A strong start to the 2028 J1 League season saw Albirex Niigata sitting in 2nd place and dreaming of a title battle with still-unbeaten Gamba Osaka. They also had the prospect of a first-ever AFC Champions League campaign to look forward to.
However, their ambitions were dealt a blow as right-back Taiga Kanai was ruled out for 10 months with a cruciate ligament injury. The Saudis then came calling, including a bidding war for midfielder Takashi Yamamoto, who moved to for a massive new national record sale of £10m. They also lost left-back Jean Casimir to Romanian side Damac for his minimum fee release of £3.7m. And he was replaced by arguably a better player on a free transfer in Ukrainian midfielder Marko Sapuha.
July began with two tough tests as a rotated side drew 1-1 at home to 4th-place Yokohama F-M before a poor performance in a 3-0 loss at reigning champions Urawa. While Gamba kept on winning to open up an eight-point gap. Prolific striker Takashi Wakabayashi scored twice in a 2-2 draw with Kawasaki-F to move within two goals of the all-time J1 League season tally of 36, set by Iwata’s Masahiro Takamoto in 1998. He scored again in a 2-0 win over Kobe, equalled the record in a 4-0 victory at bottom-side Hiroshima and broke it as he scored the opener in a 4-2 win at home to Kashima.
Rasamu had to massively rotate his side to keep players fresh for the Champions League, which saw their league form fall away a little. But Wakabayashi and Kazumasa Moriya goals earned a 2-0 win over 4th-place Sapporo to lock down the best league finish in club history for a second successive season.
Gamba continued their relentless form, tying the league record tally of 92 points with just two defeats. But Niigata finished 2nd with 84 points and six defeats, which would have won the league every other season in this save so far and is a new record high without winning the title. Wakabayashi led the way with a new league record 38 goals and Mitsuaki Hara set new records with a 7.76 average rating and 18 assists, closely followed by Moriya’s 17.
First Taste Of Continental Football
Niigata and Rasamu got their first taste of continental football as the AFC Champions League kicked off. For context, three of the five Champions Leagues during this save have been won by Saudi sides, Al-Ittihad in 2023, Al-Hilal in 2025 and Al-Ahli in 2027. The other two were won by Sydney FC in 2024 and Kooean side Ulsan in 2026. But last year, Kobe reached the Final, which gave Rasamu some hope about Japanese sides’ relative strength.
Niigata entered the competition at the East Playoff at home to Australian side Adelaide United, which they totally dominated from start to finish. But Adelaide scored their first shot, Wakabayshi quickly levelled then missed a penalty, and Hara converted a penalty to secure a 2-1 win an progression to the group stage. But Rasamu wasn’t happy with his side wasting 19 shots and 4.31 xG.
Niigata got a group alongside Thai side Bangkok United, Korean team Suwon Samsung Bluewings and Indonesian club Persib Bandung. They began at home to Persib, bossed the game by 11 shots to one but only won 1-0 through Hara’s first-half strike. A tougher test took them to Suwon for Rasamu’s first match outside of Japan. They started well but got dominated from thereon and were lucky to only lose 3-2.
A trip to Thailand followed and Rasamu, having rested the first 11 for the preceding home game, allowed the lads to have a cheeky Sunday night out – with the agreement that “what happens in Bangkok, stays in Bangkok.” That clearly buoyed the boys as they came out flying, with Wakabayashi putting them 2-0 up inside 18 minutes and wrapping up a first half hat trick with a naughty chip. But they weren’t done there as Hattori hit a piledriver into the top corner and Wakabayashi wrapped up a new club and Champions League record five-goal haul.
Niigata got revenge on Suwon with a superb performance to win 4-0, dominating the game with 17 shots to nine and 63% possession. And in that game, they broke the club’s record attendance as 40,387 people flocked to see Rasamu’s boys in action. Hattori’s brace inspired a 3-0 win in Thailand to confirm qualification before a 7-0 demolition of Bangkok with Wakabayashi and Hideto Fukuyama hat tricks.
That secured the group’s top spot after Niigata scored 23 goals in six games. Wakabayashi is the top scorer in the competition with 11 goals and Hattori leads the assists chart with six. The Champions League resumes in February, when Niigata take on Korean side Pohang Steelers in the Second Round.
Analysing Another Strong Campaign
Niigata’s attack again led the way in J1, scoring 86 goals (6 more than Gamba) and overachieving their xG by 12.09. Of those, only 5 were penalties, a league-low 2 were from corners, 1 was a direct free kick and 3 were from indirect free kicks – so just 11 of 86 were via set pieces. They also created the most chances (189), had the 3rd-most shots (448), the 5th-most shots on target (189) and the joint-best conversion rate (19%) but the 3rd-worst shots on target ratio (42%).
Niigata also had the 4th-best defence, conceding 44 to Gamba’s miserly 27. Of those, 8 were from corners, 3 were penalties and 2 were indirect free kicks. They made the 8th-most fouls (403), won the 5th-fewest tackles (727) but had the 4th-best tackles won ratio (78%).
Wakabayashi led the Niigata goalscoring chart with an outrageous 49 goals in 41 games followed by Fukumaya (17), Hara (13), Hattori (12) and backup striker Joao Costa (7). The impressive Hattori topped the assists with 23 followed by Hara (19), Fukumaya (11), Moriya (8) and midfielder Yoshitake Hironiwa. While Hara was the star performer with a brilliant 7.64 average rating in 36 matches followed by Wakabayashi (7.47) and Hattori (7.43).
Some strange news off the pitch was Niigata’s youth setup being named among the top 10 in the world. Fair enough, they’d maxed out their youth recruitment and produced some good homegrown talent, but the latest intake only produced two 3.5-star players. So Rasamu was a little dubious of this news.
Rasamu’s sights will be set firmly on the AFC Champions League knockout stages when they begin in February, around the same time as the J1 League resumes.
Could Rasamu lead Niigata to the Champions League latter stages? And could they go one better in J1? Join us on Monday to find out!
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