The J. League celebrated its 29th birthday on Sunday with a nearly perfect present: Its first-ever Shinshu derby between AC Parceiro Nagano and Matsumoto Yamaga.
Since the teams first played each other in 1997, their rivalry has been fueled by the longstanding historical animosity between the prefectural rivals of Nagano and Matsumoto, leading to extraordinarily high attendances when the two sides clashed in the regional Hokushinetsu League or other prefectural and regional tournaments.
Sunday’s third-division clash — the derby’s first game since 2011, when Matsumoto earned promotion to the second division and left its rival behind in the amateur Japan Football League — featured a near-capacity crowd of 13,244 at Nagano U Stadium, with supporters packing both ends to produce riotous walls of orange and green flags during an intense scoreless draw.