Marked for Hiroaki Okuno
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad12 Oct 2026
A fracture rules Shun Yoshida out for 86 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Shonan Bellmare will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match12 Oct 2026
12 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Match10 Oct 2026
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Shonan Bellmare are no longer polite ones.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Yuto Suzuki in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shonan Bellmare this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Keigo Watanabe falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Leon Nozawa gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings12 Oct 2026
14 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Match10 Oct 2026
Nil-nil, and few chances worth the name. Avispa Fukuoka came to defend and left with exactly what they came for.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match12 Sep 2026
The board had gone up, the arguing had started, and then the ball was in the net in the 92th minute. Yokohama F. Marinos will replay every second of the added time for a week.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Hiroaki Okuno, 37, rolls back the years — 7.91
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.91 at 37, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Koki Tachi pulls a muscle — 15 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Words at Shonan Bellmare training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shun Yoshida is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad14 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shonan Bellmare this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match15 Aug 2026
0‑0 against Ventforet Kofu, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
27 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
A defender's goal wins it for Shonan Bellmare — 7.96
1 for Shohei Takeda, marked 7.96, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
Market17 Aug 2026
The chase for Leon Nozawa ended with $890.0K changing hands and FC Tokyo out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Squad17 Aug 2026
20 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Yuto Suzuki in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shonan Bellmare this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
22 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Shonan Bellmare training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shun Yoshida is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad10 Aug 2026
Yuto Suzuki in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Shonan Bellmare this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 23 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
23 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Match8 Aug 2026
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Yutaro Oda. 1‑0 against Gamba Osaka, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Keigo Watanabe falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
The afternoon belonged to Koki Tachi
7.83, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Shonan Bellmare had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Market10 Aug 2026
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market10 Aug 2026
Joan Gaona is 35 and has run out of things to prove. What he has left is where to stand, when to slow it down and what to say at half-time, and none of that is on a fitness chart.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market3 Aug 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Shonan Bellmare, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Yuto Suzuki commits to Shonan Bellmare for another 3 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Yuto Suzuki was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Shun Yoshida falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match1 Aug 2026
Beaten 0‑2, and beaten fairly. The manager kept his words short afterwards, which was probably wise.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Shun Yoshida
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Shonan Bellmare, another week without a signature from Hiroaki Okuno.
Market3 Aug 2026
36 months and counting on Shusuke Ota
Still no offer on the table, and Shusuke Ota’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
1 error, one goal, and a night in front of the same three seconds. He will see it tonight, tomorrow and probably in February, and everybody who has played knows exactly which frame he keeps stopping on.