Kashima Antlers

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Kashima Antlers
鹿島アントラーズ

Full name	Kashima Antlers F.C. Co., Ltd.
Founded	1947; 77 years ago (1947) as Sumitomo Metal FC
Ground	Kashima Soccer Stadium
Capacity	40,728[1]
Owner	Mercari
Chairman	Fumiaki Koizumi
Manager	Ranko Popović
League	J1 League
2023	J1 League, 5th of 18
Website	Club website
Home colours Away colours
Current season

Kashima Antlers (鹿島アントラーズ, Kashima Antorāzu) are a professional football club based in Kashima, Ibaraki, Japan. They currently play in the J1 League, the top tier of Japanese professional football leagues. The club has financial backing from Mercari, a Japanese e-commerce company.

Since the J.League's creation and introduction of professional Japanese football in 1993, Kashima have proven themselves to be by far Japan's most successful football club in terms of trophies won, having won the J1 League title a record 8 times, the J.League Cup a record 6 times. the Emperor's Cup 5 times and the Japanese Super Cup a record 6 times for an unprecedented nineteen major domestic titles. Continentally, Kashima became Asian champions when they won the AFC Champions League in 2018. The club also won the J.League Cup / Copa Sudamericana Championship on 2 occasions in 2012 and 2013.

Internationally, Kashima has made two appearances in the FIFA Club World Cup where in the 2016 edition, the club qualified as the host of the tournament. Kashima notably became the only club to qualify from the first round until the final where they would go on to lose to 2015–16 UEFA Champions League winners, Real Madrid 4–2 after extra time with Gaku Shibasaki scoring both goals for Kashima.

Kashima are also one of only two clubs to have competed in Japan's professional top-flight football every year since its inception (the other being Yokohama F. Marinos).