Yokohama F.C.

Yokohama F.C.
横浜FC

Logo
Full name	Yokohama F.C.
Nickname(s)	Fulie
Founded	1999 (1999)
Ground	Mitsuzawa Stadium Kanagawa-ku, Yokohama
Ground Capacity	15,046
Chairman	Yasuhiko Okudera
Manager	Hitoshi Nakata
League	J. League Division 2
2014	11th
Website	Club home page
Home colours Away colours

Yokohama F.C. (横浜FC, Yokohama Efushī) are a Japanese football (soccer) club based in the city of Yokohama.

History

The club was formed in 1999, following the merger of the city's two J. League clubs, Yokohama Flügels and Yokohama Marinos the previous year. Flügels supporters, whose club was essentially dissolved, rejected the suggestion that they should start supporting Marinos, their crosstown rivals. Instead, with money raised through donations from the general public and an affiliation with IMG, the talent management company, the former Flügels supporters founded the Yokohama Fulie Sports Club. Following the socio model used by FC Barcelona, the Fulie Sports Club created Yokohama F.C., the first professional sports team in Japan owned and operated by its supporters.

For its first season in 1999, Yokohama F.C. hired former German World Cup star Pierre Littbarski to be the manager and Yasuhiko Okudera, the first Japanese footballer to play professionally in Europe, to be the chairman. Despite attempts to win straight entry into the J. League, the Japan Football Association only permitted the team to enter the Japan Football League and ruled that the club would not be eligible for promotion to J2 at the end of its first season. After two seasons as JFL champions, the team was promoted to the J2 Division of the J. League.

The club spent the next 6 seasons in J2, finishing mid-table between 2001 and 2005. However, Yokohama F.C. won the J2 championship in 2006 and gained promotion to J. League Division 1 in the process. In 2007, Yokohama F.C. played its first season in the top flight of Japanese football in only its ninth year of existence. After a poor season the team were relegated with five games of the season still remaining. Despite their early demotion, Yokohama F.C. still lived to help decide the final outcome at the opposite end of the table. By beating title contenders Urawa Red Diamonds on the last day of the season, they helped Kashima Antlers claim their fifth J. League crown.

Thus far, Yokohama F.C. is the only former member of the current JFL to compete in the top division.

Fight for promotion

Although they had a dire season in 2005, they ended 11th out of 12, they were in the top half of table throughout the 2006 season. On 26 November they finished on the top spot of the J2 league, and hence were finally promoted to division 1.

This success story was so dramatic as to make people somewhat excited in Japan. Yokohama FC's financial situation is so poor that they don't even possess their own football ground or a club house. Players did everything themselves including the carrying the goal posts and washing jerseys.

Some of the main players are veteran stars, such as Kazuyoshi Miura (42), Atsuhiro Miura (35). These players once played for the National Team.

They lost all pre-season matches, even against college students, then also the first official match of the year. After this, they suddenly changed the player-manager to a freshman with little experience named Takuya Takagi 38. At the beginning of the season few expected them to become champions.

Football tactics

First, Takagi concentrated on getting the basics right and focused on defense. The team then kept clean sheets in 15 consecutive games. This success gave the young players confidence to be more aggressive on the field. As a result, they didn't lose more than one game in succession and won the title.

Colours

As they could not adopt directly Flugels' white and blue strip given its similarity to that of Marinos, Yokohama F.C. decided to adopt an all-cyan kit, after NKK F.C., a former company club which had closed in 1994. NKK F.C. was based in Kawasaki and played most matches at Todoroki Athletics Stadium, but used Mitsuzawa Stadium on days when the other Kawasaki clubs at the time (Verdy Kawasaki, Toshiba and Fujitsu) used it.

Current players

As of 12 January, 2016

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Tsubasa Shibuya 2 DF Yuki Nogami 3 DF Ryo Tadokoro 4 DF Denis Halilović 5 DF Shogo Nishikawa 6 MF Takahiro Nakazato 7 MF Tomoya Uchida 8 MF Kensuke Sato 9 FW Tomohiro Tsuda 10 MF Shinichi Terada 11 FW Kazuyoshi Miura 13 MF Yosuke Nozaki 15 DF Atsushi Ichimura 16 MF Naoki Nomura 17 MF An Yong-hak 18 GK Yuta Minami 19 MF Kosuke Onose

No. Position Player 20 MF Rok Štraus 21 MF Leo Osaki 22 DF Takuya Nagata 23 DF Na Sung-soo 24 MF Toshihiro Matsushita 25 MF Keita Ishii 26 GK Yohei Takaoka 27 DF Shuma Kusumoto 28 MF Yuta Fujii 29 MF Yuki Ueda 30 FW Kousuke Saito 31 MF Youta Maejima 32 MF Nguyễn Tuấn Anh (on loan from Hoàng Anh Gia Lai) 39 FW Tetsuya Okubo

Season by season results and managers

Season	League	Pld	Pt	W	L	D	F	A	GD	Place	Manager
1999	JFL	24	55	18	3	3	57	32	+25	Champions	Pierre Littbarski
2000		22	61	20	0	2	66	24	+42	Champions
2001	J2	44	43	15	28	1	58	81	−23	9th	Yoshikazu Nagai / Yuji Sakakura / Katsuyoshi Shinto
2002		44	35	8	25	11	43	81	−38	12th	Katsuyoshi Shinto
2003		44	42	10	22	12	49	88	−39	11th	Pierre Littbarski
2004		44	52	10	12	22	42	50	−8	8th
2005		44	45	10	19	15	48	64	−16	11th	Yusuke Adachi
2006		48	93	26	7	15	61	32	+29	Champions	Yusuke Adachi / Takuya Takagi
2007	J1	34	16	4	4	26	19	66	−47	18th, relegated	Takuya Takagi / Júlio César Leal Junior
2008	J2	42	50	11	14	17	51	56	−5	10th	Satoshi Tsunami
2009		51	44	11	29	11	43	70	−27	16th	Yasuhiro Higuchi
2010		36	54	16	14	6	54	47	+7	6th	Yasuyuki Kishino
2011		38	41	11	19	8	40	54	−14	18th	Yasuyuki Kishino
2012		42	73	22	7	13	62	45	+17	4th	Yasuyuki Kishino, Motohiro Yamaguchi (lost in play-off semifinal against JEF United 4–0)
2013		42	58	15	13	14	49	46	+3	11th	Motohiro Yamaguchi
2014		42	55	14	13	15	49	47	+2	11th	Motohiro Yamaguchi
2015		42	52	13	13	16	33	58	−25	15th	Miloš Rus, Hitoshi Nakata

Managers

Manager	Nat.	Tenure
Pierre Littbarski	Germany	1999-00
Yoshikazu Nagai	Japan	2001
Yuji Sakakura	Japan	2001
Katsuyoshi Shinto	Japan	2001–02
Pierre Littbarski	Germany	2003–04
Yusuke Adachi	Japan	2005–06
Takuya Takagi	Japan	2006–07
Júlio César Leal Junior	Brazil	2007
Satoshi Tsunami	Japan	2008
Yasuhiro Higuchi	Japan	2009
Yasuyuki Kishino	Japan	2010–12
Motohiro Yamaguchi	Japan	2012–2014
Miloš Rus	Slovenia	2015
Hitoshi Nakata	Japan	2015–

Honours

• Japan Football League
  • Champions: 1999, 2000
• J. League Division 2
  • Champions: 2006

Affiliated Clubs

• YFCMD – a professional football club based in Hong Kong who were once owned by Yokohama FC. Their new club name stands for Yokohama FC Modic.

External links

• Official website (Japanese)
• 2014 Member