Description
Tokushima Vortis are a professional soccer club in the J. League, currently playing in the J2 league. Their home town is the entire Tokushima prefecture, centering around Tokushima city and Naruto city. Team’s home stadium is the Pocari Sweat Stadium (Naruto Athletic Park Stadium) in Naruto city.
The club was first founded in 1955 under the name Otsuka Pharmaceutical Soccer Club. They started playing in the Shikoku Soccer League when it was created in 1977 and even though they once relegated to the prefectural league, when they promoted back in 1989, they won their 4th championship in the Shikoku Soccer League and advanced to the Japan Regional Football Champions League. In that tournament they came in 2nd and promoted to the Japan Soccer League’s (JSL) 2nd division.
After that, in 1992, with the launch of the J. League, they joined the reorganized Japan Football League’s (JFL) 1st division. In 2003, they won their first JFL championship and with their second victory next year, in 2004, they were accepted into the J. League, which made them the first J. League club from Shikoku.
The team name was changed to Tokushima Vortis in 2005 when they moved to J2, but for a while they were unable to contend for first place and every season finished around the middle of the league.
In the 2013 season they successfully finished in 4th place and in the semifinals of the J1 promotion playoffs they defeated JEF United Chiba. In the final they beat the J2 3rd place finisher Kyoto Sanga FC 2-0 and became the first Shikoku club to promote to J1.
However, in the 2014 J1 matches, their abilities proved insufficient and suffered 9 defeats in a row right from the start of the season, struggling to the very end. It was the first time in J. League history that a team stayed in last place the entire season and dropped back to J2 in one year. Presently Vortis is fighting to climb back to J1.
The team’s home jersey is blue and their shirts are supplied by Mizuno. The clubs former company and presently their main sponsor Otsuka Pharmaceutical and its main products like Pocari Sweat logos decorate their uniforms.
