by Mike Brevet
If you're interested in joining a soccer/football team in Japan, there are two leagues that you can join. They are foreigner-based leagues (the Japan Football Association doesn't allow teams with more than three non-Japanese to join, hence the primarily foreigner-only leagues).
The first league is the IFFL (International Friendship and Football League). I don't recommend this league though as the teams aren't that great and the organization is poor. Many people who know about soccer in this area feel the same way.
And that is why the Metropolis League was founded. Some of the teams who were fed up with the IFFL recently (within the past year) formed this league to be a better run, more competetive counterpart to the IFFL.
There aren't any ways to contact individual teams on these websites, but they are good overviews of the leagues and have all the team names listed. Once you see a team name that interests you, do a google (or other search engine) search of the team name and individual team websites should come up (especially for teams in the Metropolis League).
As for individual teams, the team I played for was based in Hachioji and is called the Hachioji Wanderers. Check 'em out and get all the contact and other relevant info.
For female JETs, I'd recommend the Tokyo-based Onnabelievables. All their info can be found here.
As for those JETs who want to play a sport or get involved in a leisure activity other than soccer, the Tokyo Sports Directory is the place to go. It's printed in a magazine format, like the Tokyo Notice Board, but it's a lot easier to access it online. They've got a huge list of sports, starting with aikido and going down to yoga, with everything one could want in between. If you played a sport in your home country, there's a good chance that this list has info on it related to teams and where and when to play in Japan!