The 96th Emperor's Cup will get underway on Saturday 27 August. Here we review the last tournament ahead of this year's opener.

A total of 88 teams from a variety of leagues and categories including J1 and J2 Leagues took part in the 95th tournament and competed in a knockout system. (No U-18 clubs or high school teams participated in this tournament.) The first round saw the characteristic of the Emperor Cup, the giant killings or upsets, as FC Osaka (Osaka) beat Cerezo Osaka (J2) 2-1 and Ryutsu Keizai University (Ibaraki) defeated Tochigi SC (then J2) in a penalty shootout.

Fujieda MYFC (Shizuoka) won their opening match against Nara Club (Nara) and then grabbed a 4-2 comeback win over Shimizu S-Pulse (then J1) in the battle of two Shizuoka sides. Despite allowing the opponents a 2-0 lead at one time, Fujieda kept an attacking attitude at the Shimizu's home IAI Stadium Nihondaira. Coach OISHI Atsuto recalled his pleasure on the big upset, "my players outran the opponents." They boosted up the early stage of the tournament with a close battle against Montedio Yamagata (Yamagata) in the third round again.

Machida Zelvia (Tokyo) also won through to Round of 16 (fourth round) after beating J.League powerhouses – division 1 club Nagoya Grampus in the second round and Avispa Fukuoka (then J2) in the third round. They made a breakthrough in the tournament based on their solid defence.

While J2 clubs Mito HollyHock and Tokushima Vortis also showed a great performance, teams who advanced to the semi-finals were J1 outfits Urawa Reds, Kashiwa Reysol, Gamba Osaka and Sanfrecce Hiroshima. The contest between Urawa and Kashiwa went into extra time after a close 90 minutes, seeing Urawa win with LEE Tadanari's goal in the 117th minute. Gamba Osaka cruised to a 3-0 win over Hiroshima with USAMI Takashi's brace and NAGASAWA Shun's strike to bid for the title.

The final between Urawa and Gamba Osaka took place on New Year's Day 2016 at Ajinomoto Stadium in Tokyo. Gamba Osaka created the first scoring opportunity in front of 40,000 spectators. In the 4th minute, when Usami broke through the left flank and sent a low cross to the centre, Patric reacted to the pass. His shot was denied by the cross bar, but the team kept showing an attacking attitude. In the 32nd minute, KURATA Shu provided a pass to space behind the defensive line after picking up the ball in the Urawa end. Patric ran through and beat the goalkeeper before firing a shot to the near post for Gamba's opening goal.

Urawa came back soon after that. In the 36th minute, LEE Tadanari headed a right cross ball. His attempt hit off the goal post, but KOHROGI Shinzoh rushed for a loose ball and unleashed an equaliser to make it 1-1.

The second half also saw Gamba Osaka score first. In the 53rd minute, Patric beat an opponent and met ENDO Yasuhito's corner kick for his second goal of the day. Gamba went in front again. Meanwhile, Urawa, who fell behind, subbed in Zlatan and SEKINE Takahiro at the same time to gear up their offence, yet their effort was not enough to break through Gamba's defence led by goalkeeper HIGASHIGUCHI Masaaki.

Although Gamba Osaka allowed Urawa to take 13 shots in the second half and 20 in total, the players showed tenacious defence, committing themselves at key points to limit shooting angles. Gamba Osaka eventually won 2-1 to grab the back-to-back tournament title. This year the Osaka side will go out to seek the unprecedented third consecutive title in the 96th Emperor's Cup.