If you’ve been on Twitter since June 14th, you’ve probably seen at least one World Cup-related hashtag trending.
It might be #WorldCup itself, or it might be one of the match hashtags like #ESPRUS (Spain vs Russia) or #CRODEN (Croatia vs Denmark) for yesterday’s fixtures. Sadly, nothing as funny as #WALRUS (Wales vs Russia) has come up this time round.
The amount of Twitter talk about the World Cup makes it inevitable that some mistakes will be made, and here are three from the last week that have made us wince:
1. Belgian FA confuses Japanese player with wrestler
Belgium had already been lampooned on social media following Michy Batshuayi’s slapstick goal celebration against England.
With Belgium taking on a Japan side that surprisingly (and somewhat unsportingly) advanced from their group last week, the national team’s official Twitter account tweeted a quote from their winger Adnan Januzaj about Japanese midfielder Shinji Kagawa.
🗣️ @adnanjanuzaj : "@ShinsukeN is a good guy and a great player. I am looking forward to seeing him"#REDTOGETHER #WorldCup
🔜 #BELJPN— Belgian Red Devils (@BelRedDevils) June 30, 2018
Unfortunately, the Twitter handle @ShinsukeN does not belong to Kagawa, but to Japanese WWE Star Shinsuke Nakamura.
England fans might argue that if any footballers are to be confused with wrestlers, they should be the ones playing for Tunisia.
2. FIFA confuses Denmark with England
Mistaken identity might be forgivable for an FA dealing with players from other nations, but surely FIFA, the global authority of football, would be a bit more on the ball, wouldn’t it?
In the run up to yesterday’s games, FIFA’s twitter account was using the aforementioned #CRODEN hashtag to get people in the mood for the Round of 16 clash. The mistake was in the accompanying flags, where someone seemed to momentarily forget that the Danish flag is a white cross on a red background, not a red cross on a white background. The flag included was actually England’s.
When people pointed out the vexillogical blunder, FIFA deleted the tweet and sheepishly corrected itself.
Ahem…. As we were saying…. 😳
Who's ready to do it all again?
Today's fixtures: #ESPRUS 17:00#CRODEN 21:00#WorldCup pic.twitter.com/P1iQKPnhS1
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) July 1, 2018
3. Conservative Party – simply confused
Politicians, why do they bother? A cringeworthy “Come On England!” Twitter image was put together by the Tories in an attempt to jump onto the World Cup bandwagon before the game against Belgium last Thursday.
Come on you #ThreeLions Let's make it 3 wins out of 3! 🦁🦁🦁🏴 #ENGBEL #ENG #WorldCup pic.twitter.com/1IdAE4ZBhs
— Conservatives (@Conservatives) June 28, 2018
The two England players in the picture are Jesse Lingard and Raheem Sterling, the latter of whom is unlikely to be too impressed by his appearance in the graphic, as he is known to be a Labour Party supporter.
If the Conservatives wanted an England poster boy for the World Cup who identified with the party, they would probably have to go all the way back to 1990 and the uncompromising defender Terry Butcher.
With the World Cup now in the knockout phase, no doubt plenty more Twitter users will continue to knock themselves out with mix-ups and poor decisions on the social media site between now and July 15th.
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