Imabari

The ground sits on a hillside above the city. That is the setting: terraced fields, a stand, and a club in a port city in Ehime Prefecture.

It began in 1976. Between 2009 and 2011 it was not even fully its own club — it operated as a feeder side for Ehime FC under the name Ehime FC Shimanami. The turn came in 2014, when Takeshi Okada, who had managed Japan's national team, bought a controlling stake in a side then playing regional football.

What followed was steady rather than sudden. Five Shikoku Soccer League titles came between 2011 and 2016; the last of them was paired with victory in the Regional Promotion Series, which carried the club into the Japan Football League. Third place there in 2019 brought a J3 licence and professional status. Lluís Planagumà took the side up through both stages, out of J3 in 2024 with a second-place finish, and into J2.

The blue-and-yellow shirts have no nickname attached to them, which is unusual in a league fond of them.

The rivalry that matters is close to home and older than the club's professional years. Ehime FC, once the parent, now the opponent: the Iyo Kessen derby sets Imabari against the prefecture's established side, the one it used to send players to and take players from. Tokushima Vortis and Kamatamare Sanuki come from the same island and provide fixtures with an edge, but the Ehime meeting is the one where the two sides know exactly what they were to each other.