FIFA World Cup<\/a> soccer game at Dallas Stadium kicks off at 6 p.m. Thursday when Japan and Sweden hit the pitch.<\/p>\nThousands of supporters are expected at Harwood Park, which has already begun turning into a sea of blue as fans of all ages join the festivities.<\/p>\n
Festival atmosphere builds<\/p>\n
The event features food, drinks, live music, cultural displays, and dancing. Admission is free, and attendees are encouraged to wear blue to support Japan ahead of Thursday’s match against Sweden.<\/p>\n
The event is organized by Downtown Dallas, Inc. and the Japan Ultras Nippon. The Ultras are a dedicated, highly organized fan group known for leading chants and drumbeats \u2013 and for cleaning up stadiums after matches, as they did following Japan’s last game at Dallas Stadium.<\/p>\n
Supporters share excitement<\/p>\n
Fans say the event helps build team spirit before the big game.<\/p>\n
“I love Japan. I’ve been a long time. I’ve been to Japan, maybe like, a couple times, and I went to the last fest last week in Plano, and I saw this on Instagram, so I had to pop out. It looks really fun, and I really want to get the jersey today,” Justin Dang said.<\/p>\n
Ken Fujita traveled from Japan to watch the match.<\/p>\n
“I’m so excited to watch the game, but it is too hot. Yeah. So I’m very tired,” Fujita said.<\/p>\n
The festival continues until 9 p.m.<\/p>\n
\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n
In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fans of the Japanese National Soccer Team, better known as Samurai Blue, gathered on Wednesday for Paint Dallas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,430,27,3692],"class_list":["post-349572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-north-texas","tag-texas","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349572","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=349572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}