Kicking off the football season
Don’t get what’s all the craze about the greatest tournament celebrating the beautiful game? AYAN ROY provides you with a cheat code to crack those bar conversations
Mark your calendar! FIFA World Cup 2018 is set to kick off this Thursday (June 14). The football club season is over and it is time now for the best 32 national teams to face-off against each other to win football’s greatest prize.
While most of the world is waiting for the start of the tournament that celebrates ‘the beautiful game’ and the most popular one in the world, there are some who haven’t been touched by this ‘beauty’. Now, for the uninitiated who aren’t tuned into this ‘hysteria’, here’s a brief cheat code so that you don’t sound dumb and aren’t left dumbstruck during those animated bar conversations among friends.
What is the World Cup?
It is an international football (yes, football, not soccer) tournament held every four years. 32 national teams compete for the trophy. This year is the 21st edition of the tourney being held in Russia and will start on June 14, and end after a team has been crowned champion on July 14. 64 matches will be played at 12 venues across 11 different Russian cities. It is, football fans will argue, the most prestigious sporting event in the world (well, one of the most prestigious at least).
Only 32 nations take part...
211 men's national football teams affiliated to FIFA, Féderation Internationale de Football Association, go through a tough qualifying process. Actually, 210 teams go through the process, Russia being the hosts, qualify automatically.
Missing in action
South American champions Chile, Africa Cup of Nations winners Cameroon, four-times World Cup winners Italy, the US and the Netherlands are among the most ‘big’ nations who won’t travel to Russia this year.
The format
In the beginning there were the 32. These teams are divided into eight groups of four teams each and each group has a round-robin format. Teams will get three points for a win, one for a draw and zilch (zero) for losing. The top two teams from each group will proceed to the knockout stage. The next level — the Round of 16 — is an elimination round where the winners go through to the quarter-finals and the losers will have to go home with just boos from their supporters.
The matches
Matches are 90 minutes with added time for injuries. During the group stage a drawn match is fine, but during the knockout stage there has to be a winner. So, if the match is a drawn even after regulation time, then it will go into extra time with 30 additional minutes. If the match hasn’t been decided still, then it’s off to the penalty shoot-out.
Players allowed
11 players are allowed on the ground at a time. Three players can be substituted during regulation time and a fourth one will be allowed during extra time in the knock-out stages.
Yellow and red cards
The yellow and red cards that you see the referees brandishing are used to discipline the footballers for misconduct during each game. A yellow card is used to merely caution the player while when a red card is pulled out it results in the player's dismissal from the field of play. A player receiving a yellow card is allowed as per the rules to continue in the match, whereas a red card recipient has to immediately go to the bench and cannot be replaced. That means he leaves his team one player short for the rest of the game. Remember, that two yellow cards in one game equal a red card.
In the World Cup, footballers are suspended for getting two yellow cards throughout the tournament. However, to prevent them from being suspended for the final, FIFA wipes out yellow cards ahead of the semifinals.
The venues…
The matches will be played at 12 stadiums across 11 Russian cities. Moscow has two stadiums.
What is VAR?
Video Assistant Referees or VAR will be used to help referees avoid making potentially match-deciding mistakes like awarding goals, penalties or showing red cards.
Awesome group games
Portugal vs Spain on June 15; Egypt vs Uruguay on June 15; England vs Belgium on June 18; Argentina vs Croatia on June 21; Polond vs Colombia on June 24; Serbia vs Brazil on June 27.
Watch out for these youngsters…
Giovani Lo Celso (Argentina); Hakim Ziyech (Morocco); Hirving Lozano (Mexico); Andreas Christensen (Denmark); Timo Werner (Germany); Paulo Dybala (Argentina); Sergej Milinkovic-Savic (Serbia); Kylian Mbappé (France); Gabriel Jesus (Brazil); Isco (Spain).
Favourites this year
Your guess is as good as mine. But still, you can safely say Brazil, Germany, Spain, Argentina and France.
India and World Cup
India qualified for the 1950 Jules Rimet Cup, but refused to participate. Why? Well, because legend has it that India refused to play with shoes. Another one goes that they didn’t have any shoes. Interestingly, they had finished fourth at the 1948 Olympic Games playing barefoot. But, FIFA wanted them to play with shoes at the World Cup.
The truth is more complicated. World Cup was an invitational event at that time and India was offered participation after other Asian nations withdrew. The Brazilians were very keen on having representation from all the continents. They even offered to bear the Indian team’s expenses. However, the AIFF refused to send the team over "disagreements over team selection, and insufficient practice time." Ultimately, the World Cup at that time wasn’t seen as an important tournament and also there was fear that Indian footballers would turn professionals after participating in the tournament. And the more prestigious event at that time – the Olympics – only allowed amateur sportspersons.