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FIFA World Cup Continues In Qatar

Posted on by kayleij

While this year’s staging of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar has earned quite a share of controversy both leading up to and during match play, the quarter-finals phase is about to begin with just eight national teams remaining.

A total of 32 countries had soccer teams qualify for the World Cup. These teams were broken down into eight groups of four for a round robin-style competition, after which the top two teams from each group would move onto a knockout stage. The first round of this knockout stage, the Round of 16, wrapped up yesterday, and the quarter-finals will begin on Friday, Dec. 9.

The two matches on Dec. 9 will be between Croatia and Brazil, and Netherlands and Argentina. Two more matches will take place the following day between Morocco and Portugal, and England and France. The United States’ men’s team surprised many by making it to the Round of 16 but ultimately were knocked out by the Netherlands, losing 3-1.

The group stage kicked off (pun intended) on Nov. 20 with a match between Ecuador and the home team, Qatar, with Ecuador winning 2-0. From that date through today, the combination of terms “World Cup” OR “FIFA” OR “Qatar 2022” have turned up a whopping 31.27 million mentions across social media and news networks. This is not surprising for such a large global event, especially when controversy has surrounded the choice of host nation since it was selected in 2010. In fact, the sheer volume of controversies have led to a single Wikipedia page with a laundry list of them all, ranging from human rights concerns and hundreds of deaths of migrant workers building the stadiums to more recent assaults on patrons following matches and incidents that have already taken place during matches, including fans storming the pitch and protests by the Iranian team.

However, nearly 64% of the mentions from Nov. 20 through today are positive. Many of the most-shared posts within this positive segment are about individual or team performances, such as players from league clubs putting up strong numbers for their countries. Accounts for many teams and global or national news sources have also shared updates and positive information about their nation’s performances or impressive stories.

https://twitter.com/ESPNFC/status/1595027331910799365?s=20&t=2wRhTzwUsQDdN4Tt5nccFA

There have even been some heartwarming stories that have moved beyond the soccer world, such as Japan’s considerate treatment of their locker room after an upset victory, when many other teams would have trashed the room in celebration:

https://twitter.com/sportbible/status/1595546057425195009?s=20&t=lKQSUIrvfoxY0XdJTfpYfg

Additionally, many teams have used their global platform as an opportunity for activism. The Moroccan team, which is the first African team to make the quarter-finals since 2010, waved a Palestinian flag after their upset win over Spain yesterday:

https://twitter.com/_amroali/status/1600193400598253568?s=20&t=ZnhwoYh4lvXOqjXZWppT0Q

Iranian fans have also protested in favor of women’s rights, following strict and violent backlash in Iran against pro-women’s rights protestors. A pitch invader also supported women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and Ukraine all in one go, in a much-praised highly visible stance:

Since this is a global event at its core, it’s not surprising to see that nearly every nation has chimed in with either social media or traditional news about the World Cup. The United States leads the way with 2.3 million mentions, while the United Kingdom, Japan, Nigeria, and India round out the top-five countries with the most discussion of the World Cup. The U.K. is the only one of these countries to still have a team in the running, with England reaching the quarter-finals.

Star players like Cristiano Ronaldo and Kylian Mbappé are top trending themes within this massive volume of content, as well as K-Pop star Jung Kook who performed in the opening ceremony. With so many people chiming in from so many regions of the world, social discussion of the World Cup is, much like the event itself, never dull.

Author: Kayleigh Jackson

Posted in Tracking News via Social Media Analytics