This was the idea of one of our graphic artists at The National, Alex Belman.

As part of our three-week buildup to the Brazil 2014 World Cup … a five-part, clip-n-save-n-reassemble graphic of the World Cup trophy. You know the one … gold-plated, with all the hands grasping the soccer ball.

And today was Day 5 of the series. And as promised to the newsroom, we put it up on the wall behind where the sports department works.

This newspaper graphic — 23 inches wide, and about 60 inches high — is now right behind my desk. In all its printed-paper glory.

This began a month or so ago. We pitched the idea of the graphics staff doing caricatures of some of the more quirky people in World Cup history, as part of a five-day series.

Alex was not quite enthused with that, and came back with a second suggestion:

How about smaller caricatures, tied to the text, but which together could be pulled from the center of our 16-page tabloid section … and then assembled to be hung on a wall somewhere? Giving it a dual purpose and, certainly, giving it the potential for being more memorable.

We said sure. As long as each of the five parts were, more or less, independently viable, as visual and textual concepts. Alex would make it work and handle the type provided by our World Cup beat writer, Gary Meenaghan, and Alex’s colleague, Mathew Kurian did the caricatures.

So, Day 1? Three goalkeepers, led by Rene Higuita doing his “scorpion kick”. Day 2: Three defenders. Then three midfielders, three forwards, three coaches (and the coaches are all holding up the trophy).

We called the 15 individuals around the trophy “cult heroes”. Meaning, they were not the best at their jobs, necessarily, but people the typical global fan might well remember. And each was associated with a mostly gold-colored something in the middle of the page.

(Our advisory on the overall concept was up in the top-right corner of the page for each of the five days, suggesting readers save the page, then assemble, showing how they would overlap each other to form a coherent whole.)

And when the last one came out, today, I got sections from the five days and pulled out the center spread … and began taping them to the wall.

It was a bit tricky. (I felt like I was doing a first-grade art project.)

The bottom (blank) half-inch of the double pages, days 2 through 5, had to be trimmed. Then, as the pages were carefully lined up they also needed to be stretched, to combat the center fold from billowing out. The crowns of the first four days were overlaid by the following day, so we had to get that lined up, too …

And by the end of it, the pieced-together graphic was so tall that I sent up the staff’s youngest guy, while I held the chair, to tape it to the wall.

It worked out quite well, I do believe. If you followed the link to The National, above, you can enlarge the image by mousing over the lower-right corner and clicking the + sign … and then you can drag it up, down and sideways.

It’s fun.

I’m not sure another person in the whole of the UAE actually did what we suggested, but the one we have is enough to satisfy us — and, we hope, Alex.