Japan turns World Cup-predicting octopus into seafood

Things always get weird around the World Cup. It’s been eight years since Paul the Octopus correctly predicted all of Germany’s matches, and then died. A new octopus has risen to the challenge, and got straight-up murdered for it.

Rabiot correctly predicted all three of Japan’s matches in the opening round of the 2018 World Cup, but his psychic abilities and sudden game weren’t enough to save his life. The giant Pacific octopus was chopped up and sent to the market as seafood, according to reports.

The Guys, of course, cheer Japan’s decision to treat its food like food, no matter how endearing it might become. We can’t risk having psychic octopi living long enough to overtake us.

Tokyo soccer fans all flush during halftime

The World Cup is going strong, and in Tokyo, soccer fans decided to go strongly, and all at the same time, during a recent match.

The city’s plumbing system was put to the test at halftime as Japan played Colombia. Fans across the city collectively decided to hold it for the better part of an hour, then they all unleashed the fury after the first half. The mass migration to the bathroom caused Tokyo’s water usage to rise 24%, and then after the game, it rose 50%.

As we understand it, there are several more games to be played, so the city will be put to the test several more times in the days ahead. Let’s hope everyone has a safe go of it.

Australians drink Russian town dry

The World Cup has begun — at least that’s what we’ve been told. And host nation Russia is under an invasion from drunken Australians. After watching just one match for their home country, the Aussies drank the bars dry.

A large number of Australians traveled to Kazan, Russia, where the Australians played their first match. The relatively small town was swamped with Aussie soccer fans, who drank well into the morning, despite their team losing. In fact, they drank at least two bars completely out of beer.

Whether Australia makes it to the finals, the nation is already one of heroes.

France trolls Italy at the statue-esque level

No one really likes the French. They’re smelly, lilly-livered and rude. My parents visited France this summer, and while they say that they never experienced any of the negative stereotypes, I don’t believe them. France is a bunch of jerks.

And they’ve decided to make this known to the world, or potentially, just to Italy. A 5-meter-tall statue of Zinedine Zidane (surprisingly not a Final Fantasy character) headbutting an Italian soccer player in the 2006 World Cup final has debuted in Paris.

No one knows why the statue has been created, as Algerian artist Adel Abdesseme, creator of it, hasn’t said why it was made or who commissioned it. In the meantime, we can only assume do-ins are afoot.

Australian soccer team owner learns the obvious

Clive Palmer, an Australian mining magnate, owns a soccer (or football) team. Not only does he own a team, but he founded an expansion team in Football Federation Australia for the expressed purpose of owning one. And after watching game after lackluster game, week after stultifying week since 2008, he’s finally learned what Eriq La Salle already knew in Coming to America: soccer kinda blows.

“‘I don’t even like the game,’ Palmer told Brisbane’s Sunday Mail. ‘I think it’s a hopeless game.'”

Palmer’s comments come after yet another disappointing week in ticket sales in which only 1723 spectators showed up to watch Palmer’s Gold Coast United face the Adelaide United. Even if you disagree with his assessment, you know your sport lacks any spark of interest when teams can’t bother to come up with individual names.

Manliest sport in the world comes from … Canada?

Oh Canada. We make jokes and jests about you because you’re fun. Sure, people may say that you’re “too nice” in a pejorative manner, but really, how can being “too nice” actually be a bad thing, hmm? When people say that you’re a simple folk, they don’t mean it in a negative way, they just mean that you’re too innocent to have to dirty your hands in the slightly harsher elements of world politics.

Yes. Sure.

You might have come up with hockey, but curling? A sport that involves brooms? That’s not exactly strong of muscle, and as such, the world knows (but has not castigated) you’ve been trying to compensate for that.

But seriously? Ultimate Tazer Ball? Was the inexistant “Mid-level Tazer Ball” not enough? You do know that Jackass and Mountain Dew are products of the United States, right?

Eight arms, but only one life

Remember Paul the Octopus? He correctly predicted the outcome of all of Germany’s World Cup games this summer. He was beloved by many, and captured the soccer world’s heart for a few weeks. And now he’s dead.

Paul was found dead in his tank (or as they call them in Germany, “panzer”) yesterday. Dying of what appear to be natural causes. Let us not forget that Paul had enemies. He pissed off the Germans–usually a bad move–when he correctly predicted their loss to Spain, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he was a symbol of the evil West’s obsession with superstition, and well, there’s The Guys.

Yeah, we think it was Iran, too.

Let’s see if he can predict the outcome of this

Remember Paul the psychic octopus? He correctly guessed all eight (Octopus. Eight. Get it?) of Germany’s games in the World Cup, as well as Spain’s win in the final round. (I checked with the experts, and it appears that wins and losses can actually happen in soccer.)

If there is one thing the Germans hate, it’s losing. And rather than blame the refs, the coaches or even the players, they have fixed their attention on Paul and want to grill him up to teach him a lesson. Citizens and newspapers alike are calling for his head-like thing.

These animal bastards are even messing with our sporting events!

Yet another team kept at bay by wildlife

Admittedly, we’re discussing the World Cup far more than we anticipated, because the football that we know and love is played with your hands, but just because America yawns at the tournament doesn’t mean that the animals don’t see the high-value target that is an international event such as this.

The Germans have not been able to go outside their hotel room except to go play or practice. They have been holed up for weeks now, but they are just now being allowed to go into town, where it is safe. Why can’t they just walk around the hotel grounds? Big friggin’ iguanas. That’s why.

“Normally nothing should happen walking there but if you go too close to the river then the iguanas, and they are quite big, can swing their tails and have been known to break several bones. Luckily nothing of that sort has happened yet,” said German team Manager Oliver Bierhoff, which sounds like a name you laughed at in middle school.

Pretty soon the wildebeests will join in

If you watched the U.S.-England game on Saturday, you already heard about this, but you’re American, so you probably didn’t see it. The world is against us at the World Cup, but the animals are, too.

The American team was held up from a training session before Saturday’s game because of an elephant. The team had to wait about five minutes while the elephant pretended the bus wasn’t there, and ate something off a nearby tree.

And get this: it’s the second time it’s happened to the U.S. team since they got to South Africa. Well, we know who the animals aren’t routing for.