The USA is out of the World Cup, but seems the team still got its trophy. Well, sort of. LEGO unveiled an enormous World Cup Trophy build in New York City. It is gold and glorious.
This year’s World Cup has brought about plenty of nerdy collaborations. Lionel Messi starred in a teaser for Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The Pokémon Company began a collaboration with Japan’s premier soccer association, J-League. The company gave each team its own Pokémon and branded merchandise. Now, LEGO is a part of the fun.
Standing at 27 feet tall, over 1.3 million bricks went into this LEGO World Cup trophy creation, which is located at its newly opened World Cup Fan Zone at Rockefeller Center. LEGO says 59 experts contributed to the build, which took over 7,000 hours over the course of several months. They were ahead of the World Cup hype, to say the least. Experts built the replica at a LEGO factory in the Czech Republic.
LEGO is no stranger to large, themed builds. They’ve done it all, from the world’s largest LEGO build on record, an X-Wing starfighter made of over 5 million bricks, to smaller pieces like a mall-wide LEGO botanicals exhibit in Singapore.
Former Brazilian World Cup winner Cafu was a part of the unveiling ceremony, alongside fans who each represented a country still in the tournament. The podium also contained large “minifigures” of soccer stars Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappé, and Vini Jr.
“The FIFA World Cup Trophy is one of the most iconic symbols in sport, and seeing it recreated on this scale with LEGO bricks is truly incredible,” Cafu said. “The craftsmanship, creativity, and attention to detail are remarkable.”
LEGO’s massive trophy will be on display at Rockefeller Center until the end of the World Cup tournament on July 19.