# 2018 Fifa World Cup Russia The 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia was the 21st men's football tournament, held across 11 Russian cities from June 14 to July 15, 2018[1]. The event spawned a wave of internet memes covering everything from the retro tournament poster to the USA's failure to qualify and viral reactions to shock upsets like Germany's early exit[2][3]. ## Overview The 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia was the 21st edition of the men's football tournament, contested by 32 national teams across 11 Russian host cities between June 14th and July 15th, 2018[1]. It was the first World Cup ever held in Eastern Europe, and it became one of the most meme-heavy tournaments in the competition's history, with viral moments spilling out of every group stage upset and knockout round. Most of the memes tied to the tournament predated the actual football. When FIFA unveiled the official poster in November 2017, featuring Soviet-era goalkeeper Lev Yashin against a Constructivist-style background, Twitter users immediately started riffing on the retro design, comparing the ball in Yashin's hands to a Ferrero Rocher chocolate and joking that the poster looked like Cold War propaganda[2]. Weeks earlier, in October 2017, the USA men's national team's shock loss to Trinidad and Tobago knocked them out of qualification and produced its own wave of reaction memes on Twitter[3]. Once the tournament kicked off, YouTube reported that global search interest for the 2018 World Cup outpaced both the Olympics and other major sporting events, with match recaps, highlight clips and player-focused videos driving huge watch time spikes[4]. Football-related YouTube watch time for game highlights had grown 9x since the previous World Cup, and Lionel Messi, Neymar and Cristiano Ronaldo saw 80% year-over-year jumps in viewing[4]. ## How It Spread Meme energy kicked into gear in October 2017 when the USA lost 2-1 to Trinidad and Tobago and failed to qualify for the first time since 1986. USA Today's For The Win section documented the immediate flood of "heart-crushing" tweets and sad-video memes that followed the elimination[3]. Italy's failure to qualify for the first time since 1957, along with the Netherlands, Chile, Cameroon and Ghana missing out, added more fuel to the pre-tournament meme discourse[1]. As the group stage played out from June 14th to June 28th, 2018, a run of upsets produced meme moments. Mexico's 1-0 win over reigning champions Germany in the opening game gave Mexican fans a highlight that circulated widely, and Germany's follow-up 2-0 loss to South Korea in stoppage time eliminated the defending champs, an outcome fans reshared for weeks[1]. On June 27th, 2018, Sweden's 3-0 beating of Mexico flipped Group F on its head, and Senegal's elimination on a yellow-card tiebreaker with Japan gave Twitter a genuinely novel World Cup storyline to meme[1]. The knockout stage from June 30th to July 15th also delivered viral fodder. Host-nation Russia's penalty-kick upset of Spain in the round of 16, followed by Croatia knocking Russia out on penalties in the quarterfinals, produced huge reaction threads. When France beat Croatia 4-2 in the final on July 15th, 2018, President Donald Trump tweeted congratulations to France and Vladimir Putin for Russia's hosting role, while a photo of French president Emmanuel Macron celebrating in the rain, shared by Indy Football, pulled in over 13,000 retweets and 46,000 likes[1]. YouTube's pre-tournament trends report had already flagged that Latin American teams and players dominated global watch time, with Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Portugal and Mexico topping the list[4]. ## How to Use World Cup 2018 memes typically piggybacked on real-time match events, with Twitter users posting reaction images the instant a goal, red card or upset happened. Common formats included edited versions of the Lev Yashin poster with the ball swapped out for other round objects[2], sad reaction GIFs deployed after eliminations like the USA's Trinidad loss[3], and side-by-side team fan reaction videos posted during live matches. Fans often tagged @FIFAWorldCup or team accounts and used hashtags like #FifaWorldCup2018 to slot into the live conversation[2]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is 2018 Fifa World Cup Russia? It was the 21st FIFA men's World Cup, held in Russia from June 14 to July 15, 2018, and the first ever hosted in Eastern Europe[1]. The tournament produced a large body of viral memes around the poster, qualifying upsets and match results[2]. ### Where did 2018 Fifa World Cup Russia come from? Russia was picked as host on December 2, 2010, beating joint bids from Portugal-Spain and Belgium-Netherlands in the second round of voting[1]. ### What does 2018 Fifa World Cup Russia mean? It refers to both the football tournament itself and the cluster of internet memes that came out of it, from Twitter jokes about the Lev Yashin poster to reaction memes over shock results[2][1]. ### How do you use 2018 Fifa World Cup Russia? Fans posted meme edits of the official FIFA poster and reaction images tied to specific match moments, often tagging FIFA or team accounts on Twitter[2]. ### Is 2018 Fifa World Cup Russia still popular? The event is now archival, revisited mostly when people compare it to newer tournaments like the 2026 World Cup[5]. ### Why did the 2018 World Cup poster become a meme? FIFA's retro design featuring Soviet goalkeeper Lev Yashin sparked Twitter jokes comparing the ball to a Ferrero Rocher chocolate and noting that Crimea was left off the map[2]. ### Why was the USA missing from the 2018 World Cup? The USA men's national team lost 2-1 to Trinidad and Tobago in October 2017 and failed to qualify for the first time since 1986, triggering a wave of sad-reaction memes[3]. ### Which team won the 2018 FIFA World Cup? France beat Croatia 4-2 in the final on July 15, 2018, in Moscow, claiming their second World Cup title[1]. ### What upsets happened at the 2018 World Cup? Reigning champions Germany lost 1-0 to Mexico in the opener and were eliminated after a 2-0 group-stage loss to South Korea, and Italy and the Netherlands failed to qualify at all[1]. ### How big was 2018 World Cup interest online? YouTube reported global search volume for the 2018 World Cup topped both the Olympics and other major sporting events, with soccer highlight watch time up 9x since the prior tournament[4]. ## References 1. [https://themoscowtimes.com/news/let-the-world-cup-memes-begin-59738]() 2. [https://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/10/us-soccer-world-cup-fails-to-qualify-usmnt-twitter-memes-sad-videos-photos-gifs]() 3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/2018-russia-world-cup]() 4. [https://youtube.googleblog.com/2018/06/goooal-get-ready-for-2018-fifa-world.html]() 5. [https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/world-cup]() 6. [https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2018/jun/05/world-cup-2018-complete-guide-players-ratings-goals-caps]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/2018-fifa-world-cup-russia Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library