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FIFA World Cup 2018 In Numbers

The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st edition of the tournament. Every four years, the apex football tournament sees 32 national teams coming together to compete.

The coveted prize? A 36.8 cm high, 6.1 kg heavy, 18 ct gold trophy. But more importantly, for the pride and prestige that comes with being crowned world champions.

The 21st edition held across 11 different cities in Russia from 14th June – 15th July 2018.

The 2018 FIFA World Cup was full of goals, stars, and history making moments. Particularly, this edition will go down as the first ever to involve the use of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology.

This revolutionary piece of technology works as an extra assistant referee. By using video coverage, it helps referees on the field to review important decisions that might have been missed or incorrectly called.

The biggest football leagues in the world

In this article, we will present the best moments of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in numbers.

  1. The 2018 World Cup tournament was Iceland’s first World Cup outing. It also became the smallest nation to ever compete in the FIFA World Cup, beating the record previously set by Trinidad and Tobago.

  2. France turned out eventual winners, making it the number 2 world cup trophy in its cabinet. The team won its first in 1998.  France produced a thriller against Croatia in the finals after beating the opponent 4-2. Nonetheless, it was Croatia who produced the eventual player of the tournament – Luka Modrić.

  3. Germany, who won the previous World Cup, was eliminated in the group stage. This makes it the third consecutive time that a defending champion was eliminated at this stage, after Spain (2014) and Italy (2010). Also, Didier Deschamps, France’s manager, became the third person to win the trophy both as a player and manager.

  4. Four red cards were given at this tournament. The 2018 edition recorded the fewest red cards shown since 1978.

  5. Mexico legend, Rafael Marquez, set a new record. He became the oldest outfield player to start a World Cup knockout game at his fifth tournament. No other player managed to do this.

  6. Harry Kane scored 6 goals to win the Golden Boot. This is the award given to the highest scoring player in the tournament. He joined his fellow countryman – Gary Lineker – as the only Englishmen who won the award.

  7. After losing the round of 16 game, Switzerland has became the only team to be eliminated from all 7 knockout games it has ever played in.

  8. Brazil, the team with the highest number of world cup trophies (5), scored only 8 goals at this tournament. It was knocked out in the quarter-finals.

The greatest football players of all time

  1. There were a total of 9 goals scored on or after the 90th minute of a game (excluding extra-time). This is a new record.

  2. Belgium, the eventual third place team, had 10 different goal scorers in the tournament (excluding own goals), the tied-most for a team at a single world cup.

  3. 11 different cities in Russia hosted the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

  4. The matches were played at 12 different stadiums.

  5. 13 different players scored at least 2 goals in the tournament.

  6. France and Croatia, the finalists, scored 14 goals each.

  7. Jesus Gallardo of Mexico was shown a yellow card 15 seconds after the start of the game (vs Sweden). It was the fastest yellow card to have ever been shown in the World Cup history.

All the previous World Cup winners since 1930

16. Fifa officially confirmed that the 2018 World Cup in Russia was watched by a combined 3.57 billionpeople, equating to more than half of the global population aged four and over. The final between France and Croatia was seen live by a combined 1.12 billion viewers worldwide.

The 2018 FIFA World Cup story would not be complete without mentioning the tournament’s best young player – Kylian Mbappé.

The teenager had an outstanding performance and became the first teenager to score at least twice in a World Cup match after Pelé in 1958.

With 169 goals, 64 games, 32 teams, 28 penalties, 2 finalists, 1 winner, Russia 2018 proved to be one of the best World Cup tournaments so far.

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