4th match day J1 League
Kashiwa Reysol - Vegalta Sendai
Hitachi Kashiwa Soccer Stadium
Result: 0:1 (0:0)
Attendance: 9.905 (about 2.000 Guests)

In the second week of our trip, one of our dreams finally came true: Watching a game of the Japanese Club Vegalta Sendai.

Why Sendai?

It was the first Japanese club that made most of the Germans, including me, realised that Japanese football also had fan culture like Europe: they had ultras with their own banners, flags and chants. Almost everyone in Europe, especially Germany, watched the video of Sendai’s legendary away support in Yokohama in 2009. But it was also a club, that became famous because its tragic history.

Founded in 1988 as a workers’ club of Hitachi, Vegalta Sendai used to play in the second league for a long time until they promoted in 2001. After two years of playing in the highest class, they had to relegate again. Following six years, they always finished on the top ranks of the second league, Sendai finally promoted again in 2009.

After successfully staying in J League in 2010, relegation favourite Sendai also had to concentrate on surviving in 2011. But before a ball could be kicked, the word “survival” took on a different meaning for the people of Sendai. On March 11th, the largest ever earthquake occured 100km in front of the coastline of the city. The following tsunami destroyed big parts of the city, leaving more than 20,000 dead or went missing.

The rebuild project started slowly; mostly because people were afraid of an nuclear catastrophe in Fukushima. Of course, the J League had to be suspended and no one knew when it would start.

However, less than a month after the announcement of the suspension, the first game took place. Vegalta Sendai played their first game of the season at home amid ongoing rescue and rebuilding projects. You thought the people of Sendai wouldn’t have the mood for football? Then you are wrong. The Sendai fans came together and went to the stadium to sing for their lost friends and families, and for their city. At this game, a remarkable promise was made: The fans asked the team to not lose a game, until their city is rebuild.

It was truly a big task for the underdog from the north, who never really achieved something big in the league. But the team managed to remain unbeaten for nine games in a row from the beginning of the season. The club and its fans became a national symbol of hope an togetherness. At the end, they finished four and qualified for the AFC Champions League, which was by far the highest place they ever finished on.

Since then, Sendai became a top club in J League. Many people call Sendai fans as one of the best of the whole country who travel with their club with thousands every week. The atmosphere, the great songs… Seeing this one time live, being inside the stadium… why not?

Short time after the disaster in 2011, a British team started to shoot a documentation about the history of Vegalta Sendai. If you are interested in the movie, here is the trailer:

Planing and Preparations

After we booked our trip to Hong Kong in December, we also starting checking the fixtures in Southeast or East Asia. Due the private matters and international break, there was only one week when we could travel and possibly watch a game or two. So we booked a trip Japan without knowing if there is a game or not when we saw a cheap deal. Last minute booking in Asia could be unaffordable! Our destination was Tokyo, because it had a lot of tourist things to do and the flight was the cheapest. (Yeah, but the amount we had to spend in Tokyo was not cheap at all!)

J-League finally released the fixtures at the end of January; On March 18, Sendai would play away at Kashiwa Reysol, a city in the northeast of Tokyo. We couldn’t plan much because of university and other stuff, and in the end, we didn’t even have tickets before departure. The English website of Kashiwa wouldn’t help at all.

We learned that there won’t be tickets sold, but only at convenience stores or at door on game day. After exchanging E-mails with Kashiwa, their media officer helped us with a lot of useful information. He explained how we could buy tickets at the machines at convenience stores; and he also confirmed that the game wouldn’t be sold out. We decided to get the tickets at the stadium anyway.

Match Day!

So, there we were in Tokyo! It was a nice sunny Saturday morning. We visited some other places before going to Kashiwa. We started moving towards our destination around noon from Harajuku in the southwest of Tokyo. We had to cross the biggest city of the world with three hours in hands. In the end, we needed every second of it.

We traveled until Abiko with subway, which the train would automatically change to JR-Express that took us to Kashiwa Station directly, which took almost two hours.

When we left the station, we could already see yellow flags and banners of Kashiwa greeting the arriving fans, which was quite amazing. We haven’t seen any German cities decorating the streets for a football game!

