Japan Consistently Triumphs in World Cups

(SeaPRwire) –   The FIFA World Cup kicks off in Mexico City on June 11. In the days ahead, there will be an opening ceremony extravaganza, stunning goals, controversial VAR decisions, a viral celebration dance, at least one penalty shootout ending in tears, a manager getting sacked, and the trophy being hoisted at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on July 19. Forty-eight countries, 16 cities, and a global TV audience that will overshadow every other event this year—drama is a given.

Another absolute sure thing will unfold after matches, not on the field but in the stands: the Japanese Cleanup. Since Japan’s first World Cup appearance in France in 1998, Japanese fans have lingered after the final whistle, taken out blue plastic bags, and gone row by row picking up cups, wrappers, and discarded flags until their section is as clean as when they arrived.

This ritual happens whether Japan wins or loses. Because of this, millions of people around the world who can’t name any Japanese player or remember seeing the Samurai Blue play can still picture this scene.

The players have also gotten involved. After Japan’s surprising 2-1 win against Germany at Khalifa International Stadium in 2022, FIFA shared a photo of the Japanese locker room on Twitter: towels neatly folded, water bottles arranged in a line, and the floor swept clean. On the table were 11 origami cranes (one for each player on the field) and a handwritten note saying “Thank you” in both Japanese and Arabic. Twelve days later, when Japan was knocked out by Croatia, the players repeated the gesture.

Some people point to the Japanese proverb “Tatsu tori ato wo nigosazu” (The departing bird doesn’t muddy the water it leaves behind) to claim this kind of politeness is a national characteristic. I’m not a Japanese culture expert, but I can say this cleanup tradition is one of the most effective soft-power efforts of the 21st century—all done without any government funding or strategy documents from Japan’s foreign ministry in Tokyo.

Civility as Soft Power

Is something as intangible as civility a tool for soft power? Let’s look to the expert who invented the term: Harvard scholar Joseph Nye defined it clearly as the ability to influence others through appeal instead of force or money.

Japan’s cleaning ritual is doing just that—it’s inspiring others to follow. In 2018 in Russia, the same day Japan beat Colombia in Saransk, Senegalese fans at Moscow’s Spartak Stadium stayed after their team’s 2-1 win over Poland to do the Japanese Cleanup. Argentine sports network TyC Sports shared the video, which got over four million views. The practice had crossed continents and soccer confederations.

Four years later in Qatar, Moroccan fans joined the ritual. After their team’s 2-0 upset victory over Belgium at Al Thumama Stadium, many fans stayed in the stands with blue bags to clean up. They’d done the same after their team’s opening draw with Croatia. Saad Abid, a content creator from Casablanca, had planned the effort ahead of time, passing out trash bags at stadium entrances two hours before the game started.

Japanese fans are taking their habit to more and more stadiums—from last year’s Under-20 World Cup in Chile to last month’s Japan-England friendly at Wembley. “This is one of our traditions,” Toshi Yoshizawa, who led the cleanup in Chile, told the Associated Press. “We were taught growing up to leave a place cleaner than we found it.”

This points to the fact that the Japanese habit is learned in schools, where kids sweep their own classrooms, mop hallways, and serve their own lunches. O-soji (cleaning time) is part of the daily school schedule for children starting at age six.

The Cleanup Goes Global

Before smartphones, this was a local thing—just an interesting detail in a Japan travel guide. But now, civility (like rudeness) can spread via shares and retweets to every corner of the globe. If a president’s harsh threats to destroy a civilization can go viral instantly, so can videos of fans kneeling to fill trash bags.

Saad Abid, a Moroccan environmentalist and social media influencer, didn’t need to bring o-soji to his country’s schools to organize a stadium cleanup in Doha—he just needed a phone, some trash bags, and the example of those who’d done it before. Senegal and Morocco don’t have Japan’s exact civic systems, but they do share the willingness to watch others and decide to follow suit.

This brings us to this summer’s World Cup. Japan is in Group F, playing its first match against the Netherlands at Dallas Stadium on June 14 before moving to Monterrey to face Tunisia. Senegal is in Group I, set to play France at MetLife on June 16. Morocco’s opening game is against Brazil at MetLife on June 13. All three countries—whose fans have already shown this habit—are here, on this global stage, in front of cameras.

Over the next six weeks, the question isn’t if this practice will spread—it’s how far it will go. Will Tunisian fans in Monterrey grab trash bags to clean with the Japanese? Will French fans follow the Senegalese example, and Brazilians copy the Moroccans? Will American supporters do the same in the 11 cities hosting World Cup matches? I really hope so.

The global public sphere has grown more uncivil over the years, and social media has contributed a lot to this decline. If you spend enough time on it, you might start to think decency is fading everywhere, that things are falling apart.

But the stadiums tell a different story. They show that civility is contagious—that it doesn’t need a specific upbringing or culture to take hold somewhere new, and that people can pick it up at a stadium on a Saturday afternoon just because they saw others do it on Instagram.

In a small way, that’s a hopeful sign for humanity in 2026.

If even a few of the 48 countries competing in the World Cup adopt this practice, the Japanese Cleanup will have fully become part of the sport’s universal language—right next to the Mexican wave. No matter which country wins the trophy, we’ll all come out as winners.