Yamagata Meisei High School

2026 season

Currently 1st in the Yamagata Prefectural League Division 1 (the Y League) with 46 points from 16 matches (15W 1D 0L, 115-10). Updated daily.

Playing style

It is rare for a Japanese school team to be coached by a former J.League manager. SUZUKI Jun managed Montedio Yamagata, Albirex Niigata, Omiya Ardija and JEF United Chiba, and then Sony Sendai FC in the semi-professional JFL until that club stopped playing at the end of 2024. He holds the JFA Pro Licence, the highest coaching qualification in Japan, and took charge at Yamagata Meisei in 2025. He works with a large staff that includes a general manager, a head coach for the under-16 team, specialist coaches and scouts. The club's stated aim is to be "a team that people want to support". It asks players for independence and self-discipline, and for good conduct off the pitch as well as on it.

The squad is not only local. Yamagata Meisei's 2026 Inter-High squad included players from junior club teams in the Kanto and Tokai regions, such as Tripletta SC in Tokyo and LIBERDADE Shizuoka. At that tournament the team scored eight goals in three matches. It beat Hatsushiba Hashimoto 3-1 and Maruoka 4-1, its first wins at a national tournament, and then lost 1-2 in the third round to Ohzu High School, which went on to reach the semi-finals.

Honours

History

• 1961 — The school opens as Yamagata Automobile Technical High School. It becomes Zao Technical High School in 1962 and Zao High School in 1991.
• 1985 — The football club is founded.
• 2011 — The school is renamed Yamagata Meisei High School.
• 2012 — The school completes an artificial-turf football ground on campus.
• 2023 — Yamagata Meisei wins the Yamagata qualifying tournament for the 102nd winter championship for the first time. In the final it beats Haguro 1-0 with a first-half header, ending Haguro's run as two-time defending champion. At the national tournament it loses 0-4 to Yonago Kita in the first round at Saitama Stadium 2002.
• 2024 — The club wins the Yamagata Inter-High qualifying tournament for the first time, beating Haguro 4-0 in the final. At the Inter-High in Fukushima it loses its first-round match 0-1 to Sakuyo Gakuen.
• 2025 — SUZUKI Jun becomes head coach. In March the school completes a dormitory for boarding students. In October the team wins the winter qualifying tournament again: it goes behind against Yamagata Chuo in the final, equalises in the second half and wins 2-1. At the national tournament it loses 1-3 to Oita Tsurusaki in the first round. In December, as runners-up in the Yamagata league, it enters the play-off for the Prince League Tohoku. It beats Hachinohe Gakuin Kosei 1-0 and the second team of Vegalta Sendai's academy 2-1, but loses the deciding match 2-4 to Morioka Shogyo and misses promotion.
• 2026 — Yamagata Meisei beats Yamagata Chuo 2-1 in the final of the Inter-High qualifying tournament. At the national finals it wins two matches before losing 1-2 to Ohzu High School in the round of 16. Midfielder YAMAMOTO Shogo is named one of the 32 outstanding players of the tournament. In September, Montedio Yamagata announces that he will join the club in January 2027. In the league, the team is unbeaten and top of Yamagata Division 1 with two rounds left.

Development pathway

For readers new to Japanese youth football: high-school teams and J.League academies play in the same national league pyramid. At the top are the U-18 Premier League (EAST and WEST), then nine regional Prince Leagues, then the prefectural leagues. Yamagata's top division, Division 1 of the prefectural U-18 league (known locally as the "Y League" or "Y1"), has ten teams and sits one level below the Prince League Tohoku. Promotion is not automatic: the best teams from the six Tohoku prefectures play a year-end play-off for a small number of places. Two high-school tournaments carry even more prestige than the league: the summer Inter-High and the winter championship, which is televised nationally and ends at the National Stadium in January.

• A newcomer in a cold region. Yamagata Prefecture is snowy in winter, and its school teams have rarely won matches at national tournaments. For decades the strongest school sides in the prefecture were teams such as Haguro, Yamagata Chuo and Yonezawa Chuo. Yamagata Meisei broke into that group only in 2023, and has played at a national tournament in every year since.
• Facilities on campus. The school has had its own artificial-turf ground since 2012, and in 2025 it opened a dormitory for boarding students, which allows the club to recruit players from outside the prefecture.
• A professional coach. Hiring SUZUKI Jun, who has more than a decade of experience as a J.League manager, was a clear statement of ambition. The team reached the winter championship in his first season.
• A link to the local J.League club. In October 2025 the under-15 club that trains on the school's ground became Montedio Yamagata Alliance Academy Zao, a partner academy of Montedio Yamagata. The club describes the high-school team as its "big brother" team, so younger players have a pathway into the school.
• A team of many squads. The club enters several teams in the prefectural league system, from Division 1 down to Division 3, as well as a women's team that plays in the Tohoku regional league.

Former players

Yamagata Meisei's rise is recent, and no graduate of the school is yet established as a well-known professional. The club's best-known player so far is YAMAMOTO Shogo, who is still at the school and has signed for Montedio Yamagata; he is listed in the squad section below. According to local broadcasters, his signing with Montedio Yamagata was the first time in 22 years that a player from a high-school team in Yamagata Prefecture had joined the club as a professional.

Players to watch in 2026

• YAMAMOTO Shogo (midfielder, third year) — born in Chiba Prefecture, he came to Yamagata Meisei from Tripletta SC in Tokyo. He scored three goals at the 2026 Inter-High and was named one of the tournament's 32 outstanding players. On 8 September 2026 Montedio Yamagata announced that he will join the club in January 2027, and on 18 September he was registered as a JFA/J.League special designated player, so he can play for Montedio, with the number 35, while still at school.

The rest of the 2026 squad is not listed here. None of the other players has an English spelling published by the JFA, the J.League or a club, so their names are not romanised on this page.

Notes

Full profile in Japanese, with the current squad list and every result: 山形明正高校.

Where a player has no official English spelling published by the JFA or the J.League, the name is shown in Japanese.

See also: Premier League standings and how youth football works in Japan.