Tokyo Verdy

Tokyo Verdy play in the J1 League at Ajinomoto Stadium (49,970) in Chofu, Tokyo, Japan.

In the early years of Japanese professional football, Verdy Kawasaki were the dominant force. Two J-League titles in 1993 and 1994, four consecutive Emperor’s Cups, Brazilian stars including Ramos Ruy, who became a naturalised Japanese international and one of the most iconic players in the league’s history, and a style of play built around flair and entertainment that reflected the J-League’s original mandate to build a national football culture quickly. Kazu Miura, Japan’s most famous footballer, made his name at this club. The green shirts of Verdy were the first image millions of Japanese people associated with professional football.

Then the money ran out. The club relocated from Kawasaki to Tokyo in 2001, becoming Tokyo Verdy, and spent the next two decades oscillating between J1 and J2. Fifteen years in J2 from 2009 to 2023 tested a fanbase that remembered when this club was Japan’s answer to a glamour league. The return to J1 in 2024, secured through promotion in 2023, felt like a restoration rather than a promotion. The green shirts came back to the top flight carrying the accumulated weight of a long absence.

Ramos, who played for the club across two separate stints and managed them from 2014 to 2015, remains the emotional heart of the Verdy story for supporters of a certain age. His Brazilian flair, adapted to Japanese football and eventually expressed in a Japan international shirt 65 times, represents the J-League’s founding promise: that the world’s best football culture could be transplanted and become genuinely Japanese.

When does Tokyo Verdy play? All J1 League matches are scheduled in Japan Standard Time (JST, UTC+9). A 19:00 JST Saturday match at Ajinomoto Stadium is 11:00 in London, 12:00 in Berlin, and 06:00 in New York. Supporters who remember J-League’s golden era in the 1990s and want to follow the revival of Japanese football’s original glamour club should check Japan time before kickoff. The J1 League streams four matches per matchweek free on YouTube.