Vegalta Sendai facts for kids

Quick facts for kids
Vegalta Sendai
ベガルタ仙台

Full name	Vegalta Sendai
Founded	1988; 37 years ago (1988)
Ground	Yurtec Stadium Sendai Izumi-ku, Sendai
Ground Capacity	19,694
Chairman	Hideki Itabashi
Manager	Yoshiro Moriyama
League	J2 League
2022	J2 League, 7th of 22
Home colours Away colours

Vegalta Sendai (ベガルタ仙台, Begaruta Sendai) is a Japanese professional football club based in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. They currently play in J2 League, the Japanese second tier of professional football.

History

Founded in 1988 as Tohoku Electric Power Co., Inc. Soccer Club, Vegalta joined the J-League in 1999 after playing a few years in the JFL, with the nickname Brummell Sendai, to which they had been promoted in 1995 from the Tohoku Regional League. When joining the J-League, the name Vegalta was chosen as a homage to the famous Tanabata festival in Sendai. The names of the two celestial stars of the Tanabata legend, Vega and Altair were combined to form Vegalta.

They were first promoted to the top flight in 2002, but the team went back down the following season. They were promoted again for the 2010 season.

In 2011, despite the earthquake and tsunami, they achieved their highest position up to that time, 4th place in the top division.

In 2012, despite leading the table for most of the season, Sanfrecce Hiroshima's challenge proved too strong, and losing the penultimate week game to relegation battler Albirex Niigata cost them the title, rendering them second-place winners, their highest position in history.

In 2018, the Vegalta reached the final of the Emperor's Cup, losing 1-0 to Urawa Reds.

After twelve years spent in the J1 League, Vegalta returned to the J2 in 2022, after being relegated from the J1 at the end of 2021. After finishing in seventh place in the 2022 J2 League, thus failing to reach the promotion play-offs. Ryang Yong-gi, a symbol of Sendai, retired at the end of the 2023 season.

For the 2024 season, Yoshiro Moriyama, who has a track record of developing players at Sanfrecce Hiroshima's training age group and the U17 Japan National Team, was appointed as Manager.

Stadium

Yurtec Stadium Sendai

Miyagi Stadium

Their home stadium is Yurtec Stadium Sendai, in Izumi-ku, Sendai, although a few home games have also been played at nearby Miyagi Stadium.

Sendai Stadium ranks among the top stadiums in Japan for its presence, comfort, and accessibility, and was once ranked second in an evaluation by a famous Japanese football media. It was also used by the Italian national football team as their basecamp during the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Miyagi Stadium is famous for the Japan national team, and for hosting matches of the Argentine national team in the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Supporters and rivalries

As with most football clubs, fans in Sendai sing and dance during matches. However, most of the songs used by fans from other clubs are avoided due to the more eclectic set. Club themes sung before each game are Take Me Home, Country Roads, and during the game. Toy Dolls, Blitzkrieg Bop and other KISS and Twisted Sister.

Since Sendai is the hometown of Hirohiko Araki, who wrote JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, fans often wave flags with the same motifs of characters portrayed in Araki's manga.

Michinoku Derby

Vegalta's traditional rivals are Montedio Yamagata from Yamagata Prefecture. The two have been rivals since meeting in the Tohoku Football League in 1991. Among the Tohoku derbies, this match is famous as the Michinoku derby.

Tohoku Derby

This is the derby played by the Tohoku region teams, currently the most important match is that of Vegalta Sendai and Montedio Yamagata. Other teams included in this classic include Blaublitz Akita, Iwate Grulla Morioka, Iwaki FC.

League & cup record

Honours

Individual awards

• J. League Best Eleven
  • Wilson: 2012
• Valuable Player Award
  • Takuto Hayashi Makoto Kakuda Jiro Kamata: 2011
  • Takuto Hayashi Taikai Uemoto Makoto Kakuda Jiro Kamata Naoki Sugai Ryang Yong-gi Shingo Akamine: 2012
  • Simão Mate: 2019
• Individual Fair-Play award
  • Yuichi Nemoto: 2003
  • Ryang Yong-gi: 2011
• J.League Monthly MVP
  • Shingo Akamine: 2014 (May)
  • Simão Mate: 2019 (June)
  • Ryoma Kida: 2022 (May)
• Monthly Best Manager
  • Susumu Watanabe: 2019 (June)
  • Masato Harasaki: 2022 (May)
• Monthly Best Goal
  • Ryang Yong-gi: 2015
  • Crislan: 2017
• J.League Cup Award
  • Takuma Nishimura: 2017
• TAG Heuer YOUNG GUNS Award
  • Takuma Nishimura: 2017
  • Ko Itakura: 2018
• J.League Cup Top Scorer
  • Crislan: 2017
• J2 League Top Scorer
  • Marcos: 2001
  • Borges: 2006
• Meritorious Player Award
  • Norio Omura: 2009
  • Atsushi Yanagisawa: 2015
  • Hisato Satō: 2021
  • Makoto Kakuda, Naoki Ishihara, Yoshiki Takahashi: 2022
  • Shingo Tomita, Shingo Akamine: 2023

Players

Current squad

.

