Shonan Bellmare, established in 1968, is located in Hiratsuka City, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan.
The team is named "Beautiful Sea" and has won the top league championship three times (1977, 1979, 1981) before the establishment of the J-League, and has also won the Emperor's Cup twice. After joining the J-League in 1994, the team won the Emperor's Cup in 1994 and the Asian Cup Winners' Cup in 1996, nurturing stars of Japan's golden generation such as Hidetoshi Nakata. After being relegated in 1999, the team restructured into a civic club and embarked on a decade-long journey in the second division, experiencing multiple ups and downs in promotion and relegation, and made a strong return to the J-League in 2014 with a record 101 points.