching moment. Urawa Red Diamonds hosted this edition, and faced Chapecoense – who famously were awarded the Copa Libertadores the year before after the dreadful aerial disaster of November 2016 that cancelled their squad and left 71 dead. A completely renewed side travelled to Saitama and lost to a penalty from Yuki Abe (caused by then captain Douglas Grolli).
What This Championship Taught Us?
All of this recap to push one final target – more cooperation. It’s a bummer that this cup doesn’t exist anymore, and it’d be nice to give further meaning to the J.League Cup – which finally enjoys some unpredictability with a new format, but gives no access to either the AFC Champions League Elite or the Japanese Super Cup. Last but not least, there are other examples that are flying around from the world.
UEFA and CONMEBOL are desperate to preserve their duopoly over football world, but the latter are struggling to keep the rhythm with their clubs. So they started investing in an exchange – which brought the “Finalissima” between the UEFA Euro winners and the Copa América title holders in 2022 (Italy v. Argentina) and the UEFA-CONMEBOL Challenge Cup in 2023 (Sevilla FC v. Independiente del Valle).
To think that Japan was actually pioneering this kind of experiments with a lot of tournaments in the 2000s and 2010s:
- The A3 Champions Cup (2003-2007), which featured the league champions from Japan, South Korea, and China, plus another team from the nation hosting each edition.
- The Pan-Pacific Championship (2008-2009), which saw teams from several nations (the aforementioned, but also USA, Australia, New Zealand) and saw just two editions before faltering.
- The Toyota Premier Cup (2011-2017), which witnessed the match between the Thai league defending champions and an invited team from the J.League.
With the J.League Cup being shortened, something new could start. The J.League Cup hosting the winners of the UEFA Conference League? The title holders of CAF Confederations Cup? The newly-crowned winners of the AFC Champions League Elite Two? The MLS Cup winners? Possibilities are endless, if you wanna find them.
