The Fifa World Cup is finally here! The last four years flew by incredibly fast. France’s 2018 World Cup win is still pretty fresh on the mind, not going to lie. So much has happened during that prestigious football competition and the same can be said this year. The Fifa World Cup is hosted in Qatar this year. It has almost been a week since the competition started but a lot has already happened. If you’re looking to get detailed information and data about the players, the teams, and more, you might want to look into getting a World Cup API and not look to this blog post for that information. In this blog post, we will list a few things that have happened during or surrounding this football competition.

The One Love armband controversy

Back in 2020, the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) launched the One Love armbands as a part of a campaign to promote inclusivity. The campaign denounces all forms of discrimination on the basis of race, skin color, sexual orientation, culture, faith, nationality, gender, age and any other forms of discrimination. And if you don’t know, Qatar has had same-sex relationships criminalized for a long time, this is why many football captains had the idea to wear the One Love armbands to show that they are against these laws.

However, this did not go as planned. The countries of the football teams that the captain was planning on wearing the armband issued statements mentioning consequences for the players who decide to do so. Threats to issue out yellow cards to players and to fine them have been made. 

Argentina’s defeat against Saudi Arabia

Now, when we say no one saw this coming, we really mean no one saw this coming. Not even the Saudi Arabian fans saw this coming. With 2-1, the Saudi Arabian football team took home the victory, leading to a nationwide celebration. It was such a celebration that King Salman in Saudi Arabia declared that day to be a public holiday for workers in the private and public sectors as well as students alike. The next team they will be up against is Poland.

A wholesome moment between Jack Grealish and fan

The English football star Jack Grealish had quite the wholesome moment with a huge fan that actually inspired his World Cup goal celebration. Jack Grealish, the Manchester City team’s forward, scored the final and winning goal for the team against Iran, beating them with 6-2. Before that, Jack promised his 12-year-old fan, Finley, that he’d do his celebration the very next time he scored a goal. And that is what he did! After that, he surprised Finley with a video chat and we all just thoroughly enjoyed that wholesome moment.