INAC Kobe Leonessa

Kobe's WE League club opens the season chasing back-to-back titles, having lifted the trophy in 2025–26 after taking the very first one in 2021–22, when the league launched as Japan's first fully professional women's competition and INAC Kobe Leonessa stood among its founding members.

The club started out in April 2001 as an amateur side called INAC Leonessa, and only took the Kobe name in 2009. Long before the WE League existed, this was already the team to beat: three straight Nadeshiko League Division 1 titles from 2011 to 2013, and an Empress's Cup habit that runs to seven wins, most recently in 2023. That 2011-13 run coincided with the peak of the Japan side that won the 2011 World Cup.

Mana Iwabuchi and Ji So-yun passed through the squad in that period as well, and the current team fields Hina Sugita and Mina Tanaka, though the club's identity still leans on its Sawa-era peak more than any one player since. Its WE League rivalry with Sanfrecce Hiroshima Regina has no fixed name attached to it, and the older meetings with Nippon TV Tokyo Verdy Beleza belong to a different competitive era altogether.

Home games are played in front of a crowd capacity of just over 30,000 at Noevir Stadium Kobe, also known as Kobe Universiade Memorial Stadium.