FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Sports

World Cup of Evil: Semi-finals

The Olympics may be all about the taking part, but the World Cup of Evil is all about the humiliating, corrupt and punishing victory. It's about invading your peaceful neighbour and then fixing the football games he watches.

The Olympics may be all about the taking part, but the World Cup of Evil is all about the humiliating, corrupt and punishing victory. It's about invading your peaceful neighbour and then fixing the football games he watches. Some of the world's finest purveyors of evil are out (I'm talking about you USA, Germany, Nigeria) but that's how it goes in a big tournament. You wake up one day and Uruguay have made it to the semi-final. Not the semi-final of evil though. That's these guys:

Advertisement

France 2-3 North Korea

France play the game of evil with a lot of elan. Just look at this year's total self-destruction. Goat-faced striker Nicolas Anelka told handshake shunning coach Raymond Domenech to go fuck himself and then went home on a private jet, the players fought on the training ground and Thierry Henry stood around looking unimpressed. Unfortunately they all had to go to Sarkozy and explain why they did so badly ("Sorry boss, we're massive dickheads and we hate each other"). North Korea's players have had their ego subsumed by their all-knowing all-controlling state. The battle here is between out of control self-expression (France) and crazed anti-expression (N. Korea). Historically, Kim Jong-il is today's Napoleon: Tiny, racked by OCD and obsessed with orchestrating death from remote positions. Kim is said to have had a supernatural birth inside a log cabin in the mountains. He also invented the hamburger, dubbing it "double bread with meat" and is widely known to be the greatest golfer since anyone. When you're that good at propaganda, you have to win.

Italy 2-0 Argentina

It's been a great run for the Falklands-coveting, Polo-loving, Maradona-owning Argentines but it all ends here. They've been beaten by the colonial master. Over 50% of Argentines are of Italian descent and so it was only natural that a love of corruption, wild political extremes and pizza were going to flourish on the streets of Buenos Aires. But the old world sophistication and longevity of Italian evil means that Argentina is still playing catch-up, looking up to their evil Italian fatherland as they go about their day bribing referees and fucking an endless stream of television hosts before retiring to bed to invade Ethiopia. Argentine players are consistently brought over to Italy to a play in a league fixed by right-wing club presidents like Silvio Berlusconi. So here's to you Italy, still teaching the new kids how to do it.

Only the final to go.