No. Position Player 1 GK Yuma Obata 2 DF Ryota Takada 5 DF Masahiro Sugata 6 MF Renji Matsui (on loan from Kawasaki Frontale) 7 FW Motohiko Nakajima (on loan from Cerezo Osaka) 8 MF Yoshiki Matsushita 9 FW Masato Nakayama 10 MF Hiromu Kamada 11 MF Yuta Goke 13 DF Yuki Saneto (on loan from Yokohama F. Marinos) 14 MF Ryunosuke Sagara 15 FW Tsubasa Umeki 17 MF Aoi Kudo 19 DF Mateus Moraes 21 GK Riku Umeda 22 DF Yuta Koide 23 MF Keito Arita

No. Position Player 24 MF Toya Myogan (on loan from Kawasaki Frontale) 25 DF Takumi Mase 27 MF George Onaiwu 28 FW Ryunosuke Sugawara 29 GK Koki Matsuzawa 30 FW Minto Nishimaru 31 MF Manato Kudo 33 GK Akihiro Hayashi 37 MF Kazuki Nagasawa 39 DF Rikuto Ishio 41 DF Yuto Uchida 43 MF Sota Yokoyama Type 2 47 DF Ryuji Isshiki Type 2 48 DF Sorato Yoshida Type 2 50 MF Yasushi Endo (captain) 98 FW Eron

Out on loan

No. Position Player 20 DF Tetsuya Chinen (at Omiya Ardija)

Notable players and coaches

• Edmar 1995–1997
• Pierre Littbarski 1996–1997
• Frank Ordenewitz 1996
• Branko Elsner 1997
• Teruo Iwamoto 2001–2003
• Hajime Moriyasu 2002–2003
• Zdenko Verdenik 2003–2004
• Ryang Yong-gi 2004–2019, 2022–2023
• Goce Sedloski 2004
• Joel Santana 2006
• Thiago Neves 2006
• Humberlito Borges 2006
• Makoto Teguramori 2008–2013, 2021
• Atsushi Yanagisawa 2011–2014
• Graham Arnold 2014
• Danny Vukovic 2014
• Michael McGlinchey 2014
• Daniel Schmidt 2014–2019
• Takuma Nishimura 2015–2018, 2020–2021
• Ko Itakura 2018
• Simão Mate Junior 2019–2021

International convention

Club staff

For the 2024 season.

Position	Staff
Manager	Yoshiro Moriyama
First-team coach	Koichiro Katafuchi Akira Konno Yōsuke Nishi
Goalkeeper coach	Motoki Ueda
Physical coach	Makoto Muraoka
Analyst & coach	Takuma Deguchi
Chief trainer	Yakuya Matsuda
Trainer	Tomoki Takeda Taisuke Ikoma
Physiotherapist	Masaaki Taira
Interpreter	Rodrigo Simões
Competent	Shinya Naganuma
Deputy officer	Yutaro Miura Hiroki Ito

Managerial history

Manager	Nationality	Tenure
		Start date	Finish date
Takekazu Suzuki	Japan	1 July 1990	31 December 1995
Choei Sato	Japan	1996
Branko Elsner	Slovenia	1 February 1997	31 December 1997
Toshiya Miura	Japan	1 January 1998	31 January 1998
Takekazu Suzuki	Japan	1 February 1998	24 July 1999
Hidehiko Shimizu	Japan	27 July 1999	14 September 2003
Hajime Ishii	Japan	15 September 2003	20 September 2003
Zdenko Verdenik	Slovenia	21 September 2003	31 December 2004
Satoshi Tsunami	Japan	1 January 2005	30 November 2005
Joel Santana	Brazil	1 December 2005	31 December 2006
Tatsuya Mochizuki	Japan	1 January 2007	31 December 2007
Makoto Teguramori	Japan	1 February 2008	14 November 2013
Graham Arnold	Australia	14 November 2013	9 April 2014
Susumu Watanabe	Japan	10 April 2014	31 January 2020
Takashi Kiyama	Japan	1 February 2020	31 January 2021
Makoto Teguramori	Japan	1 February 2021	22 November 2021
Masato Harasaki	Japan	23 November 2021	5 September 2022
Akira Ito	Japan	6 September 2022	12 July 2023
Takafumi Hori	Japan	13 July 2023	13 November 2023
Yoshiro Moriyama	Japan	1 January 2024	Current

