Sixteen high school soccer players from the disaster zone in the Tohoku region flew to Britain on Tuesday to play matches at famous Wembley Stadium in London.
The trip came about after England's Football Association offered to let them use the field for half a day free of charge in a show of support for Tohoku's reconstruction efforts.
The 16 members, from Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, will play two matches against Britain-based Japanese soccer players.
"It's a stage I can never get to however hard I try, so I want to enjoy playing soccer," team captain Kazuki Saito, 18, from a technical high school in Fukushima Prefecture, told reporters at Narita airport.
