The 2021

Emperor's Cup , commonly known as or also Japan FA Cup is a Japanese football competition. It has the longest tradition of any football match in Japan, dating back to 1921, before the formation of the J.League, Japan Football League and their predecessor, J ...

(Emperor's Cup JFA 101st Japan Football Championship (

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

: 天皇杯 JFA 第101回全日本サッカー選手権大会)) was the 101st annual Japanese national football cup tournament, which began on 22 May 2021 and ended with the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

on 19 December that year. Following the compressed format of the 2020 tournament, the 2021 Emperor's Cup was restored to its usual format, featuring 90 teams representing

prefectural A prefecture (from the Latin ''Praefectura'') is an administrative jurisdiction traditionally governed by an appointed prefect. This can be a regional or local government subdivision in various countries, or a subdivision in certain international ...

football associations as well as the J1 and J2 Leagues. Verspah Oita was also awarded a seeded entry as the JFA's annually designated amateur club.

Kawasaki Frontale is a Japanese professional football club based in Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, south of Tokyo. The club plays in the J1 League, which is the top tier of football in the country. Their home stadium is Kawasaki Todoroki Stadium, in Nakahara W ...

were the defending champions. They were eliminated by

Oita Trinita is a Japanese football club currently playing in J2 League, having been relegated after the 2021 season after a three-year stint in J1 League. The club's home town is Ōita, Ōita, Ōita city, but the club draws support from Beppu, Ōita, Beppu, ...

in the

semi-finals A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

Urawa Red Diamonds , colloquially Urawa Reds (浦和レッズ), also known as Mitsubishi Urawa Football Club from April 1992 to January 1996, is a professional football club in the city of Saitama, part of the Greater Tokyo Area in Japan. The club plays in the J ...

won their eighth title and qualified for the

2022 AFC Champions League The 2022 AFC Champions League is the 41st edition of Asia's premier club association football, football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the 20th under the current AFC Champions League title. This season is offi ...

group stage.

Calendar

The schedule was announced on 2 April 2021.

Participating clubs

There are 90 clubs compete in the tournament. The representatives for the prefectures of Tottori and Kumamoto had to be determined by the local FAs after

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

countermeasures made it impossible to continue the prefectural qualification tournaments. Note

Bracket

Sourc
Tournament table (Official website in Japanese)

First round

The match between Tochigi City and the representatives of Yamanashi Prefecture, originally intended to be

Yamanashi Gakuin University Yamanashi Gakuin University (Japanese: 山梨学院大学, ''Yamanashi gakuin daigaku'') (YGU) is a university in Kōfu, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan. Yamanashi Gakuin was founded in 1946. Today, it is a comprehensive educational institution that ...

Pegasus and scheduled for 22 May, was postponed the day before by the

Japan Football Association The Japan Football Association (JFA, ) is the governing body responsible for the administration of football, futsal, beach soccer and efootball in Japan. It is responsible for the national team, as well as club competitions. History The organisat ...

after Pegasus fielded an ineligible

cup-tied In association football, a player who has appeared for a football club during a knockout cup but subsequently transfers to another club is ineligible to play for the new club in the remainder of that season's cup competition. Such a player is said ...

player in the

Yamanashi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Yamanashi Prefecture has a population of 817,192 (1 January 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,465 km2 (1,724 sq mi). Yamanashi Prefecture borders Saitama Prefecture to the no ...

Cup final. Note that

Pegasus Pegasus ( grc-gre, Πήγασος, Pḗgasos; la, Pegasus, Pegasos) is one of the best known creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine stallion usually depicted as pure white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as hor ...

operates functionally as YGU's second team and competed in the Yamanashi tournament alongside the YGU third team, known as Orions; the first team YGU

Braves The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. The Braves ...

also competed in Emperor's Cup qualifiers in

Tokyo Metropolis Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

. Subsequent to an investigation, the JFA decided on 24 May that YGU Pegasus would be disqualified and awarded their spot to Nirasaki Astros, their opponents in the Yamanashi final. Also postponed was the match between

Tonan Maebashi Tonan Maebashi is a Japanese football club based in Maebashi city, Gunma Prefecture. They play in the 2nd division of the Kantō Soccer League , abbreviated as KSL, is a Japanese football league covering the Kantō region, the prefectures o ...

and

Juntendo University is a private university in Japan. Its headquarters are on its campus in Bunkyo, Tokyo, for the School of Medicine and in Inzai, Chiba, for the School of Health and Sports Science. The university was established in 1838 for medical and in 1946 f ...

after an individual affiliated with Juntendo tested positive for

. The match was eventually rescheduled for 5 June.

Second round

Third round

The third round schedule was announced on 17 June 2021.

Round of 16

Quarter-finals

A draw was held on 24 September 2021 to determine the matchups of the quarter-final stage and onwards.

Nagoya Grampus (formerly known as ) is a Japanese association football club that plays in the J1 League, following promotion from the J2 League in 2017. Based in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture and founded as the company team of the Toyota Motor Corp. in 1939, the c ...

was guaranteed to have home advantage in quarter-finals as they advanced to the quarter-finals of the

2021 AFC Champions League The 2021 AFC Champions League was the 40th edition of Asia's premier club football tournament organized by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC), and the 19th under the current AFC Champions League title. Al-Hilal won their fourth title by def ...

, while

Kashima Antlers are a football club in Kashima, Ibaraki, currently playing in the J1 League, top tier of Japanese professional football leagues. The name ''Antlers'' is derived from the city name, Kashima, which literally means "deer island". The club has fi ...

and

were drawn as the away team in quarter-finals as they could not guarantee their home stadium at the moment.

Semi-finals

Final

References

External links

Emperors Cup 2021
JFA.jp {{2021 in Asian football (AFC) Emperor's Cup

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

2021 in Japanese football