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Cerezo got its start in 1965, as the club team of Yanmar Diesel. Yanmar quickly established itself as a formidable contender in the Japan Soccer League, winning the league championship four times, the league cup three times and the Emperor's Cup twice during the 1970s and early 1980s. Yanmar entered a slump in the late 1980s, and was demoted to the second division, thus missing out on the formation of the J.League in 1993. However, the club regained admission to the JFL (the new top amateur division) in the same year that the J.League was formed.
In 1993, when it gained its independence from Yanmar, the team adopted the name "Cerezo Osaka", taken from the Spanish word for "cherry". Osaka -- and all of Japan, for that matter -- is well known for its beautiful cherry trees which blossom in a pink profusion during the early spring. The cherry blossoms of Osaka not only inspired the team to adopt the name "Cerezo", but also inspired the colour scheme for its team uniforms and earned it a number of nicknames, including "The Flaming Pinks", and the more traditional "Cherry Blossoms".
It was not until 1996 that the team adopted a mascot: a wolf by the name of Lobby (supposedly from the Spanish word "Lobo", or wolf). A year after adopting its new identity, in 1994, Cerezo won the JFL championship and earned a spot in the J.League, becoming just the 13th team to enter the professional ranks.
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