The Hachi #13: Fear and loathing in Ajinomoto
A nearly-dead derby attempts to wake up
Hello subscribers and anyone else reading! Sorry for the delayed delivery on this lucky issue, but as it turns out there’s a surprising amount one can write about a rivalry that has technically been on its deathbed — or at least comatose — for most of the last 16 years.
Growing up as a Philadelphia sports fan in the 1990s required little in the way of orientation: Four pro sports, four pro teams, one address and a hell of an enemies list.
For the 76ers it was the Celtics and Knicks; Flyers fans’ biggest boos were reserved for the Penguins, Devils, Rangers and Bruins; Phillies series against the Braves and Mets were always special, and everyone had a bootleg $5 ‘Dallas Sucks’ T-shirt in their closet for Eagles games that they might also wear to NFC East clashes against the Giants and Washington.
The city’s ‘four-for-four’ status inspired a purer sense of tribal loyalty, unmarred by the interborough rivalries or freeway series that New York or Los Angeles had: This is our city, these are our teams, everyone else can go to hell.
Then a little over 17 years ago, I made the move to Tokyo, which today boasts two baseball teams, three soccer teams, seven basketball teams, four rugby teams, five volleyball teams, two American football teams, three futsal teams and two handball teams competing in Japan’s professional (or at least elite) leagues1.
Some, like NPB’s Yomiuri Giants and Yakult Swallows, are fierce rivals. Others, like the B.League’s Sun Rockers Shibuya and Tachikawa Dice, never face each other as they play in separate divisions.
And then you have soccer’s FC Tokyo — my own personal gateway to Japanese soccer — and Tokyo Verdy, whose rivalry has the potential to become one of the J.League’s most intense.
If only they could figure out what they want out of the relationship.
To understand the Tokyo Derby’s liminal status is to understand professional soccer’s struggle to take hold in the capital, a ramification of the league’s decision to launch without a Tokyo club in 1992 and to further designate the National Stadium as seichi (聖地) — a “holy place” or neutral territory reserved for the most important of games such as cup finals.
That decision came at the expense of Verdy, whose owner Yomiuri had petitioned to base the team in the city — only to shift to Kawasaki due to the lack of a J.League-appropriate stadium in Tokyo proper.2
The lack of a Tokyo team allowed the other big Kanto-area clubs — particularly Kashima Antlers, Urawa Reds and Yokohama Marinos — to build up their followings in the region, setting any future Tokyo club back years in terms of community building.
The J.League bubble had already begun to deflate by the time Tokyo Gas professionalized its company team in 1998 — the same year that Yokohama Flugels were controversially absorbed into Marinos after their ownership withdrew support.
As a co-founder of the second-division J2 in 1999, FC Tokyo swiftly captured the hearts and minds of Tokyoites who had been desperate for a team to call their own.
Meanwhile, Verdy Kawasaki’s fortunes had declined since the club’s golden era, with Kawasaki Frontale — another ‘Original J2’ club — swiftly dominating a city that had grown increasingly disillusioned with Verdy’s focus on establishing themselves as a national superclub rather than building a local identity.
The construction of Tokyo Stadium (now Ajinomoto Stadium) on the site of an old U.S. army base in the western Tokyo suburb of Chofu seemed perfectly timed to offer Verdy a fresh start. But by the time the moving vans arrived in the spring of 2001, FC Tokyo were the club of the capital, and their fans viewed Verdy as unwelcome roommates at best and carpetbaggers at worst.
Attendance figures that season tell the story: FC Tokyo’s home crowds stood at 22,313, while Verdy managed 19,396, a number that only slipped further in the following years and plummeted to the 5-7,000 range during the team’s lengthy stay in the J2.
Yet despite the birth of a capital derby that had the potential to join the likes of Rome, London and Istanbul, those games — all entertaining and intense affairs, never settled by more than a single goal — regularly failed to pack the house in the way that other J.League rivalries could.
The derby’s moribund attendance figures — as low as 13,185 in August 2004 — represented the disconnect between Tokyo’s two big clubs and the city itself, much of which was due to both teams playing in a suburban stadium and struggling to increase their downtown footprints as a result.
Yet even as Verdy’s star fell3, Tokyo’s apogee was never quite as high as it could have risen, with attendances plateauing in the 23-26,000 range before a record-setting 2019 season4 that saw the club finish achingly short of its first-ever J1 title.
Meanwhile, the ‘marketing derby’ between FC Tokyo and Kawasaki Frontale — the Tamagawa Clasico — became a marquee event for both teams, while Verdy and Machida Zelvia — Tokyo’s third J.League club — have contested the Tokyo Classic in the J2. But neither rivalry, if we’re being honest, ever held a candle to the O.G. Tokyo Derby.
Much has changed for both clubs in the pandemic era.
In 2020, sports equipment retailer Xebio Holdings — a longtime Verdy sponsor — bought the club out in somewhat of a hostile takeover, then spent the rest of the pandemic untangling the club’s woeful finances and eventually steering them back to the J1 for the first time since their 2008 relegation.
