In the past few years, when professional football squeezed out of the gold bubble, major clubs have faced operational crises, and the former major local tyrant teams have lost their peak.
In fact, far away in Japanese football, there is also a team that is regarded as a local tyrant team, but while maintaining a high investment to make money, it also maintains a fairly good operation.
When the Japanese J-League celebrates its 30th year, Vissel Kobe finally won the J1 championship and became the most shining team in Japanese professional football this year!
On November 25, the 33rd round of the 2023 Japanese J League ushered in a key match, and the Kobe Victory ship hosted the Nagoya Whales.
As the thigh of the team this season, Yui Osako also shined all over the field again, assisting Haruka Iide in the 12th minute, sending a pass in the 14th minute to help Yoshiki Muto score, and Yuya Osako also successfully staged 2 minutes and 2 assists!
At the end of the game, Vissel Kobe won 2-1, 4 points ahead of last season's champion Yokohama Marinos, and won the first J1 League championship trophy in team history one round ahead of schedule!
In the 34th round of the season's finale, Kobe Victory defeated Gamba Osaka 1-0 away, and finally topped the table with 71 points from three consecutive wins, successfully drawing a successful end to the season.
As a professional team in Japanese football with extremely deep pockets, Vissel Kobe's victory should have been a matter of course, but this season's outstanding performance was somewhat unexpected.
Because last season, the Kobe Victory ship once fell to the relegation zone, fighting for relegation, and finally accumulated 40 points to rank 13th thrilling relegation, only 4 points away from the relegation zone, but I didn't expect them to succeed in winning the championship this year!
For fans who usually have fancy the Chinese Super League and the AFC Champions League, the team of Kobe Victory is no stranger, they are different from many Japanese teams that pay attention to low-cost and localized operations, but they are somewhat similar to some Chinese Super League teams that have been burning money in previous years.
Vissel Kobe has a lot of money, bringing in a number of European foreign players such as Podolski, Vermaelen, Villa, Bojan, Iniesta and Samper, as well as signing former Asian talents with European experience such as Takatoku Sakai, Yoshiki Muto and Yuya Osako, creating a Japanese version of the football team.
At one point, Vissel Kobe's team was valued at 54 million euros, making it the most expensive team in professional football in Japan, and although they are always considered the favorites for the title because of their strong squad on paper, the actual overall performance is often a surprise.
At the end of 2014, Japan's Rakuten Group acquired the Kobe Victory Ship, which surprised Asian football for a while. Founded in Kobe in 1966 and having brought in Michel Laudrup, this veteran team in Japanese football has become one of the most financially powerful teams in the entire J-League and Asian football in an instant.
In the past 5 seasons, most of the time it has only been hovering in the middle and lower reaches of the J1 League, although it won the third place in the league in the 2021 season to set a new high, but in the 2022 season, it has directly fallen off a cliff and become a relegation team.
This luxurious team has gone through ups and downs in recent years, and now, it has finally achieved satisfactory results. In the process of the team's counterattack from relegation to winning the championship, there are three people who played an important role, head coach Takayuki Yoshida, No. 10 Yuya Osako, and No. 11 Yoshiki Muto!
On December 5, the 2023 J1 League Awards Ceremony was held, and the 33-year-old Daekoyong also successfully won the MVP and won the Golden Boot. He is the 10th player in J-League history to win the MVP and Top Scorer, as well as being named to the Team of the Season.
Vissel Kobe's success in winning the title this season has been played by the outstanding performances of several local players, especially the attacking connection between Yuya Osako and Yoshiki Muto in the frontcourt.
Yuya Osako has 22 goals and 8 assists in 34 rounds, and Yoshiki Muto has 10 goals and 10 assists in 34 rounds, and the two former Japan internationals who have played for Bremen and Newcastle respectively are over 30 years old, and they have become the heroes of Vissel Kobe's victory.
The head coach who successfully rejuvenated the Kobe Victory Boat and finally won the championship would be the team celebrity Takayuki Yoshida who led the team to 8 consecutive defeats and suffered a serious trough in 2019.
And at the awards ceremony, the 46-year-old coach, who has successfully proven himself in charge for the second time, won the Champion Coach Award.
It is clear that continued healthy operation is more important than a momentary flash, and it is precisely because of this that Vissel Kobe can maintain the championship until the 2023 season.
In March this year, the J-League officially announced its 2022 financial statement (January to December 2022). The top teams in the J1 league also recorded good revenues, with Urawa Red Diamonds at 8.1 billion yen (about 400 million yuan) and Kawasaki Frontale at 6.9 billion yen (about 350 million yuan).
The income of clubs in the three divisions of the J-League has basically returned to the same level as in 2019, and there are 21 clubs in the red. Only 5 clubs are insolvent, namely Osaka Sakura, Fukuoka Wasp, and Sagan Tosu in J1, Tokyo Greenery in J2, and Tottori Flying in J3.
However, at present, there are no clubs in the entire J-League that are in financial difficulties, and the losses are within the expected range.
Over the years, the Japanese team's performance in the AFC Champions League has been steadily improving, which is not unrelated to the smooth operation of the league's major clubs, and this is also an important reason why the Kobe Victory Ship, which has been burning money, has been able to win the championship.
A J-League club can get J-League TV broadcast revenue share, league sponsor income, club sponsor share, club event income, club peripheral income, etc.
The official website of each J-League club has a wealth of fan merchandise, such as the new J1 League championship commemorative merchandise for Vissel Kobe.
During the period of empty games, many fans with season tickets spontaneously gave up their refunds as a help to the club. The J-League's ability to build bonds with the local community and the fans to accompany the club through the storm is reminiscent of German side Union Berlin, which goes both ways.
If compared with the Chinese Super League clubs that Xi are accustomed to huge losses year after year, the J-League clubs show an excellent business model. In 2019, the operating cost of Kobe Victory Ship reached 11.05 billion yen, but the operating income reached 11.44 billion yen, breaking the historical record of J-League club revenue, about 757 million yuan!
Despite having big-name stars like Andres Iniesta in the squad with high salaries in football, the club is still healthy enough.
Vissel Kobe will compete in the restructured AFC Champions League next season, which is their first appearance in the AFC Champions League after four years. It is worth mentioning that the J1 league champion will play against Messi's Miami International on February 7 next year, which is another opportunity to earn revenue, which can be said to be a virtuous circle.
Perhaps only if football is truly operated as an industry, and everyone involved in it can also do it as a career, can it be called a professional football league.
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