From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match22 Aug 2026
Vegalta Sendai are out and Kashima Antlers go through, 2‑1 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Match19 Aug 2026
A 6‑0 win over Vegalta Sendai, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Match22 Aug 2026
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Kashima Antlers scored in the 91th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
The clubs had agreed and the player had not. A snub, and a public one: FC Tokyo keep him, and the supporters here are left wondering what he had heard about the place.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 9.24, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from KV Oostende for Yuma Suzuki was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market24 Aug 2026
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Kashima Antlers have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A brace, and Yu Funabashi takes the afternoon — 8.48
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Yu Funabashi provided it, and the 8.48 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.31 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match15 Aug 2026
3‑0, and Yuki Kakita took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Kashima Antlers tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
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
Two goals and a mark of 9.08 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market17 Aug 2026
The name of Yuma Suzuki has come up in conversations Kashima Antlers were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Sanfrecce Hiroshima wanted more than $3.0M and the board would not go there. Walked away, for now, which in a transfer window means until somebody blinks.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Naomichi Ueda and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Koki Machida was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market17 Aug 2026
Sanfrecce Hiroshima paid $150.0K and Kashima Antlers took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Libertad have kept their man, and Kashima Antlers go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Kashima Antlers have gone to Sanfrecce Hiroshima with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
$1.1M on the table at Yokohama F. Marinos. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Kashima Antlers asked and FC Tokyo said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Koki Machida and Kashima Antlers agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Naomichi Ueda 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.
Market10 Aug 2026
Rikuto Hirose wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Kashima Antlers hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Tomoki Hayakawa
“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.
Match8 Aug 2026
FC Tokyo left with the points after a 0‑2 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Market10 Aug 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Hajime Soma is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match1 Aug 2026
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 5‑0 against Shonan Bellmare, and it could have been more.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
A brace, and Leo Ceara takes the afternoon — 9.90
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Leo Ceara provided it, and the 9.90 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.40 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Kashima Antlers heard it as anything else.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Leo Ceara and Kashima Antlers agree another 3 years.
Squad3 Aug 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 Kashima Antlers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Koki Machida 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
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Yuma Suzuki in the middle of it, and Shonan Bellmare unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Marked 8.16 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.