It’s all smiles at the Prifoods Stadium. A 5-1 home win, a great night of football, and more than 2,000 spectators happy to see another step in the right direction. It’s also been the biggest win in J3 League’s history for the hosts – tying another one, back in their debut campaign in the championship, when they won 5-1 against Kamatamare Sanuki. Funnily enough, no one from those who played that day are still around.
It isn’t been that long from the COVID seasons, when the club was actually struggling a lot. If you look back at 2020 and 2021, they actually have been really close to danger zone. Back in 2020, 15th out of 18 clubs; in 2021, 13th out of 15 clubs – not the best performances. But after that, somehow, the club got out of trouble and started having some real consistency – even reaching the left part of the table in back-to-back seasons.
And who would have thought that? In the end, we’re talking about a bunch of misfits, an old head coach (he’s 67 years old and he started his first job as a head coach in 1995!), and a small market – the perfect mix to fail and fall back to JFL and the semi-pro football… or is it? Vanraure Hachinohe are producing a season to remember, and it’s even hard to put in words the miracle they’re pulling through from their resources.
The 5-1 home win against FC Gifu is not just a testament of the good job they’re doing in 2025, but also a chance for the first time to talk about them on these pages, and a reminder of how the further you go down the ladder of Japanese football, the less money are a factor. And that’s what makes it fascinating, isn’t it? Oh, and also a reminder for the future – because Vanraure could soon have company in the region within the pro-football world.
Aomori Calling
When it comes down to Japanese football, there’s an easy equation: the further you get away from Tokyo, the harder it gets to find solid football clubs. But if you go south, there a lot of them – maybe not as successful as others, but there are (Kyushu is a football trip itself, with a lot of pro teams). It’s different though in the North – the moment you go beyond Yamagata, Niigata or Sendai, Sapporo and Akita are basically the main hubs for the first two divisions.
Aomori Prefecture has been more known for their amazing high school program – Aomori Yamada High School has won the High School Championship several times, Go Kuroda built that program, and footballers like Gaku Shibasaki and Kuryu Matsuki have come from there. But pro-team? Vanraure Hachinohe were just a hope back in 2006, when they were founded. The name comes from the combination of Italian words – “australe” standing for “southern town” and “derivante”, which means “coming from”.
Back at the time, Hachinohe SC and Nango FC merged to form “Vanraure Hachinohe”, starting from the Division 2 North of the Tohoku Soccer League (the sixth level of Japanese football). In 2010, they participated to the Emperor’s Cup for the first time; they survived the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and they reached Division 1 in 2013. They immediately got a J.League Membership status, and reached Japan Football League in 2014 – since J3 League was formed and absorbed several teams from the JFL.
They hoped for immediate J3, but their stadium didn’t have the requirements. So they started a long fight to climb the ladder, spending five years in the JFL. In 2015, they won one stage of the championship and came second in the table, but the stadium wasn’t still good for pro-football. Somehow, in 2018 – despite their head coach being forced to resign mid-season due to health issues – Vanraure reached the Top 4 and finally got the green light from the J.League to play in the pros.
The Hard Reality of the Pro-World
As many debutants showed, in the J3 League you can have the surprise factor on your side. Hachinohe was no exception – despite having an underwhelming squad, they closed their maiden campaign in J3 with a 10 place-finish under head coach Atsuto Oishi. It was a good start, including a third-round exit in the Emperor’s Cup, and a 1,760 average attendance. For the Northest-team in J3, it was a decent start.
As anticipated, though, 2020 & 2021 were a struggle. Both head coaches Masashi Nakaguchi and Masahiro Kuzuno – the one who had to retire in 2018 and didn’t have a license to coach pro at the time – failed in making the team cohesive. And with talks of possible relegations finally getting introduced in the J3 League, I wasn’t so sure that Hachinohe would have survived that. Instead, they got their coaches right.
For the 2022 season, Vanraure hired Ryo Shigaki to replace Kuzuno mid-season. At the time, Shigaki was a 42 years-old assistant coach who spent a lot of time in England in his youth – even playing at non-pro level – and who then got into several clubs with different tasks (Nagoya Grampus, JEF United Chiba, Avispa Fukuoka, Gainare Tottori, Jubilo Iwata, Kyoto Sanga). With his first head coach gig, Shigaki brought Vanraure to a safe 10th place-finish, and then left to coach FC Osaka.
Then Hachinohe hired a great figure of the J.League-sphere, Nobuhiro Ishizaki – who stabilised Kataller Toyama before going up North. Ishizaki has made something amazing, bringing Vanraure first to a 7th place-finish in 2023, and then keeping the bar high with a 11th place-finish in 2024. Not only that, because Hachinohe increased their average attendance, and he’s now the second-most present coach in the championship (232 matches).
A Miracle in the Making?
I guess we were expecting Hachinohe to stay above water and avoid troubles in 2025. They’re doing so much more than that – they never fell below 10th place, but they’re on a roll, with six wins and one draw in the last seven matches. And now they’re one point from direct promotion, which sounds insane (but Tochigi City FC and FC Osaka are in the Top 2, so I guess we’re in Crazytown already). Furthermore, Ishizaki gave life to a group of players who were basically written off from other adventures.
Shogo Onishi has been a solid keeper for J3, yet he was let go by Kagoshima – and now he’s got 10 clean sheets in 20 games. Hiroto Yukie was a forward in Fukushima, and he’s a proven center-back in Hachinohe. Shoma Otoizumi was one of the most interesting wing-backs at this level and now he’s back to par in terms of performances. Naoya Senoo was a leftover from the Gamba Osaka U-23 project and he’s got now 200 games in J3.
They’ve done all of this despite having as top-scorers three players with four goals each. They have the best defence in J3 (alongside FC Osaka – just 13 goals conceded), and they won 12 games and drew once out of the 13 matches in which they took the lead. Hachinohe have also one of the oldest rosters in the champions (27.7 years on average, with no foreigners). Their season reminds me a lot of the 2021 campaign of Tegevajaro Miyazaki – when they were leading the table two matches to go and they squandered it in the end.
And it’s crucial that Vanraure Hachinohe keep this level performance now, because they could soon have company. In fact, ReinMeer Aomori could be a danger to face in such a small market – and they might have shot of coming up from the JFL this year. Wouldn’t be ironic to see Vanraure coming up in the moment Aomori has finally a Derby at the pro-level on their hands?
