Zionist’s Guide to the World Cup–Day 12
As is typically the case for the Zionist’s Guide to the World Cup (ZGWC), it will be politics first today, then onto the football.
We will begin in Colombia where the second round of the presidential elections is now in the books. Right winger Abelardo de la Espriella eked out a narrow victory over dedicated Communist Ivan Cepeda. De la Espriella has announced his intention to restore diplomatic relations with Israel after they were severed by Cepeda’s former boss Gustavo Petro. Given the thin margin of victory, Petro, Cepeda, and their forces will likely try every trick they can in order to reverse the results. For his part, Petro even blamed Israel for the apparent election result. The ZGWC will jump the gun on the final confirmation of the vote to declare that Colombia can now move from the “cursed” category to the “highly meritorious” category in its rankings. In doing so, would be Zionist fans of Los Cafeteros can now break out their Luis Diaz and James Rodriguez bobblehead dolls in good conscience.
Unrelated to the World Cup, one must wonder about the future political stability of Colombia where the candidate characterized as “far right” garnered 49.65% of the vote and the candidate characterized as “far left” received 47.81% of the vote. There is apparently no space for moderates in Colombian politics, and that does not bode well for the road ahead.
In the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer has now resigned as prime minister. He is likely to be replaced by former Manchester mayor Andy Burnham. While Starmer was an improvement over the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Party, his job performance, in general, and with regard to Israel and the English Jewish community, in particular, was dreadful. Burnham may turn out to be better, but the ZGWC will not change its low rating of the Three Lions while we wait to discover his essence. Burnham is still associated with the Labour Party–which has much for which to answer.
Now onto the pitch….
Lionel Messi added more evidence to the claim that he is the greatest soccer player of all time, as he claimed two more goals and put distance between him and Miroslav Klose on the list of the most prolific World Cup goal scorers. He missed an early penalty kick, but then proceeded in open play to put two balls in the “back of the ol’ onion sack.” Remarkable. Argentina has score five goals thus far in this tournament–all scored by Messi. In yesterday’s installment, the ZGWC made a snide comment about whether the Argentines can find anyone else to score goals for them. Well, maybe they don’t need to…. The Argies downed a hard charging Austrian squad 2-0 and sit alone atop Group J.
The French-Iraq match had a multi-hour weather delay between the first half and the second half. Kylian Mbappé scored a brace with one goal coming before the lighting strikes and heavy rains, and one goal coming afterwards. PSG star Ousmane Dembélé added a third score as the Froggies downed Iraq, 3-nil. The pitiful Iraqis failed to manage a shot on goal against the very talented Les Bleus.
The ZGWC suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune watching Senegal take on Norway and its Gargantua named Erling Haaland. The ZGWC so much wanted the talented Lions of Teranga to pull off the upset against the sanctimonious Norwegians, their red-clad, blonde-haired fans, and their royal family members watching from the luxury box. Unfortunately, it was not to be. Gargantua claimed a brace and jumped out to a commanding 3-1 lead. Senegal pulled one back in stoppage time, but could not quite pull off the miracle of a second, tying stoppage time goal. The Senegalese will now have beat Iraq by a large margin and then hope they can squeak through to the knockout round as one of the eight third place qualifiers.
The intramural Arab match between Algeria and Jordan started late in the day, and the ZGWC went to bed hoping that they would both find a way to lose the match.
Tuesday’s matches will complete the second round of group play and will further clarify which teams will move on to the knockout rounds. For teams which lost their first match, a victory in the second match would go a long way to avoiding the ignominy of being “grouped.”
The day leads off with the feisty squad from Uzbekistan facing the seemingly dysfunctional Portuguese squad. Will Cristiano Ronaldo have occasion to rip his jersey off or not? The ZGWC certainly hopes not.
England enters its match against Ghana with a great amount of confidence after their four goal effort against Croatia. Many English fans have already put down four more goals against Ghana, their former colonial possession. Here’s hoping that the Black Stars upset the English parade to the championship.
Panama dug itself into a big hole with their last minute loss to Ghana. Now they will have a high hill to climb against an aging, but still lethal Croatian side. The Croatians will need the win after losing to England in their opener. They will be looking at the Panamanians and will be thinking “goal differential.” Hopefully, the Panamanians will be crafty and pick their moments and ruin the Croatian’s day, week, and summer.
The ZGWC has previously bemoaned the unlucky history of the downtrodden Democratic Republic of the Congo, but cheered the DRC’s magnificent tie against Portugal. Now that the Colombians have succeeded in electing a president who is not a raging anti-Semite, the DRC will