{"id":335737,"date":"2026-06-14T06:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T06:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/335737\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T06:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T06:57:08","slug":"japanese-fans-in-d-fw-for-world-cup-get-the-full-texas-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/335737\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese fans in D-FW for World Cup get the full Texas experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

PLANO \u2013\u00a0Saturday night, McCall Plaza in Plano became the unofficial hub for Japanese national team<\/a> fans and\u00a0Plano residents alike.<\/p>\n

The city hosted its first-ever Japan Day, an event in collaboration with Ultras Nippon, the official supporters’ group for the Japanese national team,\u00a0and the Dallas Beer Guardians supporter group of\u00a0FC Dallas. The event was held ahead of Japan\u2019s first match in the 2026 World Cup against the Netherlands at Dallas Stadium on Sunday, June 14.<\/p>\n

Daiki Fujii\u00a0and his friend,\u00a0Geata, headed directly to the plaza after their 11-hour flight from Tokyo, Japan, landed with all of their luggage still in tow and lumbered around the town square.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Initially, the pair intended to leave a day later but left earlier because of a plane issue on their initial flight. Because of that, their Airbnb wasn\u2019t available until Sunday, so they were winging it while they figured out their schedule.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to book another place to stay today,\u201d Fujii said.<\/p>\n

Their early wants were to try Texas brisket for the first time and make a trip to see the American Airlines Center<\/a>, where the Dallas Mavericks play, as Geata also plays basketball as a point guard. Both, of course, will be at Sunday\u2019s match<\/a>, with Geata also planning to stay and go to Japan\u2019s match against Sweden on June 25. Both are optimistic about both matches despite Fujii’s favorite player, Kaoru Mitoma, missing the World Cup<\/a> due to injury.<\/p>\n

Among the key figures at the event were former Japanese figure skating champion Fumie Suguri, now a resident of Frisco. State representative Mihaela Plesa also greeted the crowd, mostly donning the Japanese team\u2019s iconic blue shirts, as well as former FC Dallas and United States forward\u00a0Kenny\u00a0Cooper, a Jesuit High School graduate and\u00a0current\u00a0Plano native.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis game\u2019s taken me all over the world,\u201d Cooper said. \u201cWhat I love about soccer is that it unites us and gives us opportunities like this to gather, to be a community, to show love and to feel this amazing energy, and tonight is just a wonderful example of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Haruya Mizutani and his father, also in town for Japan\u2019s match against the Netherlands on Sunday, were staying just down the road from McCall Plaza with family. It was their first time in Texas all the way from Nagoya, Japan. The shortest direct flight to Dallas from Nagoya is 16 hours.<\/p>\n

Mizutani\u00a0sported\u00a0a\u00a0Kaish\u016b\u00a0Sano No. 24 shirt along with a Texas Longhorns baseball hat that he bought in town on Friday, the day after they flew in.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u00a0gotta\u00a0get something from Texas,\u201d Mizutani said.<\/p>\n

They\u2019d already had Longhorn Steakhouse, where they were fans of the half-rack of ribs, and made a day trip to the Stockyards in Fort Worth. Outside of the match itself, the father and son are just looking forward to experiencing what Texas has to offer before heading back home Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we were\u00a0just chilling\u00a0downtown,\u201d Mizutani said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a plan yet so we\u2019re just\u00a0gonna chill in Dallas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PLANO \u2013\u00a0Saturday night, McCall Plaza in Plano became the unofficial hub for Japanese national team fans and\u00a0Plano residents…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[97370,102,104,103,87906],"class_list":["post-335737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-at-t-stadium","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}