Culture

Harry Maguire Memes May Be the Best Part of This Year's World Cup

Because what's an international event without a good meme?

by Josie Rhodes Cook

You may have seen the image of English World Cup player Harry Maguire surface in your timeline, as it’s quickly become a near-ubiquitous meme. It shows Maguire talking to his fiancée, Fern Hawkins, following the team’s match against Colombia.

The photo was captured after England’s match against Colombia on July 3 (though it didn’t go viral until more recently). And it’s quickly becoming a favored meme — perhaps because the two of them could be conversing about pretty much anything. And as it’s wont to do, the internet couldn’t just let this candid moment lie. The casual photo was pretty quickly turned into a viral meme, and it just may be the best thing to come out of this year’s World Cup.

The photo came out of a huge, international event — arguably one of the most important cultural events currently underway. The photo, its accessibility and relatability, and its lack of context set the perfect stage for becoming the next equivalent of the “Distracted Boyfriend” meme.

Even Maguire shared the image himself, making a joke about Hawkins asking their neighbors to put out their trash bins for them since he’s away being an international soccer star and all. It was a pretty great moment of meme-ception.

And the rest of Twitter got in on the fun as well. For instance, Maguire’s teammate, Kyle Walker, also tried his hand at meme-ing Maguire.

Takes on the Maguire meme ranged from the “he’s playing it cool” variety to perfectly relevant movie quotes.

And there’s truly something for everyone when it comes to the Maguire meme, with some using it to reference anything from ideal head shape to photos of the English players racing on inflatable unicorns at their Repino training base indoor swimming pool.

With Maguire’s help, the English team is heading to its first World Cup semi-final since 1990. The team will now face off on Wednesday with Croatia. Belgium and France will also go head-to-head, then it’s anyone’s guess which teams will make it to the final on July 15.

There have been plenty of epic moments during the games that have kept photographers capturing the matches happy, but no other photo from the event has reached the heights of internet fame than the Maguire meme.

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