Omiya Ardija

Ōmiya Ardija (jap. 大宮アルディージャ, Ōmiya Arudīja) is a football club in the Japanese professional J. League. The club, from Ōmiya-ku, a municipality of Saitama (Saitama Prefecture), a city with over a million inhabitants that was created in 2001, has been playing in the second highest Japanese football league, the J2 League, since the 2018 season.

The name Ardija is an artificial word borrowed from Spanish, where ardilla means squirrel. Accordingly, the rodent is also the club mascot, adorns the club crest and gave the team the (not very scary) nickname "the mighty squirrels of Saitama". This small-mindedness is linked to the 2001 merger of the cities of Ōmiya and Urawa to form Saitama, which made Ardija the city rivals of the overmatched Urawa Red Diamonds. Although the Squirrels surprisingly won the first derby 2-1 on 9 July 2005, they will have to make do with the role of minnows for the time being.

The club was founded in 1969 as a factory team of the telecommunications state-owned company NTT under the name NTT Kantō Soccer-bu (NTT関東サッカー部), in English NTT Kantō Football Club, and was active for almost twenty years only in various regional leagues of the Kantō region. NTT managed to win its only national title to date by winning the championship of all regional leagues in 1986, and the following year the club was promoted to the second division of the nationwide Japan Soccer League. However, the club's development then stagnated, a situation that did not change when NTT moved up to the newly created Japan Football League when the J. League was formed. In its current form, the team was established as a joint stock company in 1998: In NTT Sports Community K.K.. (NTTスポーツコミュニティ株式会社, enu ti supōtsu komyuniti kabushiki-gaisha) is owned by NTT Higashi-Nihon and other NTT Group companies.

It was not until 1999, when the second division of the J. League was established, that the company increased its involvement with the new second-division team, which henceforth called itself Ōmiya Ardija. The squirrel was intended to give the team the image of a likeable underdog: nimble, skilled and hard-working - just as NTT wanted to present its employees. The commitment proved successful, and after five years in fourth to sixth place, Ardija achieved the longed-for promotion to the top flight in 2004. In 2007, they narrowly escaped relegation when they finished 15th, three points ahead of Sanfrecce Hiroshima, and 16th, which would have meant relegation. The club was relegated to the second division for the 2015 season, but managed a direct return to the top flight.

Successes

• J2 League

Runner-up: 2004 ▲

Master: 2015 ▲

Stadium

The club plays its home matches at NACK5 Stadium Ōmiya (jap. NACK5スタジアム大宮, nakku faibu sutajiamu Ōmiya) in Saitama, Saitama Prefecture. The stadium, owned by the city of Saitama, has a capacity of 15,500 spectators.

Coordinates: 35° 54′ 58.4″ N, 139° 38′ 0.5″ E35.916225139.63348055556