Despite their track record of consecutive championships in recent years, the Obic Seagulls aren't resting on their laurels. They have a bigger picture in mind, and are trying to do as much as possible to make strides as the leading football club in Japan.

The Seagulls, reigning champions of Japan's X League for the last four years, have made trips overseas for the last three years. The Seagulls flew to Germany in 2012 and 2013 to play exhibitions against German clubs (the Dresden Monarchs and Dusseldorf Panthers) and this summer they crossed the Pacific to play in the game's motherland, the United States.

The club, based in Narashino, Chiba Prefecture, traveled to Tuscaloosa, Alabama — a sister city of Narashino — to play against the APDFL Blazers, a team consisting of players from the southeast region of the Amateur to Professional Developmental League, and lost 16-12 in mid-August.