From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad5 Oct 2026
Shoya Nakajima damages knee ligaments — 85 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 85 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match30 Sep 2026
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Urawa Reds scored in the 119th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Defensive actions: 24, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad5 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Urawa Reds this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Defensive actions: 22, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Urawa Reds training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Takuro Kaneko is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
21 times he got in the way of something. Centre-halves get written about when they make mistakes and ignored when they do not, so an afternoon like this needs saying out loud: he is the reason the scoreline reads as it does.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Matheus Savio, and the manager let it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad28 Sep 2026
Shoya Nakajima damages knee ligaments — 92 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 92 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match26 Sep 2026
Sagan Tosu will want this one forgotten quickly: 3‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Urawa Reds were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Market28 Sep 2026
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Matheus Savio wants continental football; whether Urawa Reds can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Takehiro Tomiyasu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Ninety minutes of Ryoma Watanabe at his very best
Marked 8.84. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Urawa Reds.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Samuel Gustafson falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad28 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Samuel Gustafson, and the manager let it.
Loan watch28 Sep 2026
“I watch every Urawa Reds game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Wellington Phoenix runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
Shoya Nakajima damages knee ligaments — 99 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 99 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Urawa Reds this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Marked 8.43 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Yuto Ozeki falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
A performance of 8.25 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match19 Sep 2026
Urawa Reds hit back inside 4 minutes
Ventforet Kofu held the lead for 4 minutes, which is not long enough to enjoy it. Urawa Reds answered before the celebration had properly finished, and the shape of the afternoon changed with it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
9 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad14 Sep 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Shoya Nakajima
107 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Urawa Reds lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market14 Sep 2026
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Urawa Reds hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Takehiro Tomiyasu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad14 Sep 2026
Takuro Kaneko falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad14 Sep 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Match12 Sep 2026
Gamba Osaka left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
The terraces14 Sep 2026
Every touch is being weighed now, in print and everywhere else. Some players grow into that and some are quietly ruined by it, and nobody knows which in advance.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Shots: 7. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Player ratings14 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad7 Sep 2026
Shoya Nakajima damages knee ligaments — 115 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 115 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad7 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Urawa Reds this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Allan Vitor gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Allan Vitor has just signed for Urawa Reds, and for once the answer mattered.
Squad7 Sep 2026
The manager makes an example of Thiago Santana
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Match5 Sep 2026
It finished 1‑0, and it was Thiago Santana’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Urawa Reds.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 16, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 11. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market7 Sep 2026
No fee and no drama: Allan Vitor has signed at Urawa Reds, and the wage bill is the only line that moved.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 9, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad31 Aug 2026
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Shusaku Nishikawa: 5 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Shoya Nakajima damages knee ligaments — 124 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 124 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match26 Aug 2026
Avispa Fukuoka are out and Urawa Reds go through, 0‑0 the final word. The bracket opens up a little, and everyone allows themselves a look at it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Takehiro Tomiyasu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes of Kai Shibato at his very best
Marked 8.96. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Urawa Reds.
Squad31 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Kosuke Nakamura, and the manager let it.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Shots: 8, enough of them from close enough that a striker in form scores two. He is not a striker in form.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
It was his to settle and he did not settle it. A long walk back to the halfway line, and a considerably longer week.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad24 Aug 2026
Shoya Nakajima damages knee ligaments — 131 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 131 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match19 Aug 2026
A 2‑1 win over Shonan Bellmare, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
The terraces24 Aug 2026
The boos come down from three sides
“We pay for this every fortnight. The least we want is somebody who looks like he cares.” 7 of the 26 senior players walked off into it; the rest were not playing.
Market24 Aug 2026
Sagan Tosu pay $1.3M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Urawa Reds this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
A hand in 2 of them from Ado Onaiwu — 7.59
Marked 7.59. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Match22 Aug 2026
1‑2 to Avispa Fukuoka, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Urawa Reds training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Takuro Kaneko is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer from Sagan Tosu for Hiiro Komori was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Takehiro Tomiyasu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad17 Aug 2026
There is a level at which a footballer stops being tested and starts being contained, and he reached it some time ago. Urawa Reds know it, and so does everybody who watches him.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Urawa Reds training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Ado Onaiwu is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad17 Aug 2026
5 new faces, and Urawa Reds are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Shots: 4, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Match15 Aug 2026
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Vissel Kobe will be the happier side with the point.
Market17 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad10 Aug 2026
A move Takehiro Tomiyasu would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Takehiro Tomiyasu is living that version at Urawa Reds, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market10 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Takehiro Tomiyasu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market10 Aug 2026
Some transfers need a press campaign. This one needed a shirt with the old number on it. Yoichi Naganuma is a Urawa Reds player again, and the town has its story of the summer.
Squad10 Aug 2026
The manager makes an example of Matheus Savio
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Marked 8.79 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Match8 Aug 2026
A 1‑0 win over Vegalta Sendai, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings10 Aug 2026
Ado Onaiwu was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.42. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad3 Aug 2026
408 appearances across 12 seasons in these colours. Careers like that are not built any more, and Urawa Reds know what they have.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Matheus Savio and Urawa Reds agree another 5 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Urawa Reds this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market3 Aug 2026
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Matheus Savio has his answer from Urawa Reds; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Thiago Santana, and the manager let it.
Match1 Aug 2026
Omiya Ardija made Urawa Reds work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Defensive actions: 13. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.