FC Tokyo, meanwhile, were bought out by major sponsor Mixi in late 2021, with the digital publishing giant focusing heavily on improving the matchday experience and boosting visibility in central Tokyo.
The two teams’ third-round clash in the 2023 Emperor’s Cup was welcomed as a revival of the derby. That match did indeed feature plenty of drama on and off the pitch, with a 9-8 penalty shootout (in FC Tokyo’s favor) overshadowed by vandalism (in egg form) of a Verdy billboard and (very illegal) fireworks set off by blue-and-red supporters as the teams made their entrances.
Ahead of Saturday’s derby — the J1’s first in 16 years — an FC Tokyo staffer stood near the same billboard to discourage vandals, while an increased police presence inside Ajinomoto Stadium was intended to discourage any more unsanctioned pyrotechnics.
Still, banners were displayed and chants were sung, with FC Tokyo fans spending most of the game enthusiastically urging Verdy to return to Kawasaki and Verdy fans reminding everyone in the stadium and watching at home that the symbol of Tokyo is, indeed, green.
What should have been a breezy win for hosts Verdy — ahead 2-0 at halftime and with a man advantage after Soma Anzai’s red card — instead turned into a shock 2-2 draw, with Keita Endo scoring twice in the last 30 minutes to salvage a point for the ecstatic visitors.
But while 31,746 had gathered at Ajinomoto, even more — 39,080, to be precise — were on hand to watch J1 debutants Machida Zelvia, the J.League’s third Tokyo club, fall 2-1 to Vissel Kobe at the National Stadium, a gap many have taken notice of.
“I don’t know if it’s okay for me to enjoy it, but the moment Tokyo Verdy were promoted to the J1 (last year) I immediately thought ‘We can play a derby again,’” said FC Tokyo defender Yuto Nagatomo, who as a rookie created the game-winning own goal against Verdy in the April 2008 derby. “We have to make this (Tokyo Derby) more exciting. It’s true of the Milan Derby … the Istanbul Derby … the vibe in the city changes from a week before the match.
“That’s what I’ve experienced, and I hope we can increase soccer’s popularity and our level of recognition to the point where we can experience the same thing in Tokyo.”
The looming question is exactly what to do with an inter-city rivalry that has atrophied so much over the last 16 years that it’s not even capable of packing the stadium both clubs share.
One apparent obstacle is the lack of a clear motivator for both sides. The biggest derbies in the world are, more often than not, really about something else, whether it’s territorial borders, economic class or political leanings.
But though FCT and Verdy have carved out certain areas of Tokyo through a variety of municipal partnerships, they both still claim the entirety of the capital as their hometown area — despite their clubhouses and home stadium being based outside the hustle and bustle of the 23 wards.
That the majority of Tokyo Derby-related antagonism is a one-way street — from FCT toward Verdy — is less a Don Draper-level flex and more an inversion of familiarity breeding contempt.
Many of FC Tokyo’s fans have stuck with the club throughout its 25 years in the J.League and boast long memories, while Verdy have been through so many changes — including the relocation, several ownership changes and numerous J2 rebuilding cycles — that a large number of fans simply have no context for derby-level animosity.
Hiroki Koreeda, CEO of Verdy sponsor MJS, has controversially suggested that banter needs to be eliminated entirely if the derby is to thrive.
“The era of a derby being based on mutual hate has ended. What’s most important is that both clubs set an example for the J.League, bring 40,000 to Ajinomoto or 60,000 to the National Stadium, and show a mutual ambition to create an event symbolic of Tokyo,” he tweeted after Saturday’s draw. “Increasing attendance will increase revenues, and their interests are aligned.
“Tokyo’s clubs have to respect each other in order to move past the old state of affairs and into the next era.”
Banter-related discourse is hardly new in the J.League, which has tried its utmost to promote itself as a welcoming and family-friendly experience. Vissel Kobe owner Hiroshi Mikitani periodically crusades against booing, while Gamba Osaka’s efforts to stamp “pig” chants out from the Osaka Derby largely succeeded in the 2010s but have lost their effectiveness in recent years.
But inevitably, those calls for civility — just imagine a sponsor attempting the same in Glasgow, Amsterdam or Casablanca! — are likely to have less of an impact on either team’s supporters than viral tweets of banners hung up in concourses or storybook goals like Endo’s.
Insofar as these organic moments are responsible for creating derby lore, the solution — detestable though it may be to FCT supporters — might simply be to hope for Verdy to avoid the drop and ensure the two teams meet again in 2025, and then 2026 and even 2027. Because while the J.League has proven itself more than capable of surviving without a Tokyo Derby, that’s simply not nearly as fun.
And a plethora of amateur teams with big ambitions in the lower divisions
Komazawa Olympic Park Stadium, Verdy’s second choice, was deemed unsuitable to hold games regularly due to its proximity to a local hospital.
And fell, and fell, with financial troubles forcing the league to step in and operate the club itself at one point.
FCT’s average attendance of 31,450 made them just the third J.League club in history to crack the 30,000 barrier, following Urawa Reds and Albirex Niigata.
great issue!
A really good issue we have here.