Nagoya Grampus

Nagoya Grampus (名古屋グランパス, Nagoya Guranpasu?) (formerly Nagoya Grampus Eight) are a Japanese association football club that play in the J. League. Based in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture and originally founded as the company team of the Toyota Motor Corp. in 1939, the club shares its home games between Mizuho Athletic Stadium (capacity 27,000 and the J.League's oldest-serving stadium) and the much larger Toyota Stadium (capacity 45,000).

Grampus are one of only five teams to have competed in Japan's top flight of football every year since its inception in 1993. The team previously had its most successful season in 1995 when it was managed by current Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, winning the prestigious Emperor's Cup and finishing runners-up in the J.League, and which featured, among others, Dragan Stojković and Gary Lineker on the team, until it was eclipsed on November 20, 2010, when the club won their first ever J. League trophy, under the management of Wenger protégé and former Grampus player Dragan Stojković.

The team's name was derived from the two most prominent symbols of Nagoya: the two golden grampus dolphins on the top of Nagoya Castle (which can be more accurately described as shachihoko, a mythological creature part of the local folklore), and the Maru-Hachi (Circle eight), the city's official symbol. The use of an orca in the team's logo is likely a reference to the fact that the kanji for shachichoko (鯱) can be pronounced "shachichoko" (the aforemention mythical creature) or "shachi" (orca).