Everyone has been so impressed by Japanese fans cleaning up after themselves but most probably missed this beautiful moment at the post-game (🇳🇱2 - 2🇯🇵) press conference. Toward the end after reporters were done asking questions, 🇯🇵head coach, Hajime Moriyasu, asked to speak one more time. 🗣️ “May I speak?” He turned to the Dutch reporters in the room. 🗣️ “I think there are many Dutch reporters here as well, so I’d like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the people of the Netherlands once again.” Moriyasu explained that when he became part of the Japan national team, Japanese football still had no professional league. 🗣️ “I was trained by a Dutch coach named Hans Ooft. It wasn’t just me. Japanese coaches in general were greatly influenced by him, which has led to the development of Japanese soccer today.” He also mentioned another Dutch figure who shaped his career. 🗣️ “The legendary Dutch coach Wim Jansen served as the manager for J.League’s Sanfrecce Hiroshima and also as a coach for Urawa Reds, contributing to Japanese soccer.” 🗣️ “It’s not just those two. Many other coaches and players have contributed to raising the level of Japanese soccer, so I want to express my thanks. Thank you very much.” What a masterclass in graciousness and gratitude. Imagine after a high-stakes match, instead of basking in glory and bravado (well-deserved in my opinion), the coach took to the microphone to... thank his opponents publicly and sincerely. Japan's cultural operating system prizes harmony (wa), respect for precedent, and gratitude as a form of strength, not weakness. Japanese sports culture reflects its broader society where you'll see athletes bow to their opponents, thanking referees, and even crediting rivals or mentors. Think of sumo wrestlers, Olympic athletes, or even bullet-train staff apologizing for a 30-second delay. The Japanese have this concept of On (恩) - it is the sense of indebtedness to those who came before or helped you. It's what you'd expect from a culture that truly prizes continuity. Moriyasu was acknowledging a real debt to Dutch coaches like Hans Ooft (who coached Japan in the early 90s and helped professionalize the game) and Wim Jansen. Japanese football openly credits foreign influences - Dutch "Total Football" philosophy, German organization, Brazilian flair - while building something distinctly their own. Few nations do this with such little ego. Japan is pure class

I hope that @sfgiants legend Jeremy Affeldt might have a talk with these pitchers. Affeldt was traded to the Giants as a young Christian conservative. Whenever he visited the city before that, he was afraid to leave his hotel room because of his trepidation about the LGBTQ culture in SF and "SF Values." But the city transformed him. “I see more San Francisco as a city of love and a city of passion and compassion. It’s unbelievable this city. To see that and to have my heart change as a city I didn’t ever want to come to, to a city that I’m so thankful I’m going to be part of for a long time, it talks about that. For me, it was an awesome deal.” "He also credits a gay Starbucks employee for revealing his bias to him, recalling how the man’s casual interactions with Affeldt’s family showed him that there is “no difference, none” between gay people and straight people." Affeldt created an organization to fight human trafficking during his years in San Francisco. salon.com/2013/05/22/san_fra…

FIFA World Cup 2026 ⚽️⚽️⚽️⚽️

🇳🇱🇯🇵 Reason 357 to fall in love with this World Cup. When this Japan fan found himself in among the Netherlands supporters.

In case you didn’t watch the World Cup today (matchday 4) >Germany beat Curaçao 7-1… like they did to Brazil in 2014 >Netherlands drew Japan 2-2. Match of the tournament so far >Côte d’Ivoire beat Ecuador 1-0 on a 90 1’ winner from Diallo >Sweden pounded Tunisia 5-1. 2 golazos from Ayari >Curaçao’s equalizer vs Germany at 1-1 was absolute scenes. One of the best moments of the WC so far >Curaçao became the smallest nation to ever play in a World Cup match >Kai Havertz scored his 4th & 5th career World Cup goal. Truly a big-game player >Netherlands Japan was quite in the 1st half. Netherlands went up in the 64’ but never count out Japan. They equalized off a corner in the 89’ >Japan fans stayed late after their game to clean up garbage in the stadium >Japan’s coach went viral for communicating tactics to his team by writing numbers on giant whiteboards and holding them up on the touch line >Netherlands still haven’t lost a World Cup match in 90 minutes since 2006 after their 2-2 draw with Japan >Scotland fans marched to Fenway Park and the Tartan Army took over the Boston Red Sox baseball game >Spain’s coach announced Lamine Yamal is fit and ready to play in their first game >Dutch fans took over the streets of Dallas Texas today before their match vs Japan >Fans noticed players have found a loophole for FIFA’s new 5 second throw in rule: The time starts when you have the ball in your hand… players just wouldn’t pick the ball up until they were ready to throw > Portugal players received a Diogo Jota bracelet with the names of every player on the team >Somali referee Omar Artan will be paid for his World Cup match assignments by FIFA despite being denied entry to the US and the border >Zlatan Ibrahimovic took a night off from covering the World Cup with FOX to attend the UFC event at the White House while Sweden was playing >The Uruguayan national team's plane was not allowed to head to go to the due to administrative issues, even though they play tomorrow. The team eventually arrived in America late Sunday night less that 24 hours before kick off >The story of the Curaçao coach was trending online: He led them to the WC, left the team to be with his daughter in the Netherlands who was fighting cancer, she got better & his replacement coach quit so he could return to the team. Today he became the oldest World Cup coach in history. >Let me know if I missed anything I’ll post daily recaps all World Cup long, follow me pookie :)

At Sunday’s Mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Archbishop Hicks joined New Yorkers celebrating the Knicks’ victory. The No. 11 Knicks jersey carried an added significance: Archbishop Hicks is the 11th Archbishop of New York.

Miguel Vargas on what made Yamamoto so effective today: "He’s Yamamoto."

World Cup hydration breaks would be legendary if some player’s mom just sprinted onto the pitch with a bag of orange wedges like it was 1998 rec league soccer. ‘Here, eat these, you look dehydrated!

THE FIRST MULTI-GOAL WORLD CUP GAME BY A USMNT PLAYER SINCE 1930 🤩 Have a night, Folarin Balogun 🔥

he had to G-O-Pee

Deafening! #USMNT

KICKOFF FOR THE #USMNT AT THE FIFA WORLD CUP!

Natty is in the building and has his own little uniform

As a Dodger fan I’m disappointed in the level of hate that exists towards the @Padres and their fans. They deserve more.

For those who are so fascinated if there was a @nithyavraman / @TomSteyer correlation, we have an answer. Yes. Only stronger correlation was @spencerpratt and @SteveHiltonx

Did you know LA County is the largest county in the country? With 2,217,796 ballots cast, LA County's vote total exceeds the combined vote count of five of the nation's largest counties that have held primaries so far, which together cast 2,103,322 ballots.

"Charles" concluded his "non-agenda comments in support of renters": "We boomers had a lot of advantages so rather than pulling up the ladder behind us, maybe we ought to stick out a helping hand instead."

Often I just write what people say. Like this: “'What do we see every day on the sidewalk coming from the apartments? We see our community . . . They are the future of Glendale and they are good neighbors." #LocalNews #LocalReporting #GlendaleCA crescentavalleyweekly.com/ne…

The World Cup starts today and the guys are ready. 😂

WE SHOULD BE EMBARRASSED 🤬 The way the U.S. welcomed the team from Senegal 🇸🇳 vs. The way Mexico welcomed the team from Spain 🇪🇸 #WorldCup