Pure evil

On the subject of predictions, one of the safer ones concerns today’s opening game. This traditionally features the holders and, equally traditionally, they struggle. People remember France losing to Senegal last time, and Argentina losing to Cameroon in 1990; but Brazil had a hard time beating Scotland 2-1 in 1998, Germany only squeaked 1-0 past Bolivia in 1994, Italy drew with Bulgaria in 1986 and Argentina lost (again) to Belgium in 1982. So it would have been a safe non-entrail-based prediction that Brazil would have a hard time in the opening game today. Except they aren’t playing in the opening game. Instead it’s the host country, Germany.

Why? Well, there’s a widely held view that Fifa are useless tinkering dimwits who can be relied on to cock everything up, including wanting people to refer to this tournament as the Fifa World Cup^TM. (Even the Olympics, which are about as debased by commercialism as it would be possible to imagine, don’t call themselves the Olympics^TM.) So that would explain why they were tinkering with this tradition: just because they could. This would also explain why Fifa have brought in a new ball, just in time for the Fifa World Cup^TM. Paul Robinson shelled out £420 on new balls just before the tournament to get some early practice in, and reports that it swerves more than the familiar ball and will be harder for goalkeepers. That doesn’t mean it’s easier for outfield players, and especially for dead-ball experts. Newer tends to mean lighter, and lighter often means harder to control. (About the only spectacular free kick in the last World Cup, which also featured a new ball, was the one Ronaldinho stuck past Seaman to knock England out in the quarter final.) So the players spend hundreds of hours practising with the old ball—and then suddenly find themselves playing with a new one, on the biggest occasion of their lives, to the detriment of pretty much anybody who takes any interest.

Why? For money, obviously—so they can sell shitloads of the new ball. They could still sell shitloads if they brought it in a few months before, of course, but that would take away the last minute pointless-tinkering aspect. So, again, why? I have looked into the question and it turns out that if Fifa begins a World Cup^TM without making these apparently pointless changes it will cause a rupture in the fundamental space-time continuum of the universe which will cause Satan to assume control of the universe and preside over a dominion of pure evil for 1,000,000,000 millennia.