Meet La’eeb, The FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022’s Official Mascot!

By Heather Taylor, Advertising Week

The FIFA World Cup officially kicks off in Qatar on November 20 and La’eeb is ready to play! Wait, who’s La’eeb? He’s the official mascot of the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022!

Meet La’eeb!

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In Arabic, La’eeb means super-skilled player. La’eeb is highly adventurous, curious, and fun. He brings the joy of football to everyone and encourages everyone to believe in themselves “Now is All.”

Into the Mascot-verse With La’eeb

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One of the most unique aspects of La’eeb as a Qatar 2022 mascot is his unusual backstory. He is from a parallel universe better known as a mascot-verse.

The mascot-verse is meant to be somewhat indescribable. Those unfamiliar with it will be able to find former FIFA World Cup mascots from previous World Cup events. Some notable residents include Juanito from Mexico 1970, Goleo from Germany 2006, and Striker from United States 1994.

As La’eeb explains in the video spot, FIFA World Cup mascots who accomplish their mission — helping humans play football — go to the mascot-verse for retirement. But there’s something else humans should know about mascots.

See, mascots have been there since the very beginning of time. La’eeb explains in the video mascots have been trying to reach out to humans for a long time and not always in the form of mascots either. Sometimes they’re aliens, other times they are a Loch Ness Monster. The human nature of misinterpreting their visits means humans keep missing them.

La’eeb even argues that Newton’s apple and the first dog in space were — you guessed it — mascots! Characters have always been hard at work trying to help humans achieve greatness. People may claim to have invented football — or fire, mathematics, and music — but La’eeb insists it was mascots who taught humans these concepts.

“It is in the language of the universe. It’s within us. It binds us together. In our wombs, our first move is to kick. We yearn to innovate from that very movement onwards,” says La’eeb.

This time, we cannot forget what unites us and must commit to making this time different, knowing Now is All.

As for La’eeb, now is certainly his time to shine. The mascot revealed in the video he has tried to attend a few World Cups before it was his time and he got grounded a few times because of it. Not this year at FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022! Now the goals he scores — oops, I mean the humans score! — will be among some of his most famous contributions in football history.

Watch the FIFA World Cup starting November 20 through December 18, 2022 and keep up with La’eeb on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, WhatsApp, and Snapchat.