are a

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 ...

ese

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

club based on

Shimonoseki is a city located in Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan. With a population of 265,684, it is the largest city in Yamaguchi Prefecture and the fifth-largest city in the Chūgoku region. It is located at the southwestern tip of Honshu facing the Tsushim ...

Yamaguchi Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Yamaguchi Prefecture has a population of 1,377,631 (1 February 2018) and has a geographic area of 6,112 Square kilometre, km2 (2,359 Square mile, sq mi). Y ...

. They play in the

Chūgoku Soccer League is the Japanese fifth tier of league football, which is part of the Japanese Regional Leagues. It covers the five prefectures of the Chūgoku region; Tottori, Shimane, Okayama, Hiroshima and Yamaguchi. It is one of the nine Japanese Regional ...

, one of Japan's fifth tier leagues, which is part of

Japanese Regional Leagues are a group of parallel association football leagues in Japan that are organized on the regional basis. They form the fifth tier of the Japanese association football league system below the nationwide Japan Football League. Overview Japan is ...

Name origin

The name ''Baleine'' means

whale Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...

in French. Whales are related with the club's hometown

, that was once a

whaling Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as an organized industry ...

base.

History

The club was founded on 2006, starting from the 4th division of the Yamaguchi Prefecture League, one of the 10th-tier leagues of Japanese football. Baleine would only get out of prefectural football on 2018, after winning promotion to the Chugoku Soccer League, starting their journey on regional football. In their first season, on 2019, it finished on 4th place within 10 participating teams. Between 2020 and 2022, the club reached its peak so far, having finished two seasons as league runners-up, and qualified for the

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 ...

twice in the period. In the 2020 Emperor's Cup, the club made its debut at the second round, in a competition professional teams-shrunk due to the pandemic. They ended up losing against fellow Chugoku region side

Fukuyama City FC are a Japanese Association football, football club based in the Bingo Province, eastern part of Hiroshima Prefecture, Hiroshima, centered on the city of Fukuyama, Hiroshima, Fukuyama. They play in the Chūgoku Soccer League, which part of Japane ...

. In the following year, the club once again failed to win an Emperor's Cup match, losing against Mitsubishi Mizushima FC, also from the Chugoku region, on the first round of the competition. On 2023, Baleine qualified for the

, winning their qualification as Yamaguchi representatives on 23 April, after beating Shunan University in the prefectural preliminaries' Final. They were knocked out in the first round by Verspah Oita.

League and cup record

;Key

Honours

*Yamaguchi Prefectural League 1st Division (4): 2011, 2016, 2017, 2018 *Yamaguchi Football Championship (2): 2020, 2021 *Nogami Cup (1): 2011

Players

Current squad

Current staff

References

External links

Official Website
{{Japanese Club Football, group=clubs Football clubs in Japan Association football clubs established in 2006 Sports clubs and teams in Yamaguchi Prefecture 2006 establishments in Japan