The Dhaka Times Desk The 21st edition of the World Cup is being held in Russia. It is a quadrennial international football competition in which men's national football teams affiliated to FIFA compete. After the auction held on 2 December 2010, it is scheduled to be held from 14 June to 15 July 2018 in Russia. This will be the first time that the World Cup will be held in Eastern Europe and the first time in Europe since the 2006 FIFA World Cup: to save time for the players, a stadium has been set outside of Eastern Europe in the Ural Mountains of European Russia. 32 teams will play in the final stage of the competition, with Russia as the host team and the remaining 31 teams will play in the qualifiers. A total of 64 games will be played in 12 stadiums in 11 cities. The final of the tournament will be held on July 15 at the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.
The winner of this tournament will qualify for the 2021 FIFA Confederations Cup.
Some interesting facts:
- The mascot of the World Cup is called 'Javavica'. It's a wolf. Zabavika means 'one who scores' in Russian.
- Russian goalkeeper 'Lev Yasin' is on the poster of the World Cup in Russia. He is the only goalkeeper in the football world to win the European Player of the Year award as a goalkeeper.
- The World Cup ball is called 'Telstar'. The 1970 Mexico and 1974 Germany World Cups were played with this Telstar ball. The name of that ball was 'Telstar Durlast'.
- Panama and Iceland are playing in the World Cup for the first time.
- Iceland is the smallest country in terms of population among the teams playing in the World Cup so far. The population is only 3,32,529 people.
- 12 stadiums will be played in 11 cities in Russia.
- For the first time, 4 Arab countries are playing in this World Cup. Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Egypt.
- For the first time, 3 Nordic countries are playing in the World Cup in Russia. Denmark, Iceland, Sweden.
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