Mascot and cheerleaders

Mascot

• VEGATTA (Brother)
  • He has won "the J League mascot general election" many times and is quite popular.
  • The eagle, which is also used in the club emblem as a symbol of victory in Greek mythology, is associated with the Aquila constellation, to which Hikoboshi (Altair) belongs, which is the origin of the club's name. The name was decided by public submission. Vegatta's SNS (BLOG, Twitter), which is updated daily, is loved and popular among soccer fans in Japan, as the mascot loves mischief, and is by some fans, hard to believe it is a mascot.
• LTAANA (Sister)
  • From the Sendai summer tradition "Sendai Tanabata", which is the origin of the team name, "Luta" for Vega (Orihime) and Altair (Hikoboshi), and "Tana" for Tanabata, it was named as a girlish name by combining "na", on a 7 August, which is the date of the event and the birthday. Sometimes she tweet with [#ルターナ] (LTAANA written phonetically on Katakana) on Sendai's official Twitter: https://twitter.com/vega_official_: https://twitter.com/vega_official_.
  • When Vegalta wins any match, she expresses her joy on Twitter.

Cheerleaders

• The Vegalta Cheerleaders mainly support "Vegalta Sendai", participate in many events, and continue to work as a cheering group for people who are doing their best in the area. She has the longest history as a cheerleader for a professional sports team in Sendai, and has been active since 2003.

Best Match

① and ② were selected as "that game I want to see again" on the J League official YouTube channel, and 2 was also selected as "10 Best Matches" by J Chronicle Best. ② was also selected as the "Best Match" of the J30 Best Awards.

J Chronicle Best

This is a project to select the J.League "Best Eleven", "Best Goal" and "Best Match" over the past 20 years. A project held in 2013 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Japan Professional Soccer League. The mentioned two game is often featured as a legendary game in each media.

J30 BEST AWARDS

A project to select the "MVP", "Best Eleven", "Best Goal", "Best Match", and "Best Scene" of the J League over the past 30 years. An award hosted by the J.League to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the J.League in 2023.

Even in "Soccer Digest" (Japan's famous football media),the two were selected as "the best 3 selected J.League matches" by the reporter in charge of Sendai. Sendai's Yoshiaki Ota, who scored the equalizing goal against Kawasaki, said, "I think it was a goal that everyone worked together, including the thoughts of my teammates."

*The notation of the match card and the stadium where the match was held is at the time of the match.

Continental record

ACL

Sendai also participated in the ACL for the first time in 2013.

It was a tournament with many challenges other than matches, such as long-distance travel, overcrowded schedule with the J League, and local climate, but they did not lose in the extreme cold of Nanjing and the intense heat of Thailand, and the final match was a draw or better in the qualifying.

It was a good point to leave the possibility of breaking through.

Season	Competition	Round	Club	Home	Away	Aggregate
2013	AFC Champions League	Group E	Buriram United	1–1	1–1	4th
			Jiangsu Sainty	1–2	0–0
			FC Seoul	1–0	2–1

Kit evolution

Home - 1st kits
1999-2001	2002-2003	2004-2006	2007-2008	2009-2010
2011-2012	2013-2014	2015	2016	2017
2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
2023	2024 -

Away - 2nd kits
1999-2001	2002-2003	2004-2006	2007-2008	2009-2010
2011-2012	2013-2014	2015	2016	2017
2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
2023	2024 -

Other - 3rd kits
2009 15th Anniversary	2014 20th Anniversary	2016 Great East Japan Earthquake 5th Anniversary Reconstruction	2017 SUMMER	2018 SUMMER
2019 25th Anniversary	2021 Limited	2022 Limited

Asian clubs ranking

.

Current Rank	Country	Team	Points
175		Nantong Zhiyun FC	1290
176		Qingdao Jonoon	1290
177		Kitchee	1290
178		Pas Hamedan	1288
179		Vegalta Sendai	1288
180		V-Varen Nagasaki	1288

Vegalta House

"Shichigashuku Town's Empty House Revitalization Project: Let's Build a Vegalta House" will start in July 2021 with the support of 143 crowdfunding people and a total of 78 local workers. It is involved in a social collaboration activity, in line with Goal 11 "Sustainable cities and communities" and Goal 17 "Partnership for the goals" of the SDGs basic guidelines.

See also

In Spanish: Vegalta Sendai para niños