200 billion dollars was spent by Qatar in order to host this year’s World Cup. There are 8 stadiums that were built, and 6,500 people died building them because they were trying to get Qatar ready as quickly as possible.

Neymar is a 30 year old soccer player who plays for Brazil. He played in the World Cup, but Brazil lost to Croatia. The big question is whether or not he will be retiring after this, making it his last World Cup. Rumor is that he is thinking about playing for his international team, which is Brazil. But he will still play for P.S.G. Another big player is Ronaldo. He is one of the best players in the world and plays for Portugal, his international team, and Manchester United. He is also 37 years old. He has the most goals in the world but his competitor Messi is close behind him. Also during the World Cup, Romelu Lukaku who played for Belgium, got a very bad injury. It happened during a match when he felt strong pain in his thighs and he missed 2 group stage matches vs. Canada and Qatar.

In the World Cup this year there are 32 teams, which are divided into eight groups of four. This is done  randomly every 4 years. Each team plays all the other teams in its group once. The top two finishers in each group advance to the round of 16. After that, the World Cup is a straight knockout tournament, and the team that wins gets a star on their team shirt and there is prize money for winning.

All in all, the World Cup is fun, but the process can also be expensive and dangerous. It’s definitely an honor for players to represent their country of choice, yet a challenge to win one because you need to play against the best teams.