The 2025 J1 League season has only just begun and Sanfrecce Hiroshima have already laid down a marker.
After the agony of missing out on the title on the final day of last season, Sanfrecce are wasting no time in showing they should be thereabouts once more this term.
In the span of a week, they defeated reigning champions Vissel Kobe 2-0 in the curtain-raising Japanese Super Cup, before officially opening their league campaign on Sunday with a 2-1 win away to Machida Zelvia -- the third team that entered the final day of the previous campaign in with a chance of becoming champions.
In short, Sanfrecce have begun 2025 with victories over the two teams that were their closest competitors for the J1 crown last season.
All while juggling their AFC Champions League Two commitments, where they claimed a comfortable 3-0 first-leg lead in the round of 16 in midweek away to Vietnam's Thép Xanh Nam Định.
So, are Sanfrecce genuinely the real deal this season?
In a clear sign of just how satisfied he is with the talent at his disposal, coach Michael Skibbe has retained the bulk of his squad from last season.
When at full strength, it is hard to dispute that Sanfrecce are one of the most formidable outfits in Japanese football.
The players have mastered Skibbe's preferred 3-4-2-1 formation with Tolgay Arslan and Mutsuki Kato thriving as the two No. 10s -- the former being the creative presence with the latter offering the industry -- while the likes of Shunki Higashi, Shuto Nakano and Naoto Arai perfectly fit the crucial wing-back roles in providing offensive and defensive output in equal measure.
The main question is whether or not Sanfrecce have finally found the necessary focal point in attack to link this all together.
Imports Pieros Sotiriou and Douglas Vieira failed to nail their starting XI berth down in the first half of 2024, while mid-season arrival Gonçalo Paciência did not fare much better.
Sotiriou still managed to be the club's joint-third highest scorer with eight goals but Vieira and Paciência only managed two each -- with the trio having since departed Edion Peace Wing Hiroshima in the off-season.
Skibbe will be hoping he has found the answer in Ryo Germain, who was one of the competition's top scorers last term with 19 goals while playing for an unfancied Jubilo Iwata outfit.
Germain is yet to get off the mark for his new side in three starts and his contribution will be more than just goals, although Sanfrecce will still be looking for him to contribute a reasonable tally.
Sanfrecce were one of eight teams to record victories on the opening weekend of the new J1 campaign.
Interestingly, Vissel were not among those sides -- having been held to a 0-0 draw at home to Urawa Red Diamonds.
Before too much is read into some very early results, it must be noted that Vissel's Super Cup loss to Sanfrecce saw them field a largely second-string XI -- given they had one eye on their midweek AFC Champions League Elite commitments, where they did enough to book their place in the last 16.
Newly-appointed captain Tetsushi Yamakawa and Daiju Sasaki were the only two players that started against Sanfrecce who can be regarded among Vissel's first-choice options.
A trio of established ex-Japan internationals in Yuya Osako, Yoshinori Muto and Gōtoku Sakai were only called upon in the second half. The fact that Osako and Muto were the J.League Player of the Year recipients in the past two years highlights the quality that had been left in reserve.
Now that their 2025 season is officially and running, it is unlikely that any of these big names will be missing by choice in such a huge clash moving forward.
Sanfrecce might have laid down a marker but Vissel are not going away quietly any time soon.
And with the two sides only meeting in the league for the first time in July, plenty more about whether either are the team to beat would have been revealed by the time they lock horns again.