Football World Cup 2022 – the story so far (1)

We are about to reach the knock out stages of the Football World Cup 2022, meaning in terms of number of games played we are well past the half way stage but soon the fun really begins as teams have to win their games, often against sterner opposition, in order to progress, instead of just doing enough to qualify from their groups.

I decided, I wanted to focus on the football instead of the politics (of which there is more than is normally the case) and also assorted happenings off the field, and fortunately, from what I have seen so far, the football has been of a decent quality and entertaining, including inevitable shocks, which I will get into when I post on the football. Before I talk about the football (my next blog in this series) though, some of which I have watched live or highlights, by virtue of BBC and ITV coverage, I thought I would use this opportunity to talk about some of the other stuff. “How World Cup politics explain the modern world” and “Qatar: should Christians boycott the World Cup?” are two worth reading articles that helped to inform the thoughts I present in what follows, but rather than adopt my normal approach attempting eloquently to articulate my thoughts, I thought I would post pictures with captions instead.

Couldn’t resist this 1984 quote – Orwell got it!

Wearing arm bans or disallowing protests!?

Germany had one way round the restrictions and make their point

And the Iran team another – just don’t sing!

But I like the Ecuador approach best – give glory to God!

Love the Japanese fans leaving things as they found them

And technology plays a huge part these days

Female referee Stephanie Frappart goes down in World Cup history

We love our heroes – here is Marcus Rashford, three goals so far

We began with 32 teams; tomorrow it will be 16