World Cup 2018: Vuvuzela's Revenge

[Mongrel]

So, I know we have a sports thread over in games, but honestly the World cup is more politics than sport at this point (lol FIFA, fuck you) and this one promises to be a doozy of a dumpster fire (possibly including actual dumpsters and probably including actual fire).

Here's a couple fun, quick backgrounders if you need to get caught up:

The World Cup Nobody Wants, Not Even Russia

This World Cup Is Totally Rogue

Anyway, so far the Russians have actual Cossacks patrolling the events to make sure no gay men are kissing. RUSSIA.

[Mongrel]

Ooo lawdy.

[Mongrel]

Never not be roasting the UK team.

[Mongrel]

Russia drew the second lowest ranked team from pot 2, the third lowest ranked team from pot 3, and the lowest ranked team from pot 4.

Or, if you prefer Elo Rankings or FIFA's rather questionable standings system,


What a strange and happy coincidence for Russia!

Starr's comment was "Sepp Blatter caught watching FIFA games through knothole in Fence at Moscow field."

[Friday]

I mean, if they still lose it's just that much fucking worse for them.

[Mongrel]

Well, arguably the secondary goal beyond just trying to make the host country look good, is mainly to put off the stage where thousands of angry, drunken Russians don't have anything to distract them from the thousands of also-drunk visiting foreigners anymore, for as long as possible.

[mharr]

I've long suspected that the world cup is at least massaged to tilt it toward whichever country is in imminent danger of throwing its toys from the pram. Would have put a bunch of cash on Spain back in 2010 if anything had been disposable, the place looked like it was ready for a general uprising until that score came in.

[Mongrel]

Yeah. They usually make a semi-blatant effort to keep the host country in it, because on-site revenue and interest drops a LOT once the home country is out.

It's just that in this case, the additional factors of "Russia has an incredibly horrible team" (both by current international standards and by Russia's own historical standards), "Making Vladimir Putin look bad on his home turf is A Dangerous Thing To Do", and "Thousands of idle drunken angry Russian nazis".

So instead of it being semi-blatant, it's straight-up blatantly blatant.

[Mongrel]

Today was CRAY CRAY

[Mongrel]

Hahah, this got even better.

Mexican fans went to the Korean embassy and made the ambassador come out and drink tequila

[Mongrel]

He has a good attitude about it at least!

[atog]

New meaning to the term "own goal"

[Mongrel]

Rio bar offers free shots every time neymar dives

But how many shots did they give out for his roll?

[Mongrel]

The World Cup continues the wonderful tradition of being the world's greatest sporting tournament for reasons which have nothing to do with actual sports at all.

Guardian: SNP criticised for forcing votes during England World Cup match

Jenkin earlier raised a point of order to express his frustration as MPs marched through the division lobbies for a second vote triggered by the SNP.

He asked: “Do you suppose that the Scottish National party would be calling so many divisions this evening if it were Scotland playing an important football match this evening?”

Dame Eleanor Laing, the deputy speaker, replied: “I appreciate [Sir Bernard’s] point of order which although it relates to the division is not of course a point of order. And I just have a fervent hope that one day Scotland will be playing an important football match.”