Junya Ito sits at the center of a wider backlash after Takefusa Kubo injured his left knee in Japan’s 2-2 draw with the Netherlands on the 14th. Some Japanese fans then moved onto Denzel Dumfries’s Instagram and filled it with criticism.
Kubo was hurt in the 26th minute of the second half during a tackle by Dumfries, then left the match and was later seen in a wheelchair. Hundreds of aggressive messages followed on Instagram, turning one incident on the field into a fast online pile-on.
Takefusa Kubo and Denzel Dumfries
The messages were written in Japanese and pushed straight at Dumfries’s posts. They included “Apologize,” “You are not at a level to play at the World Cup,” and “All Japanese people are angry.”
Other comments from some Japanese users cut the other way. “I am ashamed to be Japanese” appeared alongside “Going to a player’s personal account to hurl abuse is Japan’s disgrace.”
SNS after Euro 2020
The pattern is familiar beyond Japan. After Euro 2020, England lost to Italy on penalties and Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka were hit with tens of thousands of racist comments on SNS, while the UK government, the Football Association, and Premier League clubs condemned the abuse.
A similar reaction followed the 2022 Qatar World Cup, when Portugal lost to Morocco and were eliminated, and Cristiano Ronaldo became a subject of debate. The Japanese response on Instagram fits the same mechanism: a high-stakes match ends, a single moment spreads online, and one player becomes the target.
Japan on the 14th
Japan’s 2-2 draw with the Netherlands at Dallas Stadium in Arlington, Texas, USA was the match that set all of this in motion. Kubo’s injury happened in that game, and the post-match anger quickly shifted away from the result and onto Dumfries’s account.
Whether Kubo’s left-knee injury will affect his availability is not answered here. What is clear is that the backlash did not stay in the stadium; it followed the match into SNS and landed on a single player’s personal account.
