Masaru Akiba
Playing career. Akiba was born in Kaminoyama on February 19, 1984. He joined the J2 League club Montedio Yamagata from his youth team in 2002. He played many matches as defensive midfielder during the first season and became a regular player in 2006. Montedio won second place in the 2008 season and was promoted to the J1 League for the first time in club history. However the club's results were sluggish in J1 and it was relegated to J2 at the end of the 2011 season. Montedio won sixth place in the 2014 season and was promoted  to J1 again. Montedio also won second place in the 2014 Emperor's Cup. However he moved to the newly promoted J2 League club Zweigen Kanazawa in 2015 without playing in the J1 league. At Zweigen, he played as a regular player. In 2016, he moved to the J2 club FC Gifu. However he did not play in any games. In July 2016, he re-joined Zweigen Kanazawa. He played often in 2016. However he did not play much in 2017 and retired at the end of the 2017 season.