Stay classy, Samurai Blue fans 👏👏
Japan’s national team have already produced the goods. So too their fans.
After the Blue Samurai’s incredible 2-1 win over Germany, Japanese fans held their post-game composure and lived up to a classy act that’s become somewhat of a tradition.
They left their sections of Khalifa International Stadium in as good a condition as what they found it.
Despite the fact it should be a basic and accepted responsibility to clean up after yourself – whether in the office or at a sporting event, in today’s world of widespread entitlement, this decency is not the norm.
Even after a famous win at the World Cup, Japan fans stayed behind to clean up ❤️ pic.twitter.com/BJnGEQWs6s
— B/R Football (@brfootball) November 23, 2022
Japan has the most wholesome fans ????#FIFAWorldCup | #Qatar2022 pic.twitter.com/wkTJgJv4F3
— 101 Great Goals (@101greatgoals) November 23, 2022
Two extremely successful teams of the last decade, the All Blacks and Hawthorn Hawks, became well known for acting with humility and cleaning change rooms after games. It’s undoubtedly a microcosm of what can make good teams, or fan bases, well… great.
True excellence involves many things. Humility is key allowing continuous learning, improvement and enabling high functioning teams. @AllBlacks, probably the world's most successful team, use the #sweepthesheds mantra. No one is too big to clean the changing rooms. #Cleft2022 pic.twitter.com/BKHYb165ZI
— David Sainsbury (@DaveSainsbury) June 26, 2022
And the Japan fans’ class is rubbing off on a national team that continues to go from strength to strength. While in many ways Asian rival Australia has seemingly gone backwards over the last few World Cup cycles, the Samurai Blue is pointing up.
Japan’s 2-0 win over the Socceroos all but ended its chances of direct qualification to Qatar. And the match just wasn’t close; it could’ve been more than two goals.
The nation’s form has continued to the big stage, while the Aussies were comfortably out-classed by France 4-1.
After an historic victory against Germany at the #FIFAWorldCup on Match Day 4, Japan fans cleaned up their rubbish in the stadium, whilst the @jfa_samuraiblue left their changing room at Khalifa International Stadium like this. Spotless.
— FIFA.com (@FIFAcom) November 23, 2022
Domo Arigato.???????????? pic.twitter.com/NuAQ2xrwSI
Japan’s historic win over Germany gives them a seemingly unlikely opportunity to progress out of a group that also contains a red hot Spain side coming off a 7-0 win over Costa Rica.
Japan STUN Germany and the Samurai Blue earn a famous 2-1 win to begin their World Cup campaign ????
— Optus Sport (@OptusSport) November 23, 2022
Ristu Doan in the 75th. Takuma Asano in the 83rd.
Two Bundesliga players create history for their country's first ever win over Die Mannschaft.#FIFAWorldCup #OptusSport pic.twitter.com/vOzaebLjmw
It comes, of course, just one day after the bombshell upset of Argentina losing to Saudi Arabia; also 2-1.
In what’s been a World Cup full of lies, controversy and corruption, you just love to see how Japan’s going about it.