Iwaki

Fukushima Prefecture has two professional clubs: Iwaki FC against Fukushima United, a fixture the region calls the Fukushima Derby. It is a young quarrel. The club that supplies half of it did not exist until 2012, and for its first years it was playing regional football against opponents nobody outside Tohoku could name.

What Iwaki became known for first was a night in the second round of the 2017 Emperor's Cup, when a semi-amateur side beat J1's Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo 5–2. The league work took longer. Two National Club Team Football Championships came in 2016 and 2017, the Tohoku first division and the regional play-offs in 2019, then the Japan Football League title in 2021 and the J3 League a year later — promotion in consecutive seasons, and ten years from founding to J2.

The ground explains the nickname. Hawaiians Stadium Iwaki sits inside the Spa Resort Hawaiians complex, which is how a club in northern Japan came to play in King Red, borrowed from Hawaiian royal dress, alongside Minato Blue for the port. Mascots modelled on the Futabasaurus.

Yuzo Tamura has had the team through most of it. He took over in 2017, when Iwaki were still in the regional leagues, stayed to the JFL title in 2021, left, and came back in 2023. Hiromasa Suguri held the job between them and won the J3 title with it. Among the players, the arrival that registered widest was Wataru Iwashita, once captain of the Japan national team, who signed in 2023.