Five interesting historic events in this Fifa

Adm Desk Jun 28, 2018

The FIFA fever is on and it is safe to say that almost the whole world is in its grip. Young or old, sports enthusiast or not, professional or home-maker, there is only one thing in the air right now and that is the FIFA. Here are a few interesting events from FIFA18 that are the topic of discussion among people:

Messi’s penalty miss-

The morning after the opening match of Argentina and Iceland there seemed to be only one topic trending everywhere on the net as well as among the fans- Messi’s big penalty miss. Out of 203 penalties in his whole career, he missed only 24. For a great player like Messi, penalty kicks have been his area of expertise forever. However, this match proved to be a big setback and he seemed to have been broken down by this event. He took the full responsibility of this blunder and even seemed withdrawn in all the social events that took place after the match. We hope he gets back his confidence and we get to witness the Messi magic again against Nigeria.

Neymar’s repeated injury-

Before the onset of FIFA this year there were speculations about the possible incompetence of Brazil’s Neymar due to the injuries he received during the qualifying matches. However proving all the critics wrong, Neymar was seen acing through the field in the match against Switzerland. This match created a history as it received the highest number of fouls against a single player. Neymar was targeted badly and received repeated injuries in his lower half. The coach Tite was seen to be agitated by this. The next match against Croatia, however, brought the first win to Brazil.

Big names already out of the world-cup-

Big names who made fireworks in the former world-cup matches are absent this year and the list includes countries like Netherlands, Italy and Chile. The absence of Netherlands and Italy is perhaps the most disheartening loss this year as both the teams had talented players. Italy has been four times world champions and the Netherlands have been runners-up thrice. The Netherlands, who made the 2010 World Cup final and finished third in 2014, could not even make it to the playoffs from UEFA’s Group A, finishing third behind Sweden. Twin losses to eventual group toppers France, a 0-2 shock loss to Bulgaria in Sofia and a draw against Sweden saw the Dutch fail to qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 2002.

The last time Italy missed a World Cup before this was in 1958. They did make it to the playoffs as one of the best eight group runners-up but lost 1-0 over two legs to Sweden, thus bringing the curtains down on what was an inconsistent qualifying campaign. The 0-3 loss in Madrid brought out the inadequacies of Coach Gian Piero Ventura and his stubborn adherence to his old-school tactical creed didn’t help.

Multiple locations for 2026 FIFA-

The 2026 FIFA World Cup will be the 23rd FIFA World Cup. The tournament will be jointly hosted by 16 cities in three North American countries; 60 matches, including the quarterfinals, semi-finals, and the final will be hosted by the United States while neighbouring Canada and Mexico will each host 10 matches. This will be the first time three nations are coming together to hold this tournament.

First women co-ordinator-

Priscilla Janssens and Jo Fernandes were selected as the general coordinator for FIFA world cup 2018. This is the first time in the history of FIFA world cup that two women are holding this crucial role in this event.

Fifa has only rolled out about half of the matches. Let us see what other interesting facts come up in the following weeks.