Japan is home to arguably the world's most brutal football league.
Several European players, including World Cup winners Fernando Torres and David Villa, have sought to make Japan the final stop in their storied careers. The country offers competitive football in the form of the J1 League, while providing a completely different cultural surrounding to what many stars are used to.
Yet one division in the nation’s footballing pyramid arguably takes the idea of competition too far. The Japanese Regional Leagues are the fifth step in Japanese football, sitting below the J1, J2, J3 and Japan Football League (JFL).
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They boast an astonishing 135 clubs across nine sub-regional leagues, which makes promotion to the fourth tier immensely difficult. Bear with us because the criteria for earning promotion is as complicated as it is completely bonkers.
The end of the season sees each of the nine leagues’ winners and the sides placing 1st-3rd in the lower league cup (Shakaijin Cup) reach a champions group stage. There, the 12 teams who have qualified are put into three groups of four teams, facing each other in a single round-robin in a neutral city.
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Winners from each of the three groups, and the highest-scoring runner-up across all three groups, then enter another group stage made up of four teams for another round of fixtures. The two highest ranked clubs after all their efforts are rewarded with a playoff match – against two relegated JFL (tier four) clubs.
But the twist which makes promotion such a gruelling task is that the Regional League sides play away from home in a single-legged fixture. And to top it off, they must win the decisive game to earn their spot in the JFL, meaning they would miss out with just a draw.
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In other words, their entire season’s work comes down to one away fixture which they must win. Absolutely savage? We think so.
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