The Japanese public gave a new lesson to football fans in the world, after they cleaned the stands and removed all waste in the places where they were during Japan’s match with Germany, at Khalifa Stadium on Wednesday.
Despite the Japanese national team’s victory over Germany 2-1, in a big surprise, the overwhelming joy did not affect the fans and prompted them to go out quickly to celebrate at night, and they showed the morals and habits inherent in the Japanese people, which is respecting the place and cleaning it before leaving.
It is usual in football stadiums that the stands after the match are full of food waste, used wrappers, empty food bags and empty drink cups, and most fans leave all this behind for someone else to clean it up.
But that doesn’t happen when the Japanese audience (Samurai Blue) is in town.
As soon as the players left the stadium after celebrating with the fans the huge 2-1 victory over Germany, the four-time World Cup holders, the fans stopped celebrating and gathered in a specific organization and began working to clean the stands of Khalifa Stadium in Qatar.
This is nothing new for the Japanese fans who did the same thing at the World Cup in Russia four years ago, even after losing 3-2 to Belgium in the round of 16 and being knocked out of the World Cup, and they did it again while attending the World Cup opening ceremony and the Qatar-Ecuador match on Sunday. past, although their team did not participate in it.
In Japan, cleanliness is part of the culture and is ingrained in people from early childhood.
In 2018 Scott North, professor of sociology at Osaka University, told the BBC that organizing is a way “Japanese show pride in their way of life”.
“Cleaning up after football games is an extension of the basic behaviors taught in school, where children clean classrooms and hallways,” North added.
