FC Ganju Iwate

FC Ganju Iwate
FCガンジュ岩手

Full name	FC Ganju Iwate
Nickname(s)	Ganju
Founded	2006
Ground	Iwate Morioka Stadium
Capacity	30,000
Chairman	Kentaro Ihara
Manager	Tetsuya Nakanishi
League	Tohoku Soccer League
2023	7th of 12
Home colours Away colours

FC Ganju Iwate (FCガンジュ岩手, FC Ganju Iwate) is a football (soccer) club based in Hachimantai, a city of Iwate Prefecture in Japan. They play in the Tohoku Soccer League, which is part of Japanese Regional Leagues. The name of the club refers to Mount Iwate, symbol of their prefecture due to this volcano and also present on the club's logo.

Founded in 2006, the club was a separated entity from Grulla Morioka (still in the Iwate Prefecture, but in Morioka).^[1] Shinichi Muto was fundamental to start club's history with the proper amount of experience and he was hired as player-manager for 2006 and 2007. The creation of another club in the Prefecture - Unsommet Iwate Hachimantai - didn't stop FC Ganju Iwate from climbing Japanese football's pyramid: they won several promotion in Iwate Prefectural Football, even going unbeaten for whole four seasons.

Unfortunately, then bigger clubs - like Grulla, ReinMeer Aomori FC and Vanraure Hachinohe - risked to block their growth. After these clubs went up to Japan Football League, FC Ganju Iwate won the Tohoku Soccer League in 2014 and 2015. Still, the club wasn't able to reach JFL because they didn't perform in 2014 and 2015 Japanese Regional Football League Competition, being eliminated in the group stage. They featured just once in Emperor's Cup, losing against Saitama SC in the first round of 2007 edition.

As for 2017 season, their aim remains to reach Japan Football League.

Key

• Pos. = Position in league; P = Games played; W = Games won; D = Games drawn; L = Games lost; Pts = Points gained

As of 30 April 2024.^[2]

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Pos. Nation Player 2 DF  JPN Tomoya Terada 3 DF  JPN Junya Hashimoto 4 DF  JPN Tadayoshi Hiranaka 5 DF  JPN Junya Yamashita 7 MF  JPN Tetsuya Nakanishi 8 FW  JPN Yamato Kadowaki 9 MF  JPN Yu Mita 10 FW  JPN Shinma Kumagai

No. Pos. Nation Player 14 MF  JPN Daiji Matoba 16 MF  JPN Yuya Yamamoto 17 GK  JPN Shinnosuke Fujiwara 18 FW  JPN Koya Higashi 19 MF  JPN Takahiro Yamamoto 25 FW  JPN Kaito Katsu 32 FW  JPN Monji Kumagai 50 DF  JPN Atsushi Wada

• Official website (archived) (in Japanese)