ASIA Urawa Red Diamonds (Japan)
Urawa are one of the more well-known teams in Japan and despite holding the record for the most seasons in the top flight they have not won their domestic `J` League since 2006. The closest they came was a decade later when they finished second. However, they did win the AFC Champions League in 2007 and 2017, the former being the year they also took 3rd place in the FIFA World Club Cup. Urawa reached this year`s World Club Cup with a 3-0 aggregate win over Guangzhou Evergrande.
PLAYERS
Urawa`s players are mainly home-based although they do have a trio of Brazilians. Mauricio Antonio is a defender who played for Red Diamonds in the 2017 World Club Cup and ended up as top scorer with one Cristiano Ronaldo, despite playing only one game as the team were eliminated in the second round. Ewerton is a midfielder who must have thought he caught a big career break when he signed for Porto in July 2018 but within a year he had moved on loan to Urawa. The third Brazilian player is Fabricio whose best career spell in what could be termed nomadic was the seven years he spent with Portimonense in Portugal up to 2018 where his 166 games yielded a decent return of 40 goals.
COACH
Tsuyoshi Otsuki became Urawa coach as recently as May 2019 when Oswaldo de Olivera, who had only been in charge for a year, was sacked. Urawa do not do managerial consistency as they have had 8 managers in 10 years and for five of those 10 it was Serbian Mihailo Petrovic who earns the accolade of longest serving coach. Otsuki spent 2004 to 2010 as a coach at Urawa before a two-year spell with Vegalta Sendai then he returned to Urawa as an assistant coach.
