Description
Oita Trinita are a professional soccer club in the J. League, currently playing in the J2 league. Their home team is the entire Oita prefecture, centering around cities like Oita and Beppu. Team’s home stadium is the Oita Bank Dome in the Oita city.
The club was established in 1994 as Oita Football Club. They won the Oita Prefecture League and then the Kyushu Soccer League in a row and in 2 years they promoted to the Japan Football League (JFL).
They joined the J. League the same year it was launched and changed their club name to the present Oita Trinita. In 2002, in their 4th year, they won their first J2 league championship and achieved their first promotion to J1.
After joining J1, they were often fighting in the lower ranks, but in 2008 they suddenly transformed. Before the season they acquired Akihiro Ienaga from Gamba Osaka and Ueslei from Sanfrecce Hiroshima. Then, with the help of players that would later become Japan National Team members like Mu Kanazaki, Masato Morishige, Shusaku Nishikawa and others, they not only became the first Kyushu team to win the Nabisco Cup, but also contended for their league title and finished the season in 4th place, which was the team´s record highest achievement.
However, Trinita weren’t able to maintain their good results and with most of their good players gone, next season they struggled in the lower positions. After 8 seasons, they now dropped back to the J2 league. More over, when the team’s management crisis struck, they needed to make huge budget cuts, which meant letting go most of their better players.
As a result, from 2010 and onward, their struggles continued and in 2015, as a club with J1 experience under their belt, they had to stomach their first relegation to J3. The following year, in 2016, they came out as champions of the J3 league and presently they are fighting in J2 with their sights set on J1.
Trinita are well known for cultivating new talent and they have produced countless players with Japan National Team experience like Shusaku Nishikawa, Masato Morishige, Mu Kanazaki and others. But among them Hiroshi Kiyotake is by far the most famous. Kiyotake was born in Oita and in Trinita’s youth team he rose up to the top team. Later he played for Cerezo Osaka, Bundesliga’s 1.FC Nurnberg and Hannover96 as their leading player and he was also relied on for place kicks.
Oita Trinita’s home jersey is blue and their supplier, from the very beginning in 1998, has always been Puma. Their shirts have logos of sponsors like Daihatsu, J-LEASE, OITA GODO SHIMBUN, and others.
