FC Machida Zelvia were founded in 1989 as the senior team of a football school established in Machida, Tokyo, in 1977. The city had long been known as a hotbed of youth football, and the club grew out of that tradition to become a fully professional outfit. Their nickname, Zelvia, is a portmanteau of the Portuguese words for the zelkova tree and the salvia flower — both official symbols of Machida — adopted in 2009 when the club formalised its professional ambitions.
The journey to the top tier was one of the longest in Japanese football history. Starting in the Tokyo Prefectural League, Machida climbed step by step through the regional pyramid, reaching the Japan Football League in 2008 before eventually earning J2 membership in 2012. Relegations, near-misses, and years in J3 punctuated the climb, but the club's identity as a community-rooted organisation — with no parent corporation — gave it a distinct character among Japanese clubs.
The decisive breakthrough came in 2023 under manager Go Kuroda, a former high-school football coach, who guided the side to the J2 League title with 87 points, earning the club its first-ever J1 promotion. Their debut J1 season in 2024 exceeded all expectations: Machida finished third, recorded the fewest goals conceded in the league, and qualified for the AFC Champions League Elite — a first in the club's history. They have since reached the ACL Elite quarter-finals and, in November 2025, claimed the Emperor's Cup, their first major national title. Tokyo Verdy, a J-League stalwart they upset in the 2010 Emperor's Cup, stands as their most storied rival.