1995
Founded
Samsung Electronics founded the club on 15 December 1995. It entered the K League the following season as the competition's ninth member.
The Blue-White-Red Corps
Suwon Bluewings: the Samsung club, K League honours and Big Bird Stadium
Suwon Samsung Bluewings were founded in December 1995 and spent 28 seasons in the Korean top flight before relegation in 2023. This guide covers what does not change: the trophies, the derby, the ground, and the Suwon Bluewings supporters who make the north end the loudest place in Korean football.
1995Founded 44,031Big Bird capacity 4K League titles 2Asian titles 112Super Matches
Suwon Bluewings at a glance
아길레온
Aguileon, the mascot
Aguileon is a griffin, eagle above and lion below. The name compounds the Spanish águila and león.
44,031
Seats at Big Bird Stadium
Suwon World Cup Stadium opened on 13 May 2001 and hosted four matches at the 2002 World Cup.
Hwaseong walls
The crest
The badge in use since 2008 carries Hwaseong Fortress, the UNESCO-listed wall that rings the old city, with a wing above it.
Kim Ho
The first manager
A former South Korea coach, Kim Ho took the newly formed side to the runners-up place in the 1996 championship play-off in its debut season, then to the titles that followed.
The Samsung era in silverware
K League, back to back
The first two league titles, won in consecutive seasons under Kim Ho.
Asian Club Championship
Two continental titles in a row, followed both times by the Asian Super Cup.
K League, again
Two more championships, taking the league tally to four.
A3 Champions Cup
The short-lived club tournament between the Korean, Japanese and Chinese champions.
Korean FA Cup ×5
2002, 2009, 2010, 2016 and 2019, the most recent trophy of any kind.
Twenty-four trophies in all: four K League championships, five Korean FA Cups, six League Cups, three Super Cups, two Asian Club Championships, two Asian Super Cups, the 2005 A3 Champions Cup and the 2009 Pan-Pacific Championship. None of it since the Korean FA Cup of 2019.
The full honours list, competition by competitionSuper Match: the K League derby with FC Seoul
Suwon Bluewings
Big Bird · Suwon
39
wins
FC Seoul
Sangam · Seoul
43
wins
VS
112 meetings, 30 of them drawn. The clubs first met on 10 April 1996; the most recent Super Match, on 25 November 2023, finished Seoul 0, Suwon 1.
45,192The ground's biggest crowd, a Super Match on 1 April 2012
LG vs SamsungTwo electronics rivals behind two clubs
Anyang, 2004The year FC Seoul moved back to the capital
The fixture is the biggest in Korean club football, and its edge is corporate as much as geographic: Suwon belonged to Samsung Electronics, while the club now called FC Seoul was run by LG, and the two were industrial arch-rivals.
The Super Match head-to-headMatchday at Big Bird Stadium
Getting in
Every K League club sells tickets at booths outside the ground on the day, and no ID is asked for. Advance online sales need a Korean phone number, which closes that route to most visitors.
Reaching the stadium
Subway Line 1 from Seoul takes about an hour to Suwon Station; the KTX does it in just over 30 minutes. From the station, buses 86, 100, 720, 720-1 and 702-2 all pass the ground.
The north end
The N section behind the goal belongs to Frente Tricolor. Anywhere along the east side gives you the full view of what they do with it.
Ingye-dong
The crowd moves to Ingye-dong and the streets around Ajou University, where fried chicken and cold beer is the standing order.
Big Bird Stadium sits in Paldal District, a bus ride from the centre of Suwon. League matches rarely sell out anywhere in Korea, but this is one of the few clubs where they can, which is the one piece of planning a visit here actually needs.
Routes, booths and where to standThe supporters behind the goal
Frente Tricolor
Organised in late 1995 as CyberWings, renamed Grand Bleu, and relaunched under the current name in May 2012 after a merger with Highland Este.
Twenty-five songs
At the 2026 opener the N section sang for close to 100 minutes and used twenty-five chants without repeating one of them.
Cards, umbrellas, confetti
Blue, white and red umbrellas go up together, confetti comes down, and the whole end turns into one picture on the big nights.
Attendance is the clearest measure of it. Of the sixteen K League 2 matches that drew more than 10,000 in 2025, fourteen involved this club, and the Suwon Bluewings supporters averaged 12,048 at home, the best figure in over a decade and the fourth highest in Korean football of any division.
How the north end worksLegends and the record book
Yeom Ki-hun
413 apps · 71 goals · 119 assists
Joined in 2010 and left holding all three club records, plus the K League's all-time assist mark of 110.
Kim Ho
From 1996
The founding coach: a play-off final in year one, then the 1998 and 1999 championships.
Five FA Cups
2002 · 2009 · 2010 · 2016 · 2019
Yeom Ki-hun is the only player to have been named FA Cup MVP twice in the tournament's history.
Back-to-back Asia
2000–01 · 2001–02
Asian Club Championship in consecutive seasons, with the Asian Super Cup following each one.
The Suwon Bluewings history that gets retold in the north end is mostly this stretch: the titles, the four-trophy season and the two Asian championships that followed it.
The record book and the legendsThe road back to K League 1
2023
The fall
Bottom of K League 1, and 28 unbroken seasons in the top division come to an end.
2024
Year one down
A first season in the second tier ends without promotion.
2025
Second, then beaten
Runners-up on 20 wins, 12 draws and 7 defeats, with 76 goals scored but 50 conceded in 39 matches. The play-off went 0-3 on aggregate to Jeju SK.
2026
A new bench
Lee Jung-hyo arrives from Gwangju on a five-year deal. The opener against Seoul E-Land drew 24,071, a K League 2 record for a single match.
Read further
Matchday at Big Bird
Trains, buses, ticket booths, which end to pick and what the ground rules are on colours and drink.
The matchday guidePhoto Realidad y Illusion, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped
The north end
Frente Tricolor, twenty-five chants, the cards and the umbrellas, and how a newcomer joins in.
Terrace culture
The record book
Yeom Ki-hun's three club records, the title years, and the marks that still stand.
Records and legendsQuestions fans ask
Why are Suwon Samsung Bluewings called the Bluewings?
The name pairs the blue of the home shirt with the wing on the crest, which sits above the walls of Hwaseong Fortress. The current badge has been in use since 2008.
Which division do the Bluewings play in?
K League 2, the second tier. Suwon Samsung Bluewings were relegated at the end of the 2023 season after 28 years in the top flight and finished as K League 2 runners-up in 2025.
Who are the Bluewings' main rivals?
The fixture against FC Seoul. The two have met 112 times since April 1996: 43 wins for Seoul, 39 for Suwon and 30 draws, the last of them in November 2023.
Can a visitor buy a ticket on the day?
Usually yes, at the booths outside the ground, for a processing fee of about 2,000 won and with card rather than cash. This is one of the clubs whose matches can sell out, so it pays to be early.
What does Big Bird mean?
It is the nickname of Suwon World Cup Stadium, after the shape of the roof. The ground holds 44,031, opened in May 2001 and staged four matches at the 2002 World Cup, including a round-of-16 tie that Spain won on penalties.