Description
SC Sagamihara, with its hometown as Kanagawa prefecture Sagamihara city, are a professional soccer club that plays in the J. League. Currently they are a part of the J3 League. Their home stadium is the Sagamihara Gion Stadium.
The club was founded in 2008 by former Japan national team player Shigeyoshi Mochizuki, who also used to be a member of the J. League teams Nagoya Grampus, Vissel Kobe and JEF United Ichihara Chiba. On that year they started out in Kanagawa’s regional amateur league’s 3rd division and won the series with no losses. They proceeded to dominate Kanagawa’s first division, Kanto League’s second and first division, advancing further every year. After the end of the 2012 season the Japan Football League (JFL) executive committee accepted their admission to become a member of JFL.
On their first year in JFL they ended their season with a final score of 18 wins, 7 ties and 9 losses.
With altogether 61 points they were placed 3rd among the 18 teams. This led them to be recognized by the JFL executive committee and allowed to enter the J League. Sagamihara was gradually moving up in the world and starting from 2014 they would begin their new season in the J3 League.
In 2014 the former Japan National team’s ace striker Naohiro Takahara, who was also active in Hamburger SV and Eintracht Frankfurt, transferred over from Tokyo Verdy and helped the team finish the season in 6th place in the 12 team J3 League. In 2015 they finished 4th and in 2016 in 11th place. Currently the promotion to J2 seems to be a difficult obstacle.
As far as famous players go, besides the above mentioned Takahara, SC Sagamihara also have former Japan National team goal keeper Yoshikatsu Kawaguchi. Kawaguchi played for Yokohama F. Marinos, Jubilo Iwata and reigned as an exceptional goal keeper with many years of experience in the Japan national team. He earned titles including The Best XI during the 2001 FIFA Confederations Cup and again during the 2004 AFC Asian Cup as well as many others. Yoshikatsu holds a record for appearing in 116 International matches for the Samurai Blue. He has also appeared in 4 consecutive FIFA World Cup tournaments between the years 1998 to 2010.
Currently the team manager is Sotaro Yasunaga, who used to be Kawaguchi’s under classmate from Shimizu Commercial High School. While still active as an athlete, Yasunaga played for Yokohama F. Marinos and was the ace striker for Shimizu S-Pulse. In a funny turn of events he has become Kawaguhchi’s boss and superior as the leader of SC Sagamihara.
The team’s home jersey is green and their supplier has been “gol.” ever since the team was founded.
And their jerseys have logos of their local sponsors like “GION”, “Jutakujohokan” and others.
