Grulla Morioka

Grulla Morioka

Full name	Grulla Morioka
Nickname(s)	Grulla
Founded	2000
Ground	South Park Football Stadium Morioka, Iwate
Ground Capacity	5,000
Chairman	Yasuo Usui
Manager	Naoki Naruo
League	J. League Division 3
2013	Tohoku League Division 1, Winners
Home colours Away colours

Grulla Morioka (グルージャ盛岡, Gurūja Morioka) is a Japanese association football club based in Morioka, Iwate. It will play in the inaugural season of J. League Division 3 in 2014 after winning the Tohoku League, one of the regional football leagues in Japan, in 2013.

Name origin

"Grulla" is the Spanish word of "crane", which was used in the mon of Nanbu clan of former Morioka han and later became the local symbol of Morioka.

History

Initially known as Villanova Morioka (ヴィラノーバ盛岡, Viranōba Morioka), the team was organized by alumni of Morioka Commercial High School and Morioka Chuo High School in 2000.

In 2003, a nonprofit organization Association of Setting Up a J. League Team in Morioka (Jリーグチームを盛岡に作る会, J Rīgu chīmu wo Morioka ni tsukuru kai) was founded, and the team was reorganized and changed their name to Grulla Morioka in February 2004 with the intention of achieving elevation to the J. League by 2008.

Under the new organization, former JEF United and Oita Trinita player Shinichi Muto was invited to coach and captain the team with the company of players from the defunct Villanova Morioka and from J2 league. They played their first match on May 9, 2004, and it could be seen as an introduction to the local press beforehand. They won the second division Tohoku League in 2004 and moved to the first division in 2005. In the same year, they won their first league championship, which was shared with TDK S.C. Toru Yoshida has been coaching the team since 2006.

Current squad

As of 24 August 2013 (2013-08-24) Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 1 GK Yoshito Matsushita 2 DF Shinta Taneichi 3 DF Ryota Kobayashi 4 DF Yuma Ishii 5 DF Shun Tanaka 6 DF Naoto Hagiwara 7 FW Ryota Doi 8 MF Kenta Matsuda 9 MF Akira Takase 10 MF Eiji Tomii 11 FW Kodai Sato 13 FW Hiroshi Kato 14 MF Kei Kaneko 15 MF Keisuke Matsumoto 16 DF Yamato Hikita 17 MF Shinji Morita

No. Position Player 18 MF Yuma Takahashi 19 MF Tetsuya Nakanishi 20 DF Hikaru Fujishima 21 GK Takuji Yokoyama 22 GK Kohei Doi 23 DF So Morita 24 DF Yasuhito Ohashi 　 25 FW Toshikazu Soya 　 26 DF Shuhei Doen 　 27 DF Yusei Okada 　 28 DF Ippei Shimizu 29 DF Hidekazu Yamamoto 　 30 MF Kohei Yoshioka 　 31 DF Ryusei Morikawa 　 32 DF Yusuke Hayashi

Former players

• Lu Kun-chi
• John Matkin

Club records and statistics

External links

• Grulla Morioka official site (Japanese)
• GO！GO！GRULLA, a supporting TV program produced by Iwate Menkoi Television (Japanese)
• グルージャまったり日記, fan site (Japanese)