2022 FIFA World Cup: Sponsored by Human Rights, Trade Unions, Pride, and Democracy!

So, Yet Again the football/soccer World Cup is taking place somewhere that a large proportion of the species would really prefer it wouldn't. No Reason, no, we're all just racist (well, except Fox in the U.S. which...of course.

But like millions around the globe, I will still be watching - I found this to be one of the many eloquent articles on why this is the case.

So I made this thread so we could all discuss the game, share memes, shame one another for (not) watching, express frustration and/or relief that Scarlet & Violet came out two days before the first game...basically, like a nice version of Twitter (RIP) hehe

As an Englishman, following today's result (but in no way affected by it) I thought it best to let you all in on my internal soundtrack (that will prevent me from sleeping until 2023):


Also a few favourites from the opener (sadly Twitter doesn't appear to acknowledge forums):

Queremos Cerveza!
Des Kelly
Jason Davis

I don't give a damn about the World Cup, not even when Argentina is playing. Never have, and probably never will.

It's looking like a good time to sit my General Linguistics final exam though. Everyone will be too hypnotized with the World Cup to actually care about anything else. I'm not saying I'm not gonna prepare as well as I can, but perhaps it will be easier if the teachers are distracted by the hype.

As a regular of Reddit I have been blessed with article after article in regards to this FIFA. The majority are of not so nice things, albeit they do humor me with the ridiculous things going on with this World Cup.

If I recall, the last article I skimmed over was in regards to Quatar having confiscated rainbow-themed hats, despite having told the world for a while now that they, would in fact, be open to things such as rainbow-themed stuff.

Or how they're confident fans won't require beer. Speaking of which, I stumbled upon a cute little clip of Ecuadorian fans chanting out "We Want Beer." Or just click here and it would take you to the Reddit post that shows it.

I'm just here to laugh at Argentina and Germany…

…and then it will happen to the Netherlands too…

It is funny but yes

To be fair: the Germans backing down like cowards on wearing the symbol is very much reason enough for them to not deserve any good luck. :P

I'm kind of torn between "what the everloving hell was that" and "I always knew we could play like that". I've believed in this Spanish squad for a while, but even I didn't expect a 7-0 annihilation of Costa Rica to start the tournament.

Funny to see so far the two blowouts have been the two countries I expected it the least from... at least it hypes the English up with their "ITS COMING HOME" chants before inevitably bottling it up again :'D
Spain was a welcome suprise to be sure.

This is the only one in 35 years my country made it to.

I laughed - and I know I shouldn't have - when there were mysterious technical problems for the entire duration of the Saudi national anthem, given their relations with the host. Absurdly petty, and an abject failure given the result.

Weirdly, if England had won tonight, it would have counted as an upset - we first faced USA in 1950 and haven't ever beat them in the World Cup. In fact, tonight might have been the first time we didn't lose, so at least they haven't beaten us under three different monarchs...yet.

Normally I root for an underdog (that weird British thing of considering ourselves to be one, despite being one of the richest countries on the planet), but I am very, very happy that Qatar are out. I think its a positive that most stadiums look identical on the inside now, as it will be possible to look back on this WC and forget where it is when you watch the highlights. Sadly all those skyscrapers suggest the publicity had the desired effect in bringing in big business with no morality, however.

Pudding said:

As a regular of Reddit I have been blessed with article after article in regards to this FIFA. The majority are of not so nice things, albeit they do humor me with the ridiculous things going on with this World Cup.

If I recall, the last article I skimmed over was in regards to Quatar having confiscated rainbow-themed hats, despite having told the world for a while now that they, would in fact, be open to things such as rainbow-themed stuff.

Or how they're confident fans won't require beer. Speaking of which, I stumbled upon a cute little clip of Ecuadorian fans chanting out "We Want Beer." Or just click here and it would take you to the Reddit post that shows it.

Click to expand...

Rainbow hats, beer, kosher food...given the problems with ticketing either them or FIFA have apparently decided they don't actually need fans! I think I linked the Ecuadorians in my OP, but Argentina fans were also chanting something similar outside the stadium. And people say its the English fans that have a problem!

Sami said:

I'm just here to laugh at Argentina and Germany…

…and then it will happen to the Netherlands too…

Click to expand...

Netherlands will be the England 2018 of this tournament...or the Netherlands 2014 of it...or the Netherlands 2010 of it. You'll go really far and nobody except Louis van Gaal will understand why.

Ivysaur said:

I'm kind of torn between "what the everloving hell was that" and "I always knew we could play like that". I've believed in this Spanish squad for a while, but even I didn't expect a 7-0 annihilation of Costa Rica to start the tournament.

Click to expand...

I got Spain in my company sweeps and kinda thought "Ah well, they might go out before England". Given Barcelona appeared to have semi-aborted their reboot with bringing Lewandowski and all of Chelsea's surplus left-backs, I was quite surprised to see Ferran out there.

Amore said:

Netherlands will be the England 2018 of this tournament...or the Netherlands 2014 of it...or the Netherlands 2010 of it. You'll go really far and nobody except Louis van Gaal will understand why.

Click to expand...

With the names you expect a deep run

with how they play you just wonder how they can bottle a group like this
and they bottled against Ecuador oh no

Both Australia and Poland won last night, a nice surprise for me.

Australia's first win in a WC since 2010, feels good. Not sure we can draw with Denmark, but we have a chance.

SA had much more of the ball v Poland but couldn't shoot, and that double penalty save was fantastic.

I already miss the 4 matches per day routine, it made wfh so much better :(

At least it went out with a bang though - I didn't watch Portugal-Uruguay, but I tuned in to the Serbia game on 40 minutes and also watched Ghana-Korea, so I got 11 goals in 1.5 matches!

God I hope we beat Wales. I don't even consider them a rival, but given all that overblown stuff about English press vs. Croatia in 2018 (and its sequel with an English manager and Canada this year), I would love the narrative if we hammered them after those videos from 2016. Also because if we somehow go out in the group stage it will be very depressing.

man what a loss brazil had yesterday... its a shame to me for even talk about it...
on other news, morocco just won against portugal, so its atleast a country i hope wins the wc this time.

Morocco is blazing through, I think they have a chance. My mother's side is of Moroccan descent, but super watered down over generations.

Welp, Argentina is in semis.

The only reason I'm happy about this is that everyone at my college is gonna be too distracted waiting for the finals/third place match to give a damn about final exams. In every other respect I'm absolutely terrified. The celebrations every time Argentina wins here are so brazen, I wouldn't be surprised if the country went up in flames if our team actually won the championship.

I mean... in my city, two people fell off the top of the monument to José de San Martín already, and that was on the road to the quarterfinals. That's two people too many.

EDIT 14/12: Argentina got to the finals!

The word "rigged" was trending on Twitter after they won the match against Croatia. Me? I just think Messi should be kicked to Ubers already.