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 professional football club from Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. They play in the J2 League, which is the second-highest level of professional football in Japan.

History of Vegalta Sendai

The club started in 1988 as Tohoku Electric Power Co., Inc. Soccer Club. They joined the J-League in 1999. Before that, they played in the JFL as Brummell Sendai.

The name Vegalta was chosen to honor the famous Tanabata festival in Sendai. It combines the names of two stars from the Tanabata story: Vega and Altair.

Vegalta Sendai first moved up to the top league (J1) in 2002. However, they went back down to J2 the next year. They were promoted to J1 again for the 2010 season.

In 2011, even after the big earthquake and tsunami, the team did very well. They finished 4th in the top division, which was their best result at that time.

In 2012, they almost won the J1 League title. They were leading for most of the season. But Sanfrecce Hiroshima played very strongly. Vegalta Sendai lost a key game near the end of the season. This meant they finished in second place, which is still their highest ever position.

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

After playing in the J1 League for twelve years, Vegalta Sendai returned to the J2 League in 2022. This happened after they were moved down from J1 at the end of 2021. They finished seventh in the 2022 J2 League, which was not enough to get back into the promotion play-offs. Ryang Yong-gi, a very important player for Sendai, retired at the end of the 2023 season.

For the 2024 season, Yoshiro Moriyama became the new manager. He is known for helping young players grow at clubs like Sanfrecce Hiroshima and with the U17 Japan National Team.

Home Stadiums

Yurtec Stadium Sendai is Vegalta's home ground.

Miyagi Stadium has hosted some home games.

Vegalta Sendai's main home stadium is Yurtec Stadium Sendai. It is located in Izumi-ku, Sendai. Sometimes, they play home games at the nearby Miyagi Stadium.

Yurtec Stadium Sendai is considered one of the best stadiums in Japan. It is known for being comfortable and easy to get to. A famous Japanese football media once ranked it as the second-best stadium. The Italian national football team used it as their base during the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Miyagi Stadium is famous for hosting games for the Japan national team. It also hosted matches for the Argentine national team during the 2002 FIFA World Cup.

Fans and Rivalries

Like most football clubs, Vegalta Sendai fans sing and dance during matches. They have unique songs and avoid many used by other clubs. Before each game, fans sing Take Me Home, Country Roads. During games, they use songs by Toy Dolls, Blitzkrieg Bop, and other songs by KISS and Twisted Sister.

Hirohiko Araki, the creator of the famous manga JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, is from Sendai. Because of this, fans often wave flags with characters from his manga.

Michinoku Derby

Vegalta Sendai's main rivals are Montedio Yamagata from Yamagata Prefecture. Their rivalry started in 1991 in the Tohoku Football League. This match is known as the Michinoku derby.

Tohoku Derby

This derby involves teams from the Tohoku region. The most important match is between Vegalta Sendai and Montedio Yamagata. Other teams in this derby include Blaublitz Akita, Iwate Grulla Morioka, and Iwaki FC.

Club Achievements

Player Awards

Many players from Vegalta Sendai have won 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

Current Players

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

Players on Loan

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

Famous 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)

Club Staff

Here are the main staff members 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

Manager History

Here is a list of the managers who have led Vegalta Sendai:

Manager	Nationality	Time as Manager
		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

Meet Vegalta's Mascots

• VEGATTA (The Brother)
  • Vegatta is a very popular mascot and has won the "J League mascot general election" many times.
  • He is an eagle, which is a symbol of victory in Greek stories. The eagle is also linked to the Aquila constellation, where the star Hikoboshi (Altair) is found. This star is part of the club's name origin.
  • Vegatta's name was chosen by public vote. He has his own social media accounts (BLOG, Twitter) which are updated daily. Fans in Japan love him because he is playful and sometimes acts in ways you wouldn't expect from a mascot!
• LTAANA (The Sister)
  • Ltaana's name comes from the Sendai summer festival "Sendai Tanabata", which is also where the team's name comes from. "Luta" comes from Vega (Orihime) and Altair (Hikoboshi), and "Tana" comes from Tanabata.
  • Her birthday is August 7th, the same day as the Tanabata festival. She sometimes tweets with the hashtag [#ルターナ] (LTAANA written in Japanese) on Sendai's official Twitter: https://twitter.com/vega_official_: https://twitter.com/vega_official_.
  • When Vegalta wins a match, she shares her happiness on Twitter.

Vegalta Cheerleaders

The Vegalta Cheerleaders support "Vegalta Sendai" and take part in many events. They are a cheering group for people doing their best in the area. They have been active since 2003, making them the longest-running cheerleading group for a professional sports team in Sendai.

Best Matches in Club History

Two of Vegalta Sendai's games were chosen as "games I want to see again" on the J League's official YouTube channel. One of these was also picked as one of the "10 Best Matches" by J Chronicle Best and the "Best Match" at the J30 Best Awards.

J Chronicle Best

This project was held in 2013 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Japan Professional Soccer League. It aimed to find the "Best Eleven" players, "Best Goal", and "Best Match" from the past 20 years. The two games mentioned below are often called legendary games in the media.

J30 BEST AWARDS

This award ceremony was held in 2023 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the J.League. It recognized the "MVP" (Most Valuable Player), "Best Eleven", "Best Goal", "Best Match", and "Best Scene" from the league's 30-year history.

A reporter for "Soccer Digest" (a famous Japanese football magazine) also picked these two games as "the best 3 selected J.League matches" for Sendai. Yoshiaki Ota from Sendai, who scored the tying goal against Kawasaki, said, "I think it was a goal that everyone worked together, including the thoughts of my teammates."

*The team names and stadium names are as they were at the time of the match.

Asian Competitions

The AFC Champions League (ACL) is a major Asian football tournament.

Vegalta Sendai played in the ACL for the first time in 2013.

This tournament had many challenges, like long travels, a busy schedule with the J League, and different climates. But they did well, not losing in the very cold weather of Nanjing or the intense heat of Thailand. They even had a chance to move forward in the tournament by drawing or winning their final qualifying match.

Season	Competition	Round	Club	Home	Away	Total
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

Vegalta House Project

The "Shichigashuku Town's Empty House Revitalization Project: Let's Build a Vegalta House" started in July 2021. It received support from 143 people through crowdfunding and involved 78 local workers. This project is part of the club's social work, helping with Goal 11 "Sustainable cities and communities" and Goal 17 "Partnership for the goals" of the SDGs.

See also

In Spanish: Vegalta Sendai para niños