Shonan Bellmare Tryouts
Shonan Bellmare (湘南ベルマーレ, Shōnan Berumāre) is a Japanese professional football club based in Hiratsuka, in the west of Kanagawa Prefecture, part of the Greater Tokyo Area. The club plays in the J1 League, which is the top tier of football in the country.
Shonan Bellmare Youth Development System
Football Academy
Since 2008, Shonan Bellmare has named the training and dissemination department “Football Academy” with the aim of enhancing the subordinate organization, and is promoting activities that are more rooted in the community. And with the further expansion of the hometown in 2017, it has become possible to work on training more players through soccer promotion activities. Meanwhile, I am working every day with the desire to train as many hometown children as possible to become professional players who can play an active role in the top teams of the J League.
The training group is “U-18” where high school students aiming for the top team gather, and the junior high school students aiming for that U-18 are based in “U-15” based in Hiratsuka and covering the eastern part of the home area “U-15 EAST” , And three teams of “U-15 WEST” covering the western part are active.
The soccer school activities of the popular group are expanding day by day in each hometown area such as Hiratsuka, Fujisawa, and Atsugi, and now more than 1,700 children continue to play with their dreams.
While contributing to the development of the physical and mental health of local children, we will continue to strive to improve the competitiveness of soccer in our hometown.
Selection Recruitment Status
Please click here for the latest recruitment status dates and information for Shonan Bellmare.
Bellmare Dream Box
At the Bellmare Football Academy, we wondered if we could create a chance to catch a dream even when the number of places for children to play is decreasing due to the influence of the new coronavirus infection from last year, “BELLMARE DREAM BOX” (Bellmare Dream Box) ”has been launched. We will continue to support dreaming children by continuing to install the “BELLMARE DREAM BOX”.
“BELLMARE DREAM BOX” is an online scout who discovers talent by posting play videos.
From the registered “BELLMARE DREAM BOX”, 18 players passed the Bellmare U-15 / U-15EAST / U-15WEST and 2 players passed the Girls U-15.
Specifically, it is an online scouting activity in which you post a video from a fixed form and the coach of Bellmare Football Academy checks the content one by one.
The best players from the posts are registered as dream members on the scout list of Bellmare Football Academy. (Note: Please note that there are individual differences in whether or not you will be called to participate in practice after being listed.)
Please take this opportunity to seize your dreams with your own actions.
We look forward to your challenge.
How to submit a video
Please use the application form below to set the video to “Limited Release” on YouTube and send the viewing URL.
Application Form
https://www.members.jleague.jp/members/auth/index/BM/20163_nvdb_113
- Videos set for limited release can only be viewed by users who know the URL. Private videos do not appear on the Video tab of the channel page.
It also does not appear in YouTube search results. - The length of the video is “up to 3 videos of less than 20 minutes”. (Match video is desirable)
Shonan Belle Mare Soccer School
Shonan Bellmare holds “soccer schools” throughout the hometown for younger children to sixth graders. Through soccer, experienced coaches focus on the joy of physical activity, personal skills, tactics, and human power, and continue their activities with the aim of acquiring humanity that can be used in society.
If you would like a free trial, please fill in the necessary information (name, phone number, email address, desired class) from the the application form that can be found by clicking here.
EXPLORE MORE CLUBS!
Explore more professional clubs by continent.
History
Towa Real Estate Sports Club was initially established in Nasu, Tochigi, in the year 1968. They were given admission to the Division 1 of the Japan Soccer League (JSL) in the year 1972. When Towa Estate Development transferred ownership to Fujita Kogyo, the club’s parent business, Fujita Kogyo also relocated it to Hiratsuka and changed the name of the organization to Fujita Kogyo S.C.
Between the years 1977 and 1981, they were victorious in the Japan Super League on three separate occasions, resulting in two double victories. In spite of this, they were demoted to Division 2 of the JSL in the year 1990.
Despite the fact that they won the final season of JSL Division 2, which took place in 1991–1992, the professionalization of the sport and the formation of the J.League meant that they did not meet the criteria for the new top flight league, and the runners-up, the Kashima Antlers (formerly Sumitomo), were promoted instead.
1993 (JFL)
1993 was the year when they changed their name to Shonan Bellmare. Their membership in the Associate division of the J.League was granted after they submitted their application. They competed in the Japan Football League Division 1 back in its earlier days and ended up winning the league championship. After receiving a commitment from the Hiratsuka City Council to finance the refurbishment of the Hiratsuka Stadium to match the specifications of the J.League, the team was allowed into the league.
