FC Willemstad

FC Willemstad, or simply Willemstad, is a professional Brunanter football club located in Sint-Willemstad. It currently plays in Brunant's top flight, the 1. Liga. The club was founded on 2 May 1957 and played its first 1. Liga season in 1968-69. The team plays at the 20,000-capacity Willemstadion located in Sint-Willemstad, Sint-Willemstad Parish. FC Willemstad is not one of the earliest Brunanter football clubs nor one of the recently founded clubs. The club is widely known for being one of the richest Brunanter football clubs, owned 60% by Brunanter Prime Minister Peter Wostor and owned 40% by worldwide sports brand Adidas.

Early years
FC Willemstad was originally founded in 1956, as one of the later football clubs founded in Brunant. When the Sint-Willemstad based club was founded, there was already over sixteen football clubs (many now defunct) playing in Brunant. A poll was created and voted by thousands of people where a new football club should be located, and thousands of citizens residing in Sint-Willemstad voted for their home town, winning the vote. Another vote was held on the name of the new football club, and the chosen name was "FC Willemstad", an abbreviation for Football Club Willemstad. A stadium was built near greenery in North Sint-Willemstad named "Willemstad Park", which became the club's stadium. The founder and owner of the club was a Dutch investment firm making the Sint-Willemstad citizens excited, however a lack of funds were invested into the club and the firm turned out to be a small, poor firm. The Sint-Willemstad based club were not successful in their early years, and were often relegated to the Second League because of their lack of funds. FC Willemstad tried to sign good players, however many of the good players that signed for the club turned out to play poorly, and were later sold for cheap prices. In the club's first ten years of existance, only two of their seasons were played in the First League and the club was considered to be one of the least entertaining football clubs in the whole of Brunant. In the opinion of many football critics, amateur football clubs were often more entertaining than FC Willemstad. The club's fortune changed in 1967 (11 years since foundation), when the club was taken over by Gerd Jansen, a very rich Brunanter citizen.

Jansen era
In 1967 whilst the club was playing in the Second League, a rich Brunanter citizen named Gerd Jansen took over the club. He made his fortune from a successful investment firm, unlike the first owners of the club. An influx of entertaining and skillful footballers were signed for the club, including several players from the top tier of Italian and Spanish football. The club quickly gained promotion to the First League, and grew to become one of the largest football clubs in the country. The club became a top half finisher, in the First League however surprisingly never won a 1. Liga title or finished second in Gerd Jansen's owership the club. This resulted in many footballers to leave the club and rejoin their old clubs in the top tier of Italian and Spanish football, and the club quickly fell again. The situation became worse, and in 1980, the club were once again relegated to the Second League. Just several months after their relegation, Gerd Jansen sold the club to the Wostor Family, a moderately rich family residing in Sint-Willemstad.

1980-2000
Following the Sint-Willemstad based club's relegation to the Second League, many supporters started to support other football clubs across Brunant and were not very loyal, resulting in the downgrading of Willemstad Park's capacity from 8,000 seats to just 2,000 seats. The Wostor Family were not very rich, even less so than the original owner and founder of FC Willemstad and could not bring much success to the football club. For 16 whole seasons, the club remained in the Second League and often found themselves in a bad financial situation, or in an amateur playoff against a club in the Parish League System. In 1996, the club were promoted to the First League, and an influx of Sint-Willemstad citizens started watching the team play at matches, and their small stadium was often filled up. The club managed to stay in the First League, however in 1998 the club was once again relegated to the Second League and achieved no further success.

2000-2014
The club remained in the Second League for many years until 2012, when the Wostor Family sold 40% of FC Willemstad to large German sportswear brand, Adidas, and both owners invested heavily into the club. An influx of First League standard players joined the club, including the likes of Chilean striker Carlos Marin, Libertan national team goalkeeper Herebi Jaguf, Brunanter national team midfielder Stefan El-Zein, and young Brunanter U-20 international Simon Jordans. The club won the 2. Liga that season (2012-13), and also moved into the 18,000 seater stadium, the Willemstadion, from the old 2,000 seater Willemstad Park. Adidas supplied the football club with even more investment when they were promoted to First League ahead of the 2013-14 season, and the club signed the likes of Tomás and others. The club also kept Gerard Dekhuis as their manager due to his past experience, however the Sint-Willemstad club performed badly in their first season in the First League despite large investment. Stefan El-Zein was sold to Kemburger club Battery FC in January because of the club's bad performances, and the attendance at matches boomed down. At the end of the 2013-14 season, Willemstad agreed a deal with Gerard Dekhuis for him to leave the club by mutual consent, and he joined Libertan club FC Skeend. The new manager for FC Willemstad was chosen near the end of the 2013-14 season, and despite Michael Laudrup being the favourite for the job, he joined the Kemburg national football team resulting in experienced Argentine manager Sergio Alfaro set to join the club instead.

2014-15 season
Ahead of the 2014-15 season, FC Willemstad brought in a new manager, former Argentine professional footballer Sergio Alfaro who previously brought two consecutive league titles to Inselsk football club IF Pilhamn (2012-13, 2013-14). Former manager Gerard Dekhuis left at the end of the 2013-14 season on mutual consent, and joined his former Libertan football club FC Skeend. Alfaro was given a large transfer budget of €20 million, however he sold Portugese international striker Tomás for €9 million, bringing his available tranfer budget to a massive €29 million. An influx of players were signed for FC Willemstad, including Brunanter international goalkeeper Anthony Elteman for €3 million, which also saw Libertan international goalkeeper Herebi Jaguf go the other way. Alfaro's second signing was Hamid Asma for €3.5 million, whilst his third signing was Brunanter U-20 international Max Nilson to bolster the club's attack. Many large signings followed them, with the graph below showing all of Willemstad's transfers and sales in the 2014-15 season.

Stadium
Between the football club's foundation and late 2012, FC Willemstad used the small 2,000 seater, the Willemstad Park as their home stadium. In 2012, the large 18,210 seater football stadium, the Willemstadion, as part of the club's hope for promotion. The season did infact achieve promotion that season, and the Willemstadion has been put to major use. The Willemstadion has been filled several times already, in a total of 15 different matches. There are currently ongoing talks of expansion of the stadium, and the foundation of a new football club in the Parish League System that would also use the stadium. Many different companies across Brunant, and nearby countries of Europe, have considered sponsoring the stadium, however it is thought that Adidas will be the chosen company to sponsor the stadium resulting in the stadium name becoming the "Adidas Arena". Several stands are already sponsored by companies from Brunant and Kemburg, being the Meyer Group Stand (east stand), and the Bet999 (west stand).

Rivalries
The Greens consider their main rivals to be local clubs, FC Donderar and FC Drenthe, as they are both located in local parishes, the Mariaberg Parish, and the Drenthe Parish. FC Willemstad also consider Mediterranean FC to be rivals, because of historic events between the two clubs (rioting). Some FC Willemstad supporters also consider St. Marks Koningstad to be their rivals, as both shirt colours are Green.

FC Willemstad II
In 1972, FC Willemstad II was formed as a secondary team to FC Willemstad. It would compete in the lowest professional tier of Brunanter football, the Parish League System. The team was centered around reserve players, but after several years began centering around youth players. After centering around youth players, the club almost gained promotion to the Second League, however FC Willemstad's first team narrowly missed out on promotion to the First League, resulting in the disallowing of Willemstad II's promotion. The club has never achieved promotion from the Parish League System into the AFC system, however in recent years have come very close.