On the pitch, the 2022 World Cup has already thrown up a plethora of entertainment for the average viewer. Shocks courtesy of Saudi Arabia and Japan as well as enthralling encounters involving the likes of Cameroon, Serbia, South Korea and Ghana have treated us to some captivating games in the absence of club football. However, among this surfeit of spectacles has been a number of moving moments. We all know that football is more than just a game – therefore in this piece, we’ll be picking out five of the most emotive junctures of the 2022 World Cup group stages.
Germany players’ covering of the mouth prior to Japan clash
In the lead up to Germany’s opening World Cup game against Japan, all talk was not about the clash itself but the row over FIFA’s threats surrounding the ‘One Love’ armband. The captains of seven nations, one of which was Germany’s Manuel Neuer, were going to wear the armband which promotes diversity and inclusion in their World Cup matches. However, FIFA threatened these countries with sanctions should they go ahead with the armbands. Punishments may have included disciplinary action and were ‘unlimited’ according to CEO of the Football Association, Mark Bullingham.
Due to these warnings, players chose not to wear the armband. Instead, the German national team elected to cover their mouths with their hands in their team photo prior to kick off against Japan as a method of protest. This gesture showed that the German players ‘would not be silenced’.
In the match itself, Japan ran out shock 2-1 winners, but that wasn’t the end of the debacle. In Germany’s next game with Spain, Qatar fans inside the stadium displayed photos of Mesut Ozil. The significance of this is that the now Istanbul Basaksehir midfielder walked away from the German national team in 2018 because of ‘racism’ and ‘disrespect’. The Qatar fans were taking a dig at Germany from these allegations which showed them up as hypocrites due to their aforementioned protest.