Description
Fukushima United FC are a professional soccer club in the J. League, currently part of the J3 league. Their home town is the entire Fukushima prefecture, centering around Fukushima city, Aizuwakamatsu city. Team’s home stadium is the Toho Stadium (Fukushima Azuma Athletic Stadium) in Fukushima city.
The club was founded in 2002, under the name Fukushima Dream Team JUNKERS, by young people, from teenagers to twenty-year-olds, who lived in Fukushima. They created the club with the goal of entering the J. League. In 2004, they joined the Fukushima Soccer League’s 3rd division and every year went up a division, to the 2nd and then the 1st.
When their promotion to the 1st division was determined in December 2006, they inherited the managing rights to FC Pelada Fukushima, who at the time were in the 2nd division of the Tohoku Soccer League. Thus FC Pelada Fukushima became their top team and YUNKERS the secondary team.
In 2008, they changed their club name to Fukushima United FC. After becoming the champion of that year’s Tohoku Soccer League’s 2nd division south block by winning all of their matches,
they defeated 2nd division’s north champion Morioka Zebra and won the Tohoku League 2nd division championship, which earned them the promotion to the 1st division.
They had stable results in the Tohoku League’s 1st division – in both the 2009 and 2010 league matches they ended in 2nd place and got their first championship victory in 2011, alog with a consecutive victory in 2012. Next, they entered The All Japan Senior Football Championship and Japan Regional Football Champions League, where they became runner-ups in both tournaments. This resulted in the Japan Football League (JFL) committee accepting them into JFL.
On top of that, in that year’s Emperor’s Cup, they beat J2’s Ventforet and J1’s Albirex Niigata, managing to advance to the best of 16. After that, they played in JFL and in 2014 they joined the newly established J3 league.
In 2017, the team’s new manager became Kazuaki Tasaka, who during his active career played for Bellmare Hiratsuka and Shimizu S-Pulse.Presently, Fukushima United FC are fighting with their eyes set on J2.
The team’s home jersey is red and their supplier since 2011 has been hunmel. Their shirts are decorated with logos of their local sponsors like THE TOHO BANK, MUSEE PLATINUM, and others.