The 22nd FIFA World cup is hosted by Qatar and stretches from Nov “20” to Dec “18”. As hosts this year, Qatar gains an automatic position in the respective World Cup along with publicity to stimulate tourism and economic productivity. 

The 29 day long event is divided into two stages. The first stage is considered the Group Stage, where the host along with the 31 qualifying teams, which are determined by the achievements the team has made, sum up to a total of 32 teams. The teams are divided into eight groups consisting of four teams each. Each group is seeded by a team selected by previous World Cup and FIFA rankings. From the eight seeded teams the remaining three teams for each group are filled in by top ranked from the qualifications.

Each group cannot consist of more than one team from each FIFA zone except Europe, which can have a maximum of two. These zones are Africa, Asia, North America, South  America, Oceanna and Europe. The four teams in each group compete in a round robin style tournament against the other three teams which equates to 6 games from each group. The winner of a game receives three points and the loser gets zero points. If it were a tie, one point would be awarded to each team. The two highest scoring teams of each group get to move on to the second stage which is the knockout stage. The runner up of a group plays against the first place team of another group. The winners go to the quarter finals, semi-finals and the finals. The winner receives the world cup, which is made of solid gold, for their country until the next winner of the next cup is determined where the cup is replaced by a gold plated replica of the world cup. 

The stars on the uniforms of each country represent the various amount of instances in which they have been represented by the victor of a previous world cup. 

The trend of judging a team on the star player seems to be a common occurrence for Perry students. Junior August Lombardo seemed certain that the best team participating in the world cup is France because, “France is the best because of their lead goal score and Mbappe, he’s so young, young talent.” He’s going to carry them for years to come”. Sophomore Adam Days argued,” Most likely Portugal because I think Ronaldo is really good, I think Messi’s overrated, He’s only overrated because he’s the only good player in Argentina and like Portugal has really good players and that is why I’m voting for Portugal.”. Junior Micheal Bettinger’s “favorite for this world cup is Brazil” because his grandfather “idolized Pele which is a player who played long ago”. Junior Adrian Diaz roots for Mexico and junior Chloe Perkett currently roots for Argentina “because Messi”. The judgment of a team’s overall skill seems to commonly be based on a famous individual that plays for the team. This might go to show that the actual success of the team is important but not what is the main focus of most viewers at Perry.