Finding Facts for FIFA's Football in 2022 Quiz

Answer: False

False. The men's tournament held in Qatar, from November 20 to December 18, 2022, is the second to be held entirely in Asia, twenty years after the tournament in South Korea and Japan, in 2002. It is the first one to be held in the Arab World.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup was the first men's tournament not to take place in the northern hemisphere summer, taking place at the end of Autumn and the start of Winter in the Persian Gulf region.

Answer: False

False. The number of countries participating in the World Cup has varied over the years. In the first edition of the tournament, held in 1930, based in Uruguay, 13 countries from Europe, South America, and North America participated. With the popularization of this sport there was a significant increase in the number of participants: 16 between 1934 and 1978, 24 between 1982 and 1994, then 32 from 1998 to 2022. From 2026 there will be 48 selections.

While the number of participants has varied over the years, the format for qualifying teams has remained largely the same.

Answer: 23 to 26

FIFA established that each selection could enroll from 23 to 26 players, of which at least three would have to be goalkeepers. With the exception of Iran, which called up only 25 players, the other teams called up 26 athletes, whose names were sent to FIFA before the start of the event. In principle, only players whose names are on the final list are eligible to take part in the tournament.

In October, a month before the start of the Cup, each team had already submitted to FIFA a provisional list of between 35 and 55 players. The final list can only contain the names of players who appeared on the provisional list.

Answer: 16.5%

According to the Spanish podcast "Fútbol Infinito", of the total of 831 players called up for the event, 137, or 16.5% of the total, represented countries other than their nations of birth. Only four teams among the 32 participants have all home-born players: Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Brazil, and South Korea. Also noteworthy is the fact that 14 of the players called up by Morocco, 12 of those called up by Tunisia, and 12 by Senegal are naturalized, most of them having been born in France.

Incidentally, in the early stages of the competition, France lost to Tunisia due to a goal by French-born Wahbi Khazri.

Answer: He was the first player born in the 21st century to score a goal in a World Cup.

The Englishman Jude Victor William Bellingham was born in 2003 and was the first player born in the 21st century to score a goal in the Qatar World Cup. It is worth remembering that Bellingham is not the youngest to participate in this event; he ranks 9th among the youngest. The youngest is Youssoufa Moukoko, a Cameroon-born German.

Answer: The Japanese goals were scored by two Japanese players, which were previously players for German football clubs.

On November 22, 2022, in its opening group game, the powerful German team lost to the Japanese team. The match result was Germany 1 Japan 2. Freiburg's Ritsu Dōan and Bochum's Takuma Asano, Japanese players active in German football, helped Japan defeat the German national team.

Ritsu Dōan (1998) of the Japanese national team, went through the youth teams, and for his excellent performance in the FIFA World Cup under-20 he was called, on FIFA's official Twitter, the "Japanese Messi". Ritsu has been playing for German clubs since 2020. Takuma Asano (1994) also played for the youth teams and the 2018 Olympic team and since 2016 has been playing for German clubs.

In this tournament, of the 26 players called up to play for Japan's national team, 8 of them were previously playing in the German Bundesliga or Bundesliga 2.

Answer: Spain

The brothers Iñaki (1994) and Nico (2002) Williams were born in Spain to Ghanaian parents. So that his parents could work, Iñaki took care of his younger brother Nico. Both trained at the Athletic of Bilbao academy and played on the same team. In 2022 Iñaki achieved the incredible mark of 224 consecutive rounds without being absent from any game.

Iñaki played for the Spanish national team in 2016 and in 2022 played for Ghana's team. Nico played for Spain's youth teams and in 2022 was called up to play in the senior squad.

They didn't get to play against each other in this tournament as it happened with pair of brothers Jerome and Kevin-Prince Boateng who played for Germany and Ghana respectively in the 2010 and 2014 Edition of the FIFA World Cup.

Answer: Cristiano Ronaldo

The Portuguese national team player Cristiano Ronaldo, aged 37, became the first male player to score at five different World Cups, on 24, November 2022, with a goal for Portugal, when he converted a penalty against Ghana's selection. Cristiano has scored in every World Cup in which he participated (2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022). His first goal was in the 2006 World Cup when he converted a penalty against Iran in the group stage.

Although Argentine Lionel Messi also participated in 5 cups, he did not score in his first cup. Maybe he could reach this mark in 2026. Who knows?

This mark was reached by Brazilian forward Marta in 2019, who achieved this milestone in the Women's World Cup.

Answer: False

False. FIFA rules are very clear regarding the substitution of players. In the event that a player suffers illness or injury prior to his team's first match of the tournament that player could be replaced, at any time up to 24 hours before their first match, by a player who may not even be on the preliminary list. Once the tournament starts, players cannot be replaced.

In the case given as an example, the Brazilian squad, when losing two players, had to continue without replacement.

Answer: True

True. In each edition of the World Cup, FIFA searches for new technologies. The official match ball for Qatar, 2022 was the "Adidas Al Rihla", known simply as the "Rihla", which means "The Journey". This ball, in addition to having innovations compared to its predecessors, has an internal circuit, which weighs about 18 grams, powered by a small battery, which needs to be fully charged (which is why it was possible to see on the fields, before the start of the matches, the balls "being charged" just like cellphones).

The system has motion sensors, designed to collect match data (eg impact and movement of each shot on the field) at a rate of 500 samples per second. The ball's system is connected wirelessly to the VAR, making it faster and more accurate to identify offsides. The system resulted in several goals being annulled and identifying whether or not a particular player touched the ball. A much-commented case occurred in the Portugal-Uruguay match, in which the goal appeared to be authored by Cristiano Ronaldo and was first attributed to him, but the system signaled that he did not touch the ball.