As part of our Language of Soccer World Cup series, The Athletic is speaking to supporters of all 48 nations competing at the 2026 edition to capture their unique football culture, distilled into a single phrase. You can read the articles in one place here.
団結こそ我らの象徴 – Danketsu koso warera no shocho — Unity is our symbol
“We might not have specific players who are outstanding individually,” says Asahi Ueda, the founder and leader of Japan’s Nippon Ultras, “but we work as a team, you know? Unity is our symbol. Offensive players work hard to defend, defensive players work hard to attack. This is Japan.”
Having made their World Cup debut at the 1998 tournament in France, Japan have appeared in each of the six editions since — and though they are yet to make it beyond the round of 16, getting that far three times, have increasingly threatened a true breakthrough moment.
In 2018, they lost to Belgium in that first knockout stage despite holding a two-goal lead with just 20 minutes of the 90 left, and they were beaten on penalties by Croatia four years ago after dominating the game. On both occasions, their opponents went on to reach the semi-finals, and win the third-place play-off.
Their development as a football team has been powered by the collective. Japan’s level of technical mastery is amongst the highest in the world, producing an international side which more resembles a club one in terms of its chemistry and dynamism.
“I think it’s about efficiency,” says New York City-based Japan supporter Kayo Kita. “Japan is famous for our cars, right? Toyota, Honda, Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Subaru… And in the same way that those cars are very efficient, so are our players. They’re not too expensive compared to the luxury cars, but they run well for a long period of time, they’re reliable, and they outperform the sum of their parts.”
“Growing up, we honestly didn’t expect Japan to be that good,” says fellow fan Alexander Kiridani Feliciano. “So I guess it’s just that underdog mentality, being united. I think it’s never really been about one player. The popular players are spread out throughout the team. There’s unity. The way I always think about it is all for one, one for all.”
But there is an interesting contradiction in Japan’s fan culture. Despite pride in their team’s collective ability, several supporters bring up the concept of otaku — a Japanese word referencing an almost obsessive interest in a particular topic or individual.
“It means finding an icon and loving it to the extreme,” explains Chizuko Trader. “I think as Japanese fans we have a stronger tendency to do it, to get really into the player. Junya Ito (a winger at Belgian club Genk) is my favourite. His nickname is Lightning, because he’s so fast, and though he’s not always a starter, when he comes on, he makes you think you can get something.”
While Ito is especially popular — in part, several admit, due to his boyband looks — other players mentioned include Brighton & Hove Albion’s Kaoru Mitoma, Takefusa Kubo of Real Sociedad and Crystal Palace’s Daichi Kamada.
Ueda, as part of Nippon Ultras, wants to change that culture — ensuring the team always takes precedence over individual players’ celebrity.
The Nippon Ultras watched their team beat England at Wembley in March (Asahi/Nippon Ultras)
Founded in 1992, 10 years before Japan co-hosted the World Cup finals with Asian neighbour South Korea, the group is built around tifo displays and non-stop chanting. The ultras movement has spread to J-League club football as well —which is completely lacking the violence sometimes seen in its equivalent competitions abroad.
“We’re polite,” says Kita. “We don’t chant against the other team. For example, I went to the friendly against Mexico in Oakland (California) last September. We became friends with the Mexican supporters. Of course, we fight against each other on the pitch, but we also connect with our opponents. That’s what Japanese supporters bring.”
But Japan’s fans have also earned another reputation at major tournaments — for spending the minutes after the full-time whistle cleaning up the litter that has accumulated in the stands during the game. First seen after their World Cup debut in 1998, it has escalated across recent editions of the competition.
“At first, it was Japanese fans who had been leaving a mess in the stadium,” says Ueda. “So we just wanted to clean up, because that’s our discipline — we have learned from a young age that we need to clean up after ourselves. There might be janitors (working in the stadium), but that’s not our mentality. We shouldn’t leave the trash for somebody else to clean. We have to do what we have to do.
Japan fans clear up in the stands after one of their matches at the 2022 World Cup (Youssef Loulidi/Fantasista/Getty Images)
“But at the same time, we don’t want our supporters to think that they’re only there to clean the stadium. We’re there to win the games, you know? I don’t want Japanese fans to be famous only for that.”
Another quirk of Japanese football is their national team’s relative lack of rivalries.
Every supporter The Athletic spoke to for this article had to think hard about who their biggest footballing enemies would be. Some named Australia, major rivals in terms of being Asian champions, and others insisted it was only their Group F opponents in North America this summer: the Netherlands, Tunisia and Sweden. One name, however, does keep cropping up, even if the supporters play down its significance.
“For the past 10 years, we haven’t lost against South Korea,” says Ueda. “That means we’ve never seen them as a rivalry, but they see us in that way. It’s not just football, it’s baseball, the economy… It was only a short time that we were rivals, but we’ve moved on now. I think we’re on a different stage.”
Perhaps that speaks to football’s place within Japan. The rivalry with South Korea is far more vehement in baseball, which is the biggest sport in their home nation, powered by the sheer ability of players such as Shohei Ohtani of the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, the type of global superstar the football team don’t currently possess. While baseball is broadcast across the country on terrestrial television, several fans raise how much more challenging football is to watch, sequestered away on cable networks.
“It’s not like soccer is the national sport,” says Ueda. “You have to subscribe to DAZN to watch, and though we can fill the stadiums, regular people who might want to watch at home just don’t have access.”
Yet Japan is still a football country. The nation stopped during their run to the knockout stages in 2002, while the triumph of the women’s team at the 2011 World Cup exploded the popularity of a women’s game that was already prospering.
Having threatened to make the quarter-finals at the past two men’s World Cups, the Japanese are uncertain about their chances this time — balancing their lack of star names against the team’s sophisticated and energetic style. A not-dissimilar Japan side were good enough to beat Germany and then Spain to win their group in Qatar four years ago.
“I don’t think fans in the United States or Europe are necessarily aware of what we’ve done,” says Trader. “They might know about a few players, but they don’t know that pretty much the entire team now plays for top teams in Europe.”
“But there’s no one who thinks we’re going to go deep into the championship,” adds Ueda. “It’s not enough just to be named dark horses alongside Morocco or Norway.”
If the Japanese are to succeed in the coming weeks, they all say, it will require unity.
“Japan is famous for anime — like Pokemon,” says Kita. “So to me, they’re evolving — this is now the third generation. Pokemon is 30 years old, and so is the J-League.
“Now, we have many big players — Mitoma, (Ao) Tanaka, Ito, (Wataru) Endo, Kubo — and they’re playing for big clubs. But we are still a team of unity, every player is part of the group — it’s just an evolution.”
The Language of Soccer series is sponsored by Google.
The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Sponsors have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.
AloJapan.com