2 Morocco coach Hervé Renard becomes the second former Cambridge United manager to take charge of a team at a World Cup. Claude Le Roy, who managed Cameroon at the 1998 World Cup, is the other.
3 Three of the past four World Cup winners have gone out at the group stage while trying to retain their trophy.
4 Gareth Southgate will become the fourth Englishman to have played for and managed his country at a World Cup (after Alf Ramsey, Bobby Robson and Glenn Hoddle). Southgate played two games for England at the 1998 finals in France.
5 The number of times Nigeria have been drawn against Argentina in the opening group stage in their six World Cup appearances. Eleven players who faced each other in Argentina’s 3-2 victory in Porto Alegre in the previous World Cup have been named to represent their countries again in Russia.
10 Thomas Müller has scored 10 goals at World Cup finals tournaments, more than any other player competing in Russia. He also holds the record for assists in World Cups among current players (six).
11 Brazil have received more red cards than any other nation in the World Cup finals. In their defence, they are also the only side to feature in every World Cup, meaning they have had more opportunities than most.
16 years South American teams have not won the World Cup since Brazil in 2002. The past three finals tournaments have featured five European teams (Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany) and just one from South America (Argentina in 2014).
16 Manchester City have 16 players at the World Cup – the most from any club. Following them are Real Madrid (15), Barcelona (14), and Tottenham, Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea (12).
23 The magic birthday number. If you get a group of 23 people together, the probability of two of them sharing the same birthday is 50%. Of the squads in Russia for the finals, 50% have players who share birthdays including John Stones and Kyle Walker for England (28 May), Koke and David Silva for Spain (8 January) and Filipe Luís and Willian for Brazil (9 August). Incredibly, Portugal have four pairs of players who share the same birthday.
25 Mexico have lost more games at the World Cup finals than any other nation.
29.6 years The average age of the Costa Rica squad, the oldest group taking part in Russia. Mexico, Argentina and Egypt are the only other teams with an average age of 29 or older. Nigeria have the youngest average age for their squad.
41 Own goals in World Cup finals. The first was by Manuel Rosas in the inaugural 1930 tournament, helping Chile on their way to defeating Mexico 3-0 in the opening group stages.
45 years and 5 months If Essam El-Hadary plays he will earn his 158th cap for Egypt, and become the oldest player to feature in a World Cup finals. The goalkeeper made his international debut in 1996, before Kylian Mbappé, Marcus Rashford and Trent Alexander-Arnold were born.
55% How much stock market trading volumes drop when a nation’s team are playing in the World Cup, according to research by the European Central Bank’s head of monetary policy research Michael Ehrmann. “People are distracted so it is bound to happen again,” he said.
108 The English Premier League accounts for more players than any other league: 353 players, nearly half of the total number of 736, play their club football in the top flights of England, Spain, Germany, Italy or France.
9,888km How far Egypt will have to travel during the group stages, more than any other team. Their games are in Moscow, Ekaterinburg and Volgograd, and Egypt’s travel distance is exacerbated because they are based in Grozny in the Chechen Republic.
25,000 Attendance on the opening day of the Moscow Fan Fest, which featured 20 music acts and a guest appearance by the 1998 World Cup winner Marcel Desailly.
520,000 kettles The equivalent size of the 1.3GW power surge measured in the UK at half-time during England’s match with Uruguay at the 2014 World Cup. Russia has built several new power stations in the past couple of years in order to cope with the expected surge in demand for power World Cup visitors will bring.
1,000,000 More than a million online votes were cast to pick the official mascot. The wolf, Zabivaka, beat alternative options of a tiger and a cat, and follows in the footsteps of luminaries such as Naranjito, Pique and Footix.
3,000,000 The number of Nigeria kits pre-ordered, according to the manufacturer Nike.
190m If the World Cup was decided on social media followers, Brazil would win. Photography site Inkifi calculated Brazil’s squad has more combined followers than anybody else, edging out Portugal who have 169m. Neymar (94.5m) and Cristiano Ronaldo (128m) make up the bulk of those.
$400m The total prize money available, ranging from $8m for teams that go out at the group stage to $38m for the eventual champions.
3.2bn The number of viewers Fifa says watched the final in Brazil in 2014. It is an impossible number to audit.
600bn roubles (US$9.5bn) The amount Fifa claims Russia has spent on accelerated infrastructure investment as the tournament host nation.