The lucky winners of last year’s Bring Someone Special Contest have just experienced every football fan’s dream, watching a game at the FIFA World Cup™. You can watch the video above to see their remarkable trip to Russia for the Opening Match of the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

How they won During the FIFA Confederations Cup Russia 2017, FIFA launched the Bring Someone Special Contest open to fans from all over the world. All fans had to do was - in no more than 350 characters - nominate someone they thought special enough to bring to the World Cup and explain why.

Two lucky winners of the contest were each promised a pair of trips to the opening match of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia, including match tickets, travel and hotels.

The winners: Adityanshu and Devashree The 29-year-old from India, who works for an NGO that teaches life skills to at-risk children using football, nominated his mother Devashree. A 57-year old teacher, Devashree was responsible for founding her school’s first sports programme and inspiring her son to both play football and use it as an instrument for positive change.

“She has been championing the spirit of sports and how it improves life skills in kids throughout her long teaching career,” Adityanshu told FIFA.com when we visited the mother and son in India.

View Adityanshu's story

The winners: Roberto Jr. and Beto Roberto Granados from Mexico, chose his father and best friend, Beto for his Someone Special entry. Roberto’s remarkable story starts on the day of his birth, 15 June 1986, the day that Mexico played Bulgaria at the Azteca in the Round of 16 of the 1986 FIFA World Cup.

Roberto’s birth meant his father, who had tickets to the match, missed seeing one of the most important matches in Mexico’s history. Manuel Negrete scored the opener for Mexico, widely regarded as one of the greatest goals of all time, setting Mexico up for a 2-0 win and a place in the quarter-finals where they would face Germany. That match remains to date the last time Mexico have won a place in the last eight of the World Cup.

"I’ve always wanted to pay my dad back for everything he’s done for me and in particular fulfilling that dream he had to give up in a matter of seconds," Roberto told us when we visited him in Mexico City.

See Roberto’s story