1994–1997 (Golden era)
Because the J.League requires the participants to declare only one city or town as their hometown and include the name of that place in the club names at that time, the team was compelled to change their name to Bellmare Hiratsuka.
The club had difficulty in the beginning keeping up with the other teams in the J.League, and they ended up finishing 11th out of 12 teams in the first part of the 1994 season. They were able to make a comeback in the second stage and end up in second place. The club was able to capitalize on this momentum and win the Emperor’s Cup in 1994–1995.
With this victory, Bellmare earned a spot in the 1996 Asian Cup Winners’ Cup, which they went on to claim by defeating Al Talaba of Iraq in the championship match. In 1995, Hidetoshi Nakata became a member of the squad. Around the same time, the team was also successful in recruiting Wagner Lopes, who was born in Brazil, and Hong Myung-bo, a significant player for Korea on the international stage. It may be argued that we are currently living through the club’s most successful era.
1998–1999 (Difficult period)
The 1998 FIFA World Cup featured participation from four different Bellmare athletes. The players’ names were Nakata, Lopes, Hong, and Nobuyuki Kojima, who was the goalkeeper. In spite of this, the club’s fortunes began to deteriorate shortly after the World Cup, when Nakata decided to go for the Italian club Perugia. Fujita, the event’s primary sponsor, made the decision in 1999 to no longer provide financial support due to the company’s own financial struggles. Because of this, the club had no choice but to release several players with hefty salaries, including Lopes, Hong, and Kojima. They had the worst record in J1 in 1999 and were consequently demoted to J2.
2000–2009 (J2)
A fresh beginning was had by the club. A community-owned organization was given ownership once it was passed on to them. They also changed their name to Shonan Bellmare since the J.League let them to expand their designated hometowns to include other cities and towns surrounding Hiratsuka. This allowed them to play for a larger fan base.
The performance of the club on the field has not been very impressive, and they have not been considered to be major candidates for the promotion to J1 up to this point. It will be the first time that they return to J1 without Fujita as their sponsor if they are successful in achieving promotion in the year 2010.
In spite of the fact that, for a period of time, they refused to consider their history as the championship-winning Fujita corporate squad in their present history, the club celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2009, as can be deduced from the badge on their website. Shonan returned to J1 competition on December 5, 2009, having finished the 2009 season in third position overall.
2010–current (Return to J1)
In 2010, the club was promoted back to the J1 level, however following a string of injuries, the J2 team was eliminated from playoff contention after just four games. In the end, he finished with a winning streak of 21 league games in a row. It was J1’s record for lowest performance at that time. After then, the squad is scheduled to receive a series of demotions to J2 followed by promotions to J1. Over the course of the past few years, the group has been slowly putting more emphasis.
The club made significant headway in the J2 in 2014, finishing in first place and winning 14 straight games to start the season. After losing to Ehime FC in the 15th round, the squad proceeded to lose the next 21 battles they participated in. The J1 promotion by default has been confirmed. As a consequence of this, he triumphed in the J2 competition in 2014 with a record of 31 victories, 8 ties, and 3 defeats, totaling 101 points.
In the J1 competition that took place in 2016, Shonan Bellmare finished in eighth position, marking the first time in the competition’s history that its results were recorded. In addition, Wataru Endo, who was a member of the team when the EAFF E-1 Football Championship 2015 was held in August, competed for Japan in the tournament as a representative of the country. 2018 saw them take home the J. League Cup. Since the 74th Emperor’s Cup, which was held in the Bellmare Hiratsuka, this was the first time that Shonan Bellmare has won three major titles in a single competition.
On the business side of things, there were some reports that the club went into excess debt in February 2012 of more than one hundred million yen, and in the worst case scenario, the club itself could be dissolved (the actual amount of excess debt was 82.68 million yen). But the debt insolvency was remedied by two capital expansions in the company. Merudia RIZAP Shonan Sports Partners was founded in April 2018 by SANEI ARCHITECTURE PLANNING, which at the time was the major shareholder of Shonan Bellmare. This partnership was carried out in conjunction with RIZAP GROUP.
A fifty percent ownership stake in Shonan Bellmare was purchased by the new business. Bellmare is going to receive an investment of one billion yen from RIZAP GROUP over the course of the next three years.