Matsumoto Yamaga

Matsumoto Yamaga go into this season in the J3 League, still chasing the promotion that slipped away in 2024, when a fourth-place finish carried them into the play-offs but no further. Nobuhiro Ishizaki took over the bench from Tomonobu Hayakawa in December.

The club's shape was set long before the J.League existed. It started in 1965 as Yamaga Club, put together by players from the Nagano prefectural side, and took its name from a coffee shop the group used to meet in. Only in 2004, once a nonprofit body called the Alwin Sports Project began pushing the team toward professional status, did it become Matsumoto Yamaga.

Green and white are the colours, and the Ptarmigan nickname comes from the bird that stands as the symbol of Nagano Prefecture. Matches against AC Nagano Parceiro are known locally as the Shinshu Derby.

The one season that still defines the club came in 2018, when Matsumoto Yamaga won the J2 League outright and went up to the top flight. It did not stay there: relegation followed in 2019, promotion came straight back, and by 2021 the club had dropped as far as J3. Daizen Maeda came through that team before his move to Yokohama F. Marinos and on to Celtic.

For now, the ground remains J3, and the aim is the one Ishizaki inherited.