It wasn’t so long ago that Vissel Kobe couldn’t buy a title for love nor money, but Saturday’s 1-0 win against Kansai rivals Gamba Osaka in the Emperor’s Cup final showed that the current squad is made of sterner stuff when it comes to winning trophies.
Over the years, Vissel made more headlines for signing aging European players like Andres Iniesta, Lukas Podolski, and David Villa than it did for its results on the pitch, but that started to change in 2019 when the club claimed its first piece of silverware by winning the Emperor’s Cup.
Vissel built on that last year by being crowned J. League champions for the first time — a title Takayuki Yoshida’s men are also in pole position to defend this season, sitting three points ahead of Sanfrecce Hiroshima with two games remaining.