Japan leave Asian Cup final dressing room 'spotless' with thank you message in repeat of World Cup gesture

Asian Cup Twitter (@afcasiancup)
Tom Doyle2 February 2019

Japan may have suffered disappointment in the Asian Cup final after being shocked by Qatar, but their team won plenty of plaudits for thoughtfully leaving their dressing room "spotless" after the game.

Almoez Ali scored with a spectacular overhead kick for a record ninth goal of the Asian Cup to set Qatar on their way to a first continental title with a stunning 3-1 win over four-times champions Japan on Friday.

The victory was celebrated wildly by thousands of Omanis who had turned out to support Qatar in the absence of their own fans, who were unable to travel because of a deep political rift with the UAE.

Japan were chasing a record-extending fifth title but fell short, with coach Hajime Moriyasu saying: "Our goal was to win the title, and so I'm disappointed and regretful we could not bring the Cup home to the Japanese people.

"I always think the winning team is better so in that sense they were."

In Pictures | Japan vs Qatar, Asian Cup final | 01/02/2019

1/33

Despite the dejection of losing a final, the Japanese players were hailed for the respect shown to their UAE hosts as the tournament's official Twitter account posted a tweet with a photo of the Samurai Blue's dressing room following the final.

The picture shows a clean dressing room with the caption: "Japan leave the #AsianCup2019 dressing room spotless with thank you message in English, Arabic and Japanese!"

Japan's players and fans also earned a reputation as thoughtful guests at the 2018 World Cup last summer, with the squad being hailed as an "example for all teams" after leaving their dressing room spotless with a note in Russian following their last-16 defeat to Belgium.

Dejected Japanese fans were also pictured filling bin-bags with rubbish as they stayed to clear up after the game.

AFP/Getty Images

Touching images showed sombre-looking fans picking up litter and tidying it into blue bags just minutes after the county’s team suffered the 3-2 defeat in Rostov-on-Don.

Addtional reporting by Reuters.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in