On May 28th, the Urawa Reds Heartful Meeting 2025 was held at Saitama Stadium.

Urawa Reds Heart-full Club is celebrating its 23rd year with the theme of nurturing "hearts" through soccer. At this meeting, 35 people from 20 organizations, including partner companies and local governments that regularly support the club's activities, looked back on the club's activities in 2024 and explained its guidelines for activities in 2025.

First, Urawa Reds Reds president Makoto Taguchi expressed his gratitude to those who have supported him on a daily basis.
Then, in the first part, Heart-full Club coaches were introduced and greeted, followed by a report on activities for 2024 and an explanation of activity guidelines for 2025.



<Activities in 2024: A total of 501 interactions with 38,577 people>
◎ Heart-full School
・Visits to 103 elementary schools
・Visits to 112 Reds Kids (nursery schools and kindergartens)
A total of 18,684 people participated

◎Visiting disaster-stricken areas (Yamada Town, Otsuchi Town, J Village)
・13th year since the Great East Japan Earthquake
・Interacted with 374 children over 10 programs

◎ Heart-full Soccer in Asia
- First visit to Laos, the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam under AFC jurisdiction

During his activities Heart-full Soccer in Asia, he once again realized the difficulty of "teaching and communicating" with the children he met at a local elementary school, which has become a realization for future activities. He also reported that he experienced cultural differences firsthand on the island of Guam in the Northern Mariana Islands, which is a U.S. territory. He reported that by giving back and sharing these experiences back to his hometown of Saitama, he can make the event meaningful as "grassroots international exchange."

At the end of the first part, former Japan national team player and Heart-full Club captain Hiroshi Ochiai gave a speech.
Captain Ochiai began by saying, "I say the same thing every year, but the first thing I want to say to you is my gratitude," and then he spoke about Heart-full Club 's philosophy and how to interact with children, based on what he tells the children when supporting their elementary school classes. The participants listened intently.



In the second part, a Heartful trial session was held at Saitama Stadium's second ground, where the participants experienced a program for elementary school students, led by Coach Kami, Masao Kamino. The participants returned to their childhood and played hard on the green pitch, smiling. The trial session had Heart-full Club like atmosphere, where participants could see a glimpse of serious play amidst the fun.







The third part of the event moved to a view restaurant on the north side of the stadium, where the attendees enjoyed ramen provided by Moritaken, run by former club member and current Heartful coach Morita Gohei, and took some time for conversation and social interaction while watching the 2025 Meiji Yasuda J1 League Round 22 match Cerezo Osaka, which was held at Saitama Stadium that day, and thus concluded the Urawa Reds Heartful Meeting 2025.

Heart-full Club 's guidelines and philosophy for 2025 will remain unchanged and will be based on the themes of "compassion," "enjoyment," "hard work" plus "thinking."
In addition, our 2025 activity policy also includes beginning to build a long-term foundation with an eye to the next five, ten, and even twenty years. Starting this year, we will appoint a new "director" to oversee the field (coaches) as we move forward with building this foundation, and by controlling the team including resolving issues, we will aim to maintain our value while continuing to operate as a new Heart-full Club.

Finally, in our daily activities, we will work to develop the "spirit" of as many children as possible through soccer, while visiting disaster-stricken areas to provide "psychological care" and work with the local people to help with reconstruction. Furthermore, we will increase awareness of Urawa Reds through grassroots activities in Asia, and our coaches will give back to their hometown of Saitama through their activities in Asia.