The 95th Emperor's Cup All Japan Football Championship, the tournament that determines Japan's best team, will get underway on Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 August as a total of 88 professional and amateur teams compete against each other including 47 qualified teams from each prefecture, one seeded team from the JFL (Vanraure Hachinohe) and 40 J1 and J2 clubs.

The Emperor's Cup final will be back on New Year's Day. Due to the renovation of National Stadium in Tokyo, the final of the last tournament was held at Nissan Stadium on 13 December last season. This season, the final will take place at Ajinomoto Stadium in Tokyo on 1 January 2016 (Friday, New Year's Day) to determine the Japan champions.

While reigning champions Gamba Osaka look for their second back-to-back championships, which club have never achieved in the past, their coach HASEGAWA Kenta says, "The Emperor's Cup is New Year's Day tradition. We will wrap up the season with the back-to-back title and make it a great start for the new year."

Gamba captain ENDO Yasuhito shows his enthusiasm, saying "To me, the Emperor’s Cup is something to be held on 1 January. With high motivation and in good condition, we will come out for it."

In addition to the New Year's Day final, another traditional element of the Emperor's Cup is so-called giant-killing, which amateur teams or J2 clubs beat higher-ranked teams such as J1 clubs.

Giant-killing is the highlight of the knockout system, and there have been a lot of teams who surprised us in the past years. In the second round of the last tournament, Nara Club, belonging to regional Kansai League Division 1, defeated J1 club Vegalta Sendai 2-1.

In the third round, J2 club Giravanz Kitakyushu edged 93rd tournament champions Yokohama F. Marinos 3-2 in extra time. In the recent years, many J2 clubs have been outstanding as Kyoto Sanga F.C. and Montedio Yamagata reached the final in the 91st tournament and the last tournament respectively.

In light of the feats that past J2 clubs and amateur outfits achieved, one of the main highlights is how well Emperor's Cup debutants play their game. There are five clubs of such kind this year: Reinmeer Aomori, Hokuriku University, Tokushima University Hippocrates, Tokai University Kumamoto and J.FC MIYAZAKI.

In this tournament, Gamba Osaka and Kashiwa Reysol show up from Round of 16 (fourth round) as J.League's 2015 seeded teams according to their ACL results reaching the quarterfinals. Urawa Reds and F.C. Tokyo also start their Emperor's Cup tourney from Round of 16 as they advanced to the quarterfinals in the J.League Yamazaki Nabisco Cup and finished the J1 League's first stage in top places.

With their loosened schedule, it is also interesting to see how well the four teams, who can reach the New Year's Day final with three wins, will show off their best side.

JFA-TV (Japanese version only)