Nagoya Grampus

The Tōkai Derby sets Nagoya against Júbilo Iwata and Shimizu S-Pulse, and the fixture has never needed much dressing up: it is a derby with no love lost. Closer to home there is Gifu.

The club began in 1939 as Toyota Motor SC, and it kept that shape until 1990, when it was restructured and renamed Nagoya Grampus Eight — the Eight taken from the city emblem. It was among the founding members of the J.League in 1993, and dropped the Eight from its name in 2008.

Arsène Wenger arrived in the mid-1990s and left with the Emperor's Cup of 1995 and a runners-up finish in the league. The player who mattered most in that period stayed longer: Dragan Stojković, MVP in 1995, played until 2001, then came back as manager and delivered the club's only league title, in 2010. The Emperor's Cups of 1995 and 1999, the League Cups of 2021 and 2024, the Super Cups.

Keisuke Honda came through the academy here before the title years.

Home is the football-specific Toyota Stadium, 44,692 seats, in Toyota rather than Nagoya itself; some matches are played at the Paloma Mizuho Stadium in the city.

The low point came in 2016, when the club was relegated to J2. Promotion followed at the first attempt, in 2017, but a second league title has not.