team uniform colours from black and white stripes to crimson, after his Crimson Group and the colour of his alma mater, Harvard Business School. The Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, a baseball team also owned by Rakuten but based in Sendai, wear the same colours. Vissel finished 11th in the league in 2004, the same position as the previous year, and finished 18th and last place in 2005, resulting in automatic relegation from J.League Division 1, or J1, to J2. During the two-year span, Vissel had five different head coaches. 2006 was Vissel's first season in J2 after nine years in the top division of soccer in Japan. They finished 3rd in the 2006 season and were promoted to J1 after beating Avispa Fukuoka in the promotion/relegation play-offs. During the period of 2007 to 2011 Vissel finished in the bottom half of the table each year. In 2012 they finished 16th, third from last, and were again relegated to J2. In 2013, Vissel finished in second place, 4 points behind Gamba Osaka, which secured their return to J1 for the 2014 season. On 6 December 2014, Rakuten Inc. bought the team from the Crimson Group. Rakuten years and first successes (2014–present) In May 2018, Vissel signed 2010 FIFA World Cup winner Andrés Iniesta from FC Barcelona. In December 2018 Vissel Kobe managed to sign David Villa from New York City FC the Spanish striker scored 13 goals in 28 games. Alongside Sergi Samper and Andrés Iniesta, Villa was the third Spaniard in the team in that season in which the Emperor's Cup was won. On 1 January 2020, first time finalist Vissel beat Kashima Antlers in the 2019 Emperor's Cup final at the recently opened New National Stadium to win the first title in the club history. The furthest Kobe had been in the Cup was the semi-finals of 2000 and 2017. This was Spanish striker David Villa's last professional match. Vissel also qualified for the 2020 AFC Champions League for the first time. On 8 February 2020, Vissel beat Yokohama F. Marinos to win their first Japanese Super Cup title and respectively their second national title ever. In 2021 they achieved an historic third place in the table, qualifying for the AFC Champions League yet again. Record as J.League member Key Honours Emperor's Cup Winners: 2019 Japanese Super Cup Winners: 2020 Chūgoku Soccer League (as Kawasaki Steel Mizushima) Winners (5):