We followed the fans in yellow through the small roads of a typical Japanese living area. After another 20 minutes, we finally arrived at the ticket box in front of the entrance. For 3,100¥ (about 23€), we could get our seats of choice next to the middle line.

After getting our tickets, we walked through the park and arrived behind the big stand of the stadium. A really nice and open stand, that reminded us immediately of South American stadiums.

You could bring food and drinks into the stadium as long as they are not cans or bottles. In front of the home stand, there were a lot of typical Japanese food stalls offering everything you could imagine: Meat, Fish, Noodles, Burger, etc… (but they weren’t cheap!)

By the time we entered the stadium, the fans were already chanting.

The first time inside a Japanese stadium

I got goosebumps when we just entered our stand as I saw something completely new, and I was really looking forward to pure joy. There were more than 30 minutes before kick off but the home and away fans were also singing for their teams.

There was no annoying advertisement, and no annoying pop songs either. Just two fan groups that chanted as loud as they could. Impressive.

Under the Kashiwa stand, there were posters to remind the fans what they had to do: Wear yellow, sing for your team, clap and jump for your team, and start supporting when the goalies start to warm up, which is in fact 50(!) minutes before kick off.

The “Kashiwa Zone” was pure yellow. There were also many flags and banners with he names of all players of the club, alongside a really long banner that had “Let’s go Kashiwa” written on it. Unfortunately, the Zone wasn’t full.

Kashiwa isn’t big at all in Tokyo by the way. Founded by Hitachi as Kashiwa Reysol in 1940, Reysol used to be succesful, but could not catch up after the launch of the professional league in Japan. After some years in second division, Kashiwa promoted in 2010 and became the Champions the year after. Since then, they couldn’t deliver consistently as there are many way bigger clubs nearby, such as FC Tokyo, Kawasaki, Yokohama and Urawa.

The stadium was two-third full; including 2,000 away fans who travelled five hours to Tokyo. The style of both fans were quite with a brazilian style: with banners that cover the stand from top to bottom, trumpets, drums and even brazilian flags.

The away sector had one capo to coordinate the atmosphere; the Kashiwa Zone had seven. Additionally, there were some people with megaphones on the mains stands to motivate everyone who were not as “passionate” as the fans behind the goal.

About 20 Minutes until KO, the home fans opened a big choreo of two big Banners covering the whole Kashiwa Zone. The upper one showed the club’s name, the lower one showed “No Reysol, no life!” and “Without Reysol, where do we go?”.

The stadium suddenly became quiet when the announcer started announcing the players’ names. Then, everyone, literally everyone, in the home sector raised their hands and started clapping, followed by raising scarfs and loud chants. Meanwhile, the away fans also started their famous humming of “Country roads, Take Me Home”. It was simply breathtaking.

Although there wasn’t a rooftop, the home fans were still very loud. The sang many songs that we hadn’t heard before, and lots of jumping and other movements. The away block was similar, but even louder. The Sendai fans showed a better support in our opinion.

When Sendai players had the possession, the fans immediately shouted “Sendai, Let’s go” with an incredible volume. Even though both sides gave us a few many earworms, my personal biggest earworm was the tune of “I Was Made For Loving You Baby” as it was stuck in my mind for a long time afterwards.

On the pitch

Kashiwa was the clearly better team in the whole first half. They missed their chances though sometimes in the almost hilarious ways in front of Sendai’s goalkeeper. As the second half started, the guests played a little bit more offensive, yet weren’t really dangerous.

Just when we thought the game was going to end goalless, Sendai hit a last second goal, followed by one of the loudest goal celebrations we have ever witnessed. Meanwhile, the Kashiwa Zone’s chanting was not disturbed at all, who just kept on singing as if  nothing happened.

The game was then over and the Sendai fans started to celebrate with their team for another 15 minutes after game, while the Kashiwa players apologised for losing the game.

Here you can find more pictures!

We left the stadium after everyone became quiet. On our way to the city centre, we walked past a branch of the Asahi News Agency, whose staff were giving away extra of the match report! That efficiency!

It was a truly amazing experience and was worth all the effort we put in the planning before. The fans of both sides were beyond our imagination as we went back to the city of Tokyo happily.

 

Update: We also made a complication of the fans chanting during the game. Enjoy!