Football fans are many things – passionate, obsessive, occasionally delusional – but above all, they are always looking for ways to make the game bigger than just 90 minutes.
They’ll convince themselves they’d bag 20 goals a season for Manchester United. They’ll swear a knee injury cost them a pro career. They’ll insist they could tactically out-smart a Premier League manager from their sofa.
Most of it is nonsense. But occasionally, buried in the chaos, there’s a genuinely good idea.
As a football fan myself, I had one of those moments: I wondered how many World Cup matches it would take to build 43020 FIFA World Cup Official Trophy.
After six hours, 23 minutes and 20 seconds of building – spread across multiple sessions, and powered by multiple real matches – I finally had the answer.
Four full World Cup games, plus up to the first hydration break of a fifth.
By the end, I had completed all 2,842 pieces of the £159.99 / $199.99 / €179.99 LEGO trophy, finishing the final section and sliding the small pitch that slots into the top into place before stopping the timer.
Some experienced builders will be thinking they could do it faster. Maybe you could. But could you do it while watching elite international football at ridiculous hours, half-delirious, with tiny gold pieces slowly multiplying like a tactical nightmare?
Probably not.
Game 1: Belgium 1–1 Egypt
The first match of the build was Belgium vs Egypt. A tight start to both the football and the set.
Egypt failing to secure a first-ever World Cup win set the tone, while I made it through bag eight of the build and felt deceptively confident. Everything felt under control. That didn’t last long.
Game 2: France 3–1 Senegal
The second full 90 minutes was France vs Senegal a day later, the first of three consecutive games.
The first half dragged on. The second half, however, turned into pure chaos – exactly the kind of football that keeps you awake when your hands are aching.
I even started to believe Senegal might claw it back after a late goal in the 95th minute. Of course, I was reminded who I was dealing with – Kylian Mbappé doing Kylian Mbappé things, as expected from the inspiration behind 43013 Kylian Mbappé – Football Highlights.
By this point, I was starting to realise this wasn’t going to be a calm evening of building.
Game 3: Iraq 1–4 Norway
The third match followed immediately after, and things escalated quickly.
My girlfriend had drawn Iraq in a family sweepstake, so I had a vested interest in the underdog. At half-time, the game was 2–1, and I had finished the bottom half of the trophy.
A promising position.
By full-time, confusion had set in. Norway had scored two more goals without Erling Haaland being directly involved, which felt unnatural, and I was surrounded by dozens of near-identical gold elements, questioning every life decision that had led me here.
Sleep was needed. I didn’t care.
Game 4: Argentina 3–0 Algeria
It was around 2am when Argentina vs Algeria began. At that point, normal decision-making had fully left the building.
But it turned out to be the highlight of the entire build.
Watching Lionel Messi – arguably the greatest of all time – score his first World Cup hat-trick while I clicked together the final major sections of the set felt surreal. It was the kind of sporting overlap that makes absolutely no sense, yet feels perfect in the moment.
It was also where things got slightly unhinged. Sleep deprivation kicked in, and I made the mistake of partially dismantling a section ‘to check stability’. I then spent far too long trying to rebuild it while every side looked identical.
Not my finest tactical decision.
Final stretch: Portugal vs DR Congo
By the final match, I only had around 25 minutes of building left.
Portugal vs DR Congo should have been straightforward. Instead, it became a strange blur of Cristiano Ronaldo wandering through a match while I finished the final structural details of the trophy.
It didn’t feel like a dramatic ending on the pitch. But off it, the build was complete. 43020 FIFA World Cup Official Trophy was finished.
Final thoughts
The experience was surprisingly enjoyable, if slightly unhinged. The build never felt repetitive, but it was fiddly in places, and my fingers took a week to recover.
The best way to approach it? Pair it with matches. Let football set the rhythm, and let the chaos take care of the rest.
If you’re building your own LEGO World Cup in the coming days, I’d recommend structuring it like a mini tournament:
Start with Scotland vs Brazil, follow it with Ecuador vs Germany, then Japan vs Sweden for the late-night shift. Finish with Norway vs France as your final full match, before deciding on a last 25-minute closure game of your choice.
Finally, if you’re not a football fan but are still building it… I have questions. But there is an alternative: use half-time and hydration breaks, a space where you're free to moan about not liking football.
Each match gives you roughly 21 minutes of interruption time. Stack enough of them together and you could technically stretch the experience across 19 games while only building during stoppages.
An absurd method. But then again, so is football fandom in general.
All 11 LEGO Editions FIFA World Cup associated sets are valuable now from LEGO.com and in LEGO stores, with prices ranging from £19.99 / $24.99 / €24.99 to £159.99 / $199.99 / €179.99.
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