FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Vice Blog

The World Cup of Evil: Quarter-finals

Firstly, some bad news: We'd just finished the trophy for the World Cup of Evil when some airport pigs decided to steal it from us. Apologies, and we hope that the eventual winner is happy with a flick knife and a copy of Tintin Au Congo, the most evil book ever printed.

France 1-0 England
These old European enemies may have spent the 20th century helping each other stave off German annihilation for as long as it took the Russians and Americans to ride in and save the day, but they spent the centuries prior to that crossing the Channel/Manche to fuck each other up. Even though it never made it into our Best Wars of All Time the Hundred Years' war is one damn fine, erroneously named conflict. Sure, all we got out of it was a 200 year residency in Calais, but that ancient connection paved the way for the booze cruise, a noble pursuit in which carton-wine is the winner. France scraped through because their players hate each other just a little bit more than England's do. And if that's not clear let me explain that not liking your teammates is evil.

North Korea 2-0 Japan
When you get to this stage, eating whales and having a great rail network just isn't going to cut it, so it's goodbye to Japan, easily beaten by the Merc-loving communists of Pyongyang in this all-Asian match. And to celebrate, they're having Justin Bieber over.

Germany 2-3 Argentina (a.e.t.)
Germany may have a decade and a half of massive historical evil to point to, but the South Americans have corruption, dictators and, decisively, an endless parade of weird evil football doings. If Argentina isn't bribing, drugging or kicking their opposition they're fighting attacking gay guys. For years, journalists spread rumours that the team's hard man, Diego Simeone was gay. The rumor gathered pace when Simeone revealed that he had planned to "travel round Europe and develop a radical project with Nelson Vivas." Maradona was OK at football, but he's far better known for attacking Pele for being gay, telling everyone he likes girls, and mocking Germans. When it comes to being brilliant at being evil, how can Maradona's team of homophobes not beat a multi-cultural group of guys who humiliated John Terry, the most evil Englishman not to have gone on a shooting spree recently?

Spain 1-2 Italy
Europe, the old cesspool of evil and football, has given us five of the last eight and these two old, rotting corruption holes are both fine contenders. The Spanish gave us Manu Chao. The Italians gave us Silvio Berlusconi. There's a lot of evil in the world. But the French take partial blame for the king of the singing hippies so Italy and their media mogul president go through on a tidal wave of defensive football, fascism, and heartfelt Italian-language drivetime rock.

OSCAR RICKETT