FC Tokyo

FC Tokyo

Full name	Football Club Tokyo
Founded	1933 (1933), as Toyota Gas FC 1998 (1998), as FC Tokyo
Ground	Ajinomoto Stadium Chōfu, Tokyo
Capacity	49,970
Chairman	Naoki Ogane
Manager	Kenta Hasegawa
League	J1 League
2017	J1 League, 13th
Website	Club website
Home colours Away colours

FC Tokyo (FC東京, Efushī Tōkyō) is a Japanese association football club playing in J1 League. Its hometown is Tokyo prefecture. The team is one of only four in the J. League to be simply called Football Club without an extended name.

History

Tokyo Gas F.C.

The team started as a company team, Tokyo Gas Football Club (東京ガスFC) in 1935^[1][2] Their first appearance in the national leagues was in 1991, the last season of the old Japan Soccer League.^[3] With addition of the Brazilian football player Amaral and the manager Kiyoshi Okuma at the helm, the team gradually became competitive and in 1997, the team finished second, winning the JFL championship the next year. However, at the time the team lacked the necessary qualifications for a promotion to the J1 league and so stayed in J2.

Following this, on October 1, 1998, companies like Tokyo Gas, TEPCO, ampm, TV Tokyo, and Culture Convenience Club, set up a joint company Tokyo Football Club Company with the aim of making the team eligible for joining the J. League. In 1999, the same year the team became eligible, they finished second in the J2 league and were automatically promoted to J1 beginning in the 2000 season. Despite a widespread belief that the team would barely win enough to stay in the J1, the team won four games in a row since its opening game and managed to finish at the 7th spot.

Helped by its winning record, the attendance shot up and it is still above that of well-known Tokyo Verdy 1969 that moved its home town from Kawasaki, Kanagawa in 2001. Since 2002, the team welcomed Hiromi Hara as its manager and aimed for a championship with a strong offense. The 2003 season had the team finish in 4th, its highest ever. In August of the same year, it held a friendly match against one of the greatest football clubs, Real Madrid losing 3–0 but gaining valuable experiences both on and off the field for what it takes to be a great football club.

Long-time leader Amaral, nicknamed The King of Tokyo by his fans, departed the team to join Shonan Bellmare in 2004. He was replaced by Athens Olympics national football team player Yasuyuki Konno from Consadole Sapporo. In November of the same year, it won the J. League Yamazaki Nabisco Cup for its first major title since joining the J. League.

After 10 years of participation in the J. League without a mascot character, the team adopted Tokyo Dorompa, a tanuki-like figure, as its mascot in January, 2009.

On December 4, 2010 FC Tokyo had to win their final game of the season away to already relegated Kyoto Sanga FC. FC Tokyo lost 2–0 and went back down to the second tier for the first time in 11 years. Nevertheless, they bounced back at the first attempt, winning the J2 title in November 2011.

Before their 2011 Emperor's Cup win, FC Tokyo reached the semifinals of the competition three times: in 1997 (as Tokyo Gas), 2008, and 2010. Their 2011 win was remarkable in that the club was a second division team during the season. They became the first J2 champions, and third second-tier champions overall (after NKK SC in 1981 and Júbilo Iwata in 1982), to accomplish the feat.

Stadium

Ajinomoto Stadium

FC Tokyo uses Ajinomoto Stadium as its home ground (the official name of this stadium is Tokyo Stadium). For a long time it did not have a home stadium of its own and played at various football fields such as the National Yoyogi Stadium, the National Nishigaoka Football Field, Edogawa Special Ward Stadium, and the Komazawa Olympic Park Stadium, but in 2001 it finally found a permanent home. Club's training grounds are Sarue Ground in Koto, Tokyo and Kodaira Ground in Kodaira, Tokyo.

Players

Current squad

As of 14 January 2018.^[4] 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 Takuo Ōkubo 2 DF Sei Muroya 3 DF Masato Morishige (captain) 4 DF Kazunori Yoshimoto 5 DF Yuichi Maruyama 6 DF Kosuke Ota 7 MF Takuji Yonemoto 8 MF Yojiro Takahagi 9 FW Diego Oliveira (on loan from Kashiwa Reysol) 10 MF Yohei Kajiyama 11 FW Kensuke Nagai 15 FW Takefusa Kubo 17 FW Cayman Togashi (on loan from Yokohama F. Marinos) 18 MF Kento Hashimoto 19 MF Tasuku Hiraoka 20 FW Ryoichi Maeda 22 DF Masayuki Yamada 23 FW Kiichi Yajima

No. Position Player 24 FW Taichi Hara 25 DF Ryoya Ogawa 26 DF Takahiro Yanagi 27 MF Sotan Tanabe 28 MF Takuya Uchida 29 DF Makoto Okazaki 30 GK Riku Hirosue 31 DF Jakkit Wachpirom (on loan from Bangkok United) 33 GK Akihiro Hayashi 35 MF Yoshitake Suzuki 38 MF Keigo Higashi 39 MF Kotaro Omori 40 MF Rei Hirakawa 44 MF Manato Shinada 48 DF Jang Hyun-Soo 50 GK Go Hatano 51 MF Lipe Veloso

Out on loan

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

No. Position Player MF Hideyuki Nozawa (at Ehime FC) MF Yu In-soo (at Avispa Fukuoka)

Managers

Manager	Nat.	Tenure
Kiyoshi Okuma	Japan	Jan 1, 1995 – Dec 31, 2001
Hiromi Hara	Japan	Jan 1, 2002 – Dec 19, 2005
Alexandre Gallo	Brazil	Dec 20, 2005 – Aug 14, 2006
Hisao Kuramata	Japan	Aug 15, 2006 – Dec 6, 2006
Hiromi Hara	Japan	Dec 7, 2006 – Dec 31, 2007
Hiroshi Jofuku	Japan	Jan 1, 2008 – Sept 19, 2010
Kiyoshi Okuma	Japan	Sept 20, 2010 – Jan 2, 2011
Ranko Popović	Serbia	Jan 2, 2012 – Dec 31, 2013
Massimo Ficcadenti	Italy	Jan 2, 2014 – Dec 31, 2015
Hiroshi Jofuku	Japan	Jan 1, 2016 – Jul 24, 2016
Yoshiyuki Shinoda	Japan	Jul 26, 2016 – Sep 10, 2017
Takayoshi Amma	Japan	Sep 11, 2017 – Dec 3, 2017
Kenta Hasegawa	Japan	Dec 3,2017 –

Record as J.League member

Key

• Tms. = Number of teams
• Pos. = Position in league
• Attendance/G = Average league attendance

Honours

Personnel awards

• J.League Best Eleven
  • Tuto (2000)
  • Yoichi Doi (2004)
  • Naohiro Ishikawa (2009)
  • Yuto Nagatomo (2009)
  • Masato Morishige (2013, 2014, 2015)
  • Kosuke Ota (2014, 2015)
  • Yoshinori Muto (2014)
• J. League Cup MVP
  • Yoichi Doi (2004)
  • Takuji Yonemoto (2009)
• J. League Cup New Hero Award
  • Yukihiko Sato (1999)
  • Takuji Yonemoto (2009)

In popular culture

In the Captain Tsubasa manga series, one character was player of FC Tokyo. The midfielder Jun Misugi, which also was player of Bellmare Hiratsuka (today Shonan Bellmare) in the manga.

See also

• FC Tokyo (volleyball)
• FC Tokyo U-23

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to FC Tokyo.

• FC Tokyo Official website (in Japanese) (in English)