V-Varen Nagasaki

Ariake SC, founded in 1985, played prefectural football; Kunimi FC was built around graduates of a high school programme. Their merger in 2004 produced a single management corporation and in 2005 the merged side took the name V-Varen Nagasaki.

The climb ran through the amateur pyramid: the Kyushu Soccer League title in 2006, then the JFL championship in 2012. That second one mattered more than the trophy — it took the club straight into J2 for 2013, so V-Varen have never played a match in J3.

Promotion to J1 came with second place in J2 in 2017. The first season in the top flight, 2018, finished 18th and ended in relegation, and the club spent the following years within reach without getting through: third in 2020, third again in 2024, before finishing second in 2025 to go back up for 2026.

The cup runs are worth a line. Nagasaki reached the Emperor's Cup semi-finals in 2019, and the same year beat Real Salt Lake 3–1 to win the Pacific Rim Cup. Elsewhere the record is thinner: the last sixteen in 2014, 2022 and 2024.

Home is PEACESTADIUM Connected by SoftBank, a 20,000-seat ground whose name carries the city's own history rather than the club's. The blue and orange shirt is played in front of a crowd that waited two decades for a J1 season and has now been given a second.