Sanfrecce Hiroshima manager Hajime Moriyasu admits that even he wasn't convinced his team would win the J. League title last season, but that doesn't mean he is ruling out further success in 2016.

Sanfrecce beat Gamba Osaka in a two-legged championship playoff to lift the trophy for the third time in four years, following a regular-season campaign in which they scored more goals and conceded less than any other team on the way to a league-record points haul.

At the start of the season, however, Sanfrecce's prospects looked far less certain. An eighth-place finish the previous year was followed by the offseason departure of influential forwards Yojiro Takahagi and Naoki Ishihara, and title favorites Gamba and Urawa Reds threatened to leave Sanfrecce flailing in their wake.