Team Data: Vegalta Sendai
Team Name:
Team Logo & Mascot:  
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Home Uniform Away Uniform
 
Home StadiumSendai Stadium
Seats 19,070
Team Data:
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Management Corporation: | Tohoku Hundred Co., Inc. | |
Established: | 7 October 1994
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President: | Akira Kyogoku
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Investors: | Consortium of local organisations and companies, including Miyagi Prefecture and Sendai City | |
Address: | Gyoshinki Bldg. 4F,
3-6-16 Hon-cho, Aoba-ku,
Sendai City, Miyagi 980-0014 | |
Hometown Area: | Sendai City, Miyagi Prefecture | |
Home Stadium(s): | Miyagi Prefectural Stadium (capacity 49.000)
Sendai Stadium (capacity: 19,694) | |
Joined J. League: | 1999 |
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 | Vegatta-kun
Vegalta Sendai's mascot, Vegatta-kun, is a golden eagle -- a very suitable mascot for any sports team. Some might complain that he looks a bit more like an owl than an eagle, but that may be an attempt to make him look a bit more "cuddly". And dont knock the "cuddly" factor. Vegatta has consistently ranked among the most popular of J.League mascots, in nationwide surveys.
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Vegalta Sendai was originally formed in 1988, as the soccer club of Tohoku Electric Power Company, and it was a top team in the old Tohoku regional league during the JSL days. In 1994, the team entered the JFL under the name "Brummel Sendai". The name was changed to "Vegalta" in 1997. It is located in Sendai, which is about three hours north of Tokyo by train and one of the largest cities in northern Japan. Sendai boasts a strong local football base, and has one of the nicest football-only stadiums in Japan. Though not particularly large, its soaring semi-transparent roof and high twin decks have earned it comparison to Ajax Ansterdam's "Amsterdam Arena". For matches that are expected to draw larger crowds, the team can also fall back on Miyagi Prefectural Stadium, about 50 minutes from town, which was one of the host sites for the 2002 World Cup.
Vegalta Sendai takes its name from the twin stars Vega and Altair. The two stars feature in a popular local legend about two "star-crossed" lovers, and there is a festival to commemorate the date when the two stars reach their apex, in midsummer In addition to its strong local grassroots base, the team also enjoys a very fierce local rivalry with Montedio Yamagata, located on the opposite side of Tohoku's central mountain range.
Vegalta's performance in the J2 during the first two seasons was as steadily mediocre as its results in the JFL. The team has finished in the middle of the table both times, and though its attendances were excellent, the team did not do a particularly good job of translating the gate receipts into a competitive roster. However, in 2001 Hidehiko Shimizu, a veteran campaigner in who was a member of Japan's bronze medal team in 1964 and formerly coached at Vissel Kobe and Kyoto Purple Sanga, took over as Vegalta's head coach and used the money in the team's coffers to bring in a number of journeymen J-Leaguers who had paid their dues in the J1 but never had a real taste of glory themselves. Players such as former Verdy midfielders Takahiro Yamada and Teruo Iwamoto, 1996 olympic team member Nobuyuki Zaizen, and former Antlers defender Ricardo Riberiro. This core of experienced journeymen, buttressed by the dazzling offensive skills of Brazilian striker Marcos Souza Ribeiro, helped the team claim promotion to the J1 division in 2002.
Vegalta's truly fanatical fan base provided the team with excellent crowd support, packing the 19,500 capacity Sendai Stadium for every home game. This surge of enthusiasm, as well as the element of surprise, allowed Vegalta to go undefeated in the first 7 matches of the 2002 season. But thereafter the team's performance dropped off, and they finished towards the lower end of the table. Yet most observers viewed their performance as relatively successful for a team taking part in the J1 for the first time, and few expected the sort of disaster that struck Vegalta in 2003.
The team started the 2003 season with a run of poor results, and Vegalta's management -- never known for their intellectual or strategic prowess -- suddenly panicked. They tossed out coach Hidehiko Shimizu, who was arguably the brains behind the team's previous success, but who had a reputation for being "too soft" on players. In his place, they brought in disciplinarian Zdenko Verdenik, who had finished a halfway decent stint at JEF United but whose harsh treatment of players at Nagoya Grampus earned him the ire of many in the club and brought a quick dismissal after just nine months at the helm. The shock of this transition was too great, and only deepened the team's downward spiral, sending them back to the J2. To make matters worse, Vegalta's front office was easily swayed by Verdenik's argument that the team was "spoiled and lazy", and that even stricter discipline would eventually whip them into shape.
The team's dreadful results in 2004 simply proved that the poor results in 2003 were no fluke, and that Verdenik's highly conservative strategies are not well suited to the J.League. The Verdenik philosophy was described by one former player as folows: "Why move forward on attack, and take the chance of losing 0-1, when you can play for the scoreless draw". After finishing a disappointing sixth in 2004, the team bid farewell to Verdenik and set out to restructure.
Though the poor management decisions made by Vegalta's front office over the years have set the team back considerably, the one thing that Sendai always can count on is a strong flow of cash, thanks to their truly fanatical fan base. Once the team put its house in order, they quickly began to attract the sort of talent that is needed to make another run at J1 promotion. It took some time for the team to recover from the poor decisions made in 2003 and 2004, but after picking up several quality journeymen, and ridding themselves of aging players, they extablished themselves as one of the stronger J2 clubs and a perennial candidate for one of the promotion sports.
But despite their relatively strong finances, ardent fan support and a number of players with J1 experience, Vegalta's association with the legendary star-crossed lovers seems to have carried over to their fortunes as a football team. Somehow the stars seem to be against them, since the team has narrowly missed out on promotion for each of the past four seasons. Each year they start anew, approaching the season opener each March with hopes high that THIS will finally be the year. But somehow the Golden Eagles cant quite make it over the hill. After missing out on the promotion-relegation slot by less than three points in 2005, 2006 and 2007, they finally managed to book a spot in the playoff in 2008. But after a hard-fought 1-1 draw in Sendai, Vegalta dropped a 2-1 decision to Jubilo Iwata in the away leg, and were forced to go back to the starting line in 2009 to try their luck once more.
Given their incredibly bad luck in recent years, fans could be forgiven if they are starting to get a bit impatient. Vegalta has put together another good promotion contender for 2009, but based on their past results, that is no guarantee that they will be able to bring home the goods. Vegalta fans can only grit their teeth, cross their fingers, and hope that this time, the star-crossed Eaglets manage to make it across the divide
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