It’s finally here!

World Cup week is upon us, and that unique excitement felt once every four years is well and truly alive.

Over on Twitter, it’s even more formal now: the official World Cup 2018 emojis have been launched by the official FIFA World Cup account.

In addition to a hashtag with the three-letter code for each of the participating countries, FIFA and Twitter have also collaborated to create a bespoke design for the flags of each nation as well as an emoji for anyone using a host of internationally recognised hashtags for the tournament, like #WorldCup, #Russia2018, #CM2018 or #Copa2018 will all bring up the 2018 World Cup’s logo in emoji form after the hashtag.

#WorldCup #ARG#AUS#BEL#BRA#COL#CRC#CRO#DEN#EGY#ENG#ESP#FRA#GER#IRN#ISL#JPN#KOR#KSA#MEX#MAR#NGA#PAN#PER#POL#POR#RUS#SEN#SRB#SUI#SWE#TUN#URU

???? pic.twitter.com/QGV4GJc7VW

— FIFA World Cup ???? (@FIFAWorldCup) June 11, 2018

As with all major sporting events these days, each game will get its own hashtag as well as each team and the tournament as a whole, meaning that almost every tweet about the competition will be housed in the relevant places, potentially amplifying the reach of every tweet and making it easier to follow the thrills and spills of the action on a second screen, too.

This will be the first World Cup where Twitter’s native video platform allows for almost instantaneous video, which means highlights can be posted almost straight away. That, in turn means that the social media platform will be one of the places you can follow the action without actually having to watch the whole game, with clips, insight and comment all available almost in real time.

As with all mediums, following sport on Twitter as opposed to watching in real time makes for a different experience. But there’s no doubt that this tournament will see digital media truly at the heart of the games.