A football fan has truly got into The World Cup spirit buying a beer to represent each of the 32 countries taking part.
31-year-old Gus Hully enlisted the help of Twitter, his friends and even travelled Europe himself to ensure he had a beer from all 32 countries participating in the competition.
It may have taken him eight months to complete his mission but Gus says the hard work has paid off, achieving viral fame.
From hosts Russia to favourites Brazil and Germany to more distant countries including Senegal and Panama, Gus tracked down alcohol from some incredibly remote locations.
Despite the consumption of alcohol being prohibited in most of Iran and Saudi Arabia, Gus managed to get a beer from these two countries as well.
He revealed to UNILAD why he decided to travel thousands of miles and spend £500 on this special mission:
I saw a guy try it a few years back and he didn’t manage to complete it and I reckoned I could do it better. I did it for the last World Cup and I got 23 out of 32 which was pretty decent but not 100 per cent.
I tried it again for Euro 2016 and managed to get 24 out of 24 but The World Cup is on a different level.
I love all kinds of football from following the Premier League on Match of the Day to supporting Cheltenham Town in League Two but I bloody love The World Cup.
Four weeks of constant football and everybody in the world getting involved? Go on!
Gus started the hunt for the beers as soon as the teams qualified for the tournament back in November 2017.
He admitted to UNILAD he had to even travel across Europe and enlist the help of friends abroad to find some of the harder ones:
I had to go over to Barcelona to a South American supermarket to find a bottle of Uruguayan Patricia and a can of Brazilian Skol.
I also had to go over to a specialist beer shop in Paris to pick up a bottle of Tunisian Celtia and then up to an area called Little Africa to pick up a bottle of Senegalese Biere La Gazelle. Also got a bottle of Moroccan Casablanca while I was out there!
I was stuck on Egypt until I saw on Facebook that one of my friends was at a wedding there so I had to pester him to bring me a bottle of Sakara back.
When I saw one of my friends was backpacking around Central American I asked her to help and so she managed to bring me back a can of Panama Lager and a bottle of Costa Rican Imperial.
The most difficult beer to get a hold of was from Saudi Arabia but a guy in Libya was more than happy to help after seeing Gus’s plea on Twitter.
Gus said the guy sent him over a bottle of Saudi Arabian non-alcoholic Hillsburg Regular which is the one he is most proud of getting:
Saudi Arabia was the real struggle. A random guy in Libya saw my tweet and contacted me saying they get Saudi non-alcoholic beer over there all the time.
He went out and bought me a bottle of the Hillsburg Regular. He found out the shipping was about £50 so of course I had to go for it as this was the only lead I had.
I sent over the money to his sister in Germany and then followed the whereabouts of the package on the DHL tracking system (went from Libya to Jordan to UAE to Frankfurt and finally to London) and then two weeks later it turned up on my doorstep. Unbelievable!
Planning on drinking each beer as soon as that country gets knocked out, Gus can’t wait for the end of the group stages although the hangovers will be terrible!
Here is a look at all the beers Gus purchased:
Proud of his achievement Gus shared a photo of the beers on Twitter which was appreciated by football fans around the world.
Going viral, at time of writing (June 15) the tweet has received over 33,000 likes and 8,000 retweets.
Gus can’t believe how much it has blown up:
It’s all a bit stupid you know? I kind of knew people would be interested but this is just unreal. People from pretty much every country at The World Cup liking and retweeting my picture just seems so weird but it’s cool.
There’s even a few guys on Twitter stealing the picture and trying to pass it off as their own which is kind of a compliment I guess? I’m just laughing about the absurdity of it all.
Cheers to you Gus!
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