Description
Blaublitz Akita are a professional soccer club in the J. League, currently playing the J3 league. Their home town is the entire Akita prefecture, centering on Akita city. Team’s home stadium is the Akigin Stadium (Akita Yabase Playing Field) in Akita city.
The club was born in 1965 in Akita prefecture as TDK’s company soccer club. In 1982 they joined the Tohoku Soccer League and by winning for 3 consecutive years they played in the 1984 Japan Regional Football Champions League, where they came 3rd, managin to promote to the Japan Soccer League’s (JSL) second division. Without being able to produce any results in JSL, they relegated back to the Tohoku League in 1987, where they won their 11th championship and dominated as the top team for many years.
In 2007, they promoted to the Japan Football League (JFL). In the same year, in the 3rd round of the Emperor’s Cup, they came out on top after the penalty shoot-outs against the J2 team, Hokkaido Consadole Sapporo. With that spectacular feat they advanced to the 4th round.
Yet, after promoting to JFL, they struggled in the lower end of the charts for 3 seasons. On top of that, at the end of the 2009 season, because TDK stopped managing the team, they took steps to become an independent team from the 2010 season and also changed their name to Blaublitz Akita.
After that, in February 2013 they were recognized as J. League associate members and in November, once the season had ended, the Japan Professional Football League’s (J. League) committee allowed Blaublitz Akita to start in the J3 league from 2014.
They joined the J3 league on the same year that it was launched, in 2014, and ended the season in 8th place both in 2014 and 2015. In their 3rd year, in 2016, for a while they rose to 1st place through strenuous effort and finally finished in 4th place with a solid result. Presently, under the leadership of a new manager, they are aiming for a promotion to J2.
The team’s home jersey is blue and their supplier since 2015 has been ATHLETA. Their shirts have logos of their local sponsors like TDK, Hosoya Hospital, and others.