On June 12, the German national football team arrived in Moscow for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The players were met with warm greetings from fans and journalists at Moscow's Vnukovo airport.
On arriving, the team's attacking midfielder, Mesut Ozil, posted a photo to his Twitter account with an inscription in Russian, commenting that the tournament is an opportunity for him to learn more about Russia and its traditions.
TWEET: Arrived in Russia. I am not only looking forward to the beginning of the cup, but also willing to learn about the country, its people and culture, which is a part of every World Cup.
The next day, adoring fans managed to take selfies with the reigning World Cup champions, whom they greeted with cheerful chants and posters. The photos below show a boy who painted a poster, which says in German: "Thomas Mueller give me a t-shirt!"
On June 14, the facade of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow became part of a light show timed to coincide with the start of the 2018 World Cup in Russia. A series of unique projections about football, inspiring fans to support their teams, appeared on the building's facade. Mesut Ozil said he was proud to see his portrait during the installation.
During the tournament, the German national team will be based in Vatutinki, a town outside Moscow, and will train at CSKA Moscow's base. As part of a public training session on Wednesday, the players had presented 1,000 soccer balls to the children training at this base. In addition, the team announced that over the next four years, the children's department of Moscow's CSKA, as well as the German School in Moscow, will get a team sponsorship totaling 80,000 euros.
The German national football team will face Mexico in its first FIFA 2018 World Cup game at Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium on Sunday.
From June 14 to July 15, Russia is hosting the FIFA World Cup for the first time in history, with matches set to be held in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Sochi, Yekaterinburg, Saransk, Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Volgograd, and Samara.