‘A bird that flies never leaves a trace’: Why is Japan always so tidy at the World Cup?

Fans of Team Japan cheer in the stands during training for the 2026 FIFA World Cup on June 8 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Alan Poizner/Imagn Images/Reuters via CNN Newsource)

Nobody can predict how the 48 teams will do at the FIFA World Cup this summer, but if you wanted to gamble on Japan being the tidiest team, you’d surely clean up at the bookies. Thanks to a societal expectation of all Japanese people, you’d never know they were there.

Nozomi Morgan, founder and CEO of Michiki Morgan Worldwide and an intercultural leadership expert, vividly remembers moving from Seattle to Tokyo when she was eight years old, partly because the school experience was so different.

“One of the first things that really surprised me,” she told CNN Sports, “you take off your ‘outside shoes’ and change into ‘inside shoes,’ you want to keep the inside as clean as possible.”

But that was just the beginning, her parents had packed her off to school with a Zokin, which she would need every day. “Each child has their own rag, several pieces of recycled fabric, hand-sewn together, with their names on it,” she said. “I remember specifically the first assignment was to clean the classroom.”

All the chairs and desks would be moved to the front; the children would sweep it up and then they would clean the floor with their little rags: “It kind of felt like a little game that you play cleaning up, it wasn’t like a chore, it’s just something that we all did together.”

Morgan says that through elementary and middle school, they cleaned everywhere, sweeping leaves on the stairs and even the bathrooms.

“There’s a saying: ‘A bird that flies never leaves a trace,’” Morgan said.

‘Just try it once’

However, not everyone loved that classroom experience.

“I hated every minute of it,” Hirokazu Tsunoda told CNN. “I resented it, I used to think, ‘Why do we even have to do this? Japanese classrooms aren’t that dirty to begin with, and everyone uses the bins anyway.’”

You’d never know he used to feel this way. Since 2008, he’s been attending the Olympic Games and World Cups, always helping to clean up the mess left by the supporters in the arenas.

“It’s not a place where you can do whatever you like simply because you paid for a ticket,” he said. “For us, it’s a sacred space. If something is a passion you truly care about, you don’t want to leave the place that matters to you in a mess. So, you pick it up.”

Tsunoda says that it wasn’t until he was an adult, helping to clear up the litter at his daughter’s school that he truly appreciated the value or cleaning up, or not making a mess to begin with.

“There are genuinely people out there who talk badly about the Japanese fans picking up trash at stadiums, saying things like ‘They just want the attention’ or ‘It’s only for show.’ But what I want to say to those people is: Just try it once.

“Picking up someone else’s half-eaten food or half-finished drink is unpleasant, no question. But once you’ve had that experience, you are far less likely to become someone who litters in the first place.”

Tsunoda has become the unofficial spokesman for the spotless fans, but he makes clear that he’s only following the example of the neatnik supporters who came before him. And it’s not just the cheering squad on the terraces – the team is immaculate too.

Win or lose, in the 2018 and 2022 tournaments, the locker room was spotless after the games, the only sign of their presence was a thank you note and some origami cranes.

Eight years ago, Makoto Hasebe was the captain of the Japan team in Russia. Speaking to the media, he said, “I am truly proud of our staff. The same goes for the supporters. Since I usually live abroad and have had many opportunities to visit various countries with the national team, I often feel that there is no country with streets as clean as Japan’s.

“I believe that Japan as a place and the Japanese people possess a wonderful spirit. I am proud of this, not just as a football player, but as a Japanese citizen.”

Tsunoda says that he brings extra trash bags to games and supporters of other countries are joining in.

“There are often more non-Japanese people helping out than Japanese ones,” he said. “And in those moments, I make a point of calling out loudly and praising them, ‘Thank you!’ I think being praised by a Japanese person in a foreign country feels good, and I believe it makes them want to do it again.”

Making a difference

After a thrilling comeback win against Germany in Qatar four years ago, the fans made sure that everybody won. A video of the cleanup went viral, and FIFA praised the effort on social media.

“Around 500 stadium volunteers came together from all over the venue just to thank us. That, to me, felt like something truly significant,” Tsunoda said, responding to some critics who say the fastidious fans might be denying job opportunities in the arenas.

“At the end of the day, the stadium gets clean, nobody loses, and the volunteers and cleaning staff get to go home early.”

Tsunoda believes that selfless trash collection is the gateway to volunteering more broadly, figuring out ways to benefit everyone.

He says that he’s helped over 200 times at the scenes of natural disasters and, with the help of community fundraising, he’s able to bring impacted children to the World Cup and give them a positive experience. He says that seven youngsters from the 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake will be at the game against the Netherlands in Dallas.

“My own definition of volunteering is this: ‘patching over someone else’s problem.’ So, it’s not that going to volunteer in a disaster zone or traveling to Nepal to help is somehow superior.

“It can genuinely be picking up litter. It can be giving up your seat for an elderly person. It can be saying, ‘Let me carry that,’ to someone struggling with heavy bags.

“Of all the ways to patch over someone else’s problem, I think picking up litter has the lowest barrier and the widest entry point. And I believe that foundation, that base instinct for volunteering, exists in most Japanese people.”

By Don Riddell, CNN