Urawa Red Diamonds

This badge tells some incredible stories, so let's visit 5-time Japanese football league winners Urawa Red Diamonds and #GetTheBadgeIn.

Urawa Red Diamonds, typically called the Urawa Reds, trace their origins back to 1950, when Mitsubishi Heavy Industries—a company integral to Japan’s post-war rebuilding—set up a football team at its Kobe plant. Kobe is a picturesque suburb of Tokyo along the bay that today boasts a famous firework festival. However, the industrial giant soon outgrew these confines and by 1958, they relocated to Tokyo proper.

The distinctive three red diamonds in their original badge then clearly aren't random—they come straight from the Iwasaki family crest, used as the symbol for Mitsubishi since its founding in 1870 (The word Mitsubishi when directly translated means "Three Diamonds".

In the most recent badge the three diamonds have been reduced to just one large one that dominates that middle of the badge. The red and black palette so their website claims, conveys boldness and precision, much like the company itself.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries quickly became a name that spanned shipbuilding, heavy machinery, aircraft, and railway cars—the backbone of Japan’s newly industrialised economy. Japan was devastated by The Second World War - aside from the atomic bombs their cities were made of mostly wood and the US made a point of dropping incendiary bombs that caused huge wildfires that swept their major cities. More people died in those infernos than did at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, something most people forget.

Post-War Japan needed a total rebuild, and with US investment and military protection (and their own new constitution that banned spending on their own military – therefore diverting internal investment into more productive industries) Japan's growth sky rocketed. The Three Diamonds were at the heart of this rebuild.

Aside from the heavy industries, Mitsubishi Motors emerged as a subsidiary in 1970 to focus on automobiles, exporting vehicles to North America, Australia, Southeast Asia, and Europe. Football was woven into this corporate fabric, offering recreation and brand pride to employees and local communities.

So, when Japan launched its first national football league in 1965, Mitsubishi became one of the “Original Eight” founding members. They represented on the pitch a force that had built the world's second largest economy from literal ashes in just a couple of decades.

Their on-field performance peaked with a spectacular treble in 1978 (league, league cup & Emperor's Cup). With professionalism from 1992 onwards, the club was renamed Mitsubishi Urawa FC, then in 1996 became officially Urawa Red Diamonds.

Urawa City, a small settlement to the North of Tokyo became a hub for Mitsubishi. Many of Mitsubishi’s workers, engineers, and families moved in. As the city's industry thrived, so too did its fan base: match days at the Saitama Stadium (2002) (Saitama is the newer name for the region in which Urawa City used to sit) became a mixture of company and national pride.

But the badge is more than just a tale of corporate and post-war rebirth. Because the Urawa also feature the symbol of a second, older, rebirth... that of the 1800s Meiji Restoration.

You see, the building on the top of the badge is the Hōshōkaku, a historic Western-style structure that once served as the Saitama Elite Teacher Training College, built in 1878.

As a teacher myself, a club with a teacher training college on the badge obviously holds some interest. The college was built in 1878 at a time when Japan was rapidly modernising and adopting Western ideas in industry, education, and sport, transforming itself from a feudal society into a modern nation.

The Japanese had been humiliated in negotiations with the United States, notably during the visit with Commodore Perry who forced a disastrous trade deal on the nation. The shame was so great it toppled the ruling Shogun system and brought back the Emperor - but as a constitutional Monarchy (like the UK). The new government set about upgrading every part of Japan - including a new education system based mostly on that used in France. To train up teachers in the new methods they built the Hōshōkaku in Saitama - the neighbouring area to Urawa. What did these French influenced trainne teachers play during their down time? Europe's newest and hottest game - football.

To hammer home the roots of the team the two red flowers on the badge are Sakurasō (Primula sieboldii), also known as the Japanese primrose. They are the official flower of both Saitama Prefecture and Urawa City.

So, this badge is now one of my absolute favourites - a triple whammy - the hope and rapid reforms of the Meiji Restoration - the birthplace of Japanese football - and the rapid reforms and industrial might of post-war Japan as embodied by Mitsubishi.

The Reds have become a continental force with AFC Champions League titles in 2007, 2017 and 2022, and regular appearances at the FIFA Club World Cup, including a strong showing in 2025 where they ran Inter Milan close in a narrow defeat.

Personally, I can't wait to see them back on the global stage - with their astonishing heritage - they deserve to be more widely seen.

Up the Reds.