Yokohama F-Marinos

Nissan FC

The team traces its origins to 1972 as the Nissan Motor Football Club, based in Yokohama. Nissan FC won promotion to Division 2 Football League in 1976. Under coach Shu Kamo, the team won Japan Soccer League in 1988 and 1989, as well as the JSL Cup in 1988, 1989 and 1990 and the Emperor's Cup in 1983, 1985, 1988, 1989 and 1991. The 1989 team won the "Triple Crown" - all three major tournaments in Japan - with famous players such as Takashi Mizunuma, Kazushi Kimura and Masami Ihara. At the end of the 1991–92 season, the team won the Asian Cup Winners' Cup.

Yokohama Marinos

Nissan Motors obtained registration in the newly formed J-League to acquire professional club status and changed the club's name to Yokohama Marinos, a reference to Yokohama's status as a major port city. In their first seasons as a professional team, Yokohama Marinos continued to win competitions: triumphant in the Emperor's Cup 1992, a second consecutive Asian Cup Winners' Cup, and their first national title in 1995. Matches between Yokohama Marinos and Verdy Kawasaki were known as the National Derby.

Yokohama F. Marinos

In 1999, the club was renamed Yokohama F. Marinos after the technical and financial merger with Yokohama Flügels which had declared bankruptcy. Since then, an F has been added to the name to represent the Flügels half of the club. Because of that, many Flügels fans have rejected the new team. Flügels fans felt that their team was dissolved into the F Marinos, rather than being merged with. As a result, they refused to follow F. Marinos and instead created Yokohama FC, the new city-wide rival of F. Marinos, with the help of public donations and an affiliation with IMG, a talent agency company.

In 2000 Marinos was runner-up in the J-League and Shunsuke Nakamura was named the best player of the season.

In 2001, Marinos won the J.League Cup.

In 2003 and 2004 Marinos was a two-time J-League champion with the stars of the team being South Koreans Ahn Jung-hwan, Yoo sang-chul and Japanese players Daisuke Oku, Tatsuhiko Kubo and Yuji Nakazawa (who was the best player of the year in 2004). Their coach was the Japanese Takeshi Okada, who was named the best coach of the Japanese League in the years 2003 and 2004.

From 2005 to 2008 with notable players Hayuma Tanaka, Hideo Oshima, Daisuke Sakata and Koji Yamase, Marinos didn't achieve anything. The highest they reached during this period was the 2008 Emperor's Cup semi-final.

In 2010, Shunsuke Nakamura returned to Yokohama F. Marinos.

On August 4, 2011, a year after leaving the club, former Marinos player Naoki Matsuda collapsed during training with Matsumoto Yamaga FC due to cardiac arrest and died at the age of 34. As a result, his former number 3 has been retired.

And after two semi-final defeats in 2011 and 2012 and Marinos won the 2013 Emperor's Cup on New Year's Day 2014, the first after 21 years and in 2013, they were runner-up in the J-League.

On 20 May 2014, it was announced that the City Football Group, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi United Group, had invested in a minority stake in Yokohama F. Marinos, creating a partnership with the football club and the automaker Nissan.

And after consecutive defeats, such as a loss in the 2017 Emperor's Cup Final and in the 2018 J.League Cup Final, the team managed to get a good shape thanks to the direction of the Australian coach Ange Postecoglou, which ended 15 years of drought by winning the 2019 J1 League title, with emphasis on the participation of Teruhito Nakagawa being the best player of the season and top scorer with 15 goals together with Marcos Júnior.

In 2020, Marinos made it out of the group stage for the first time since the AFC Champions League switched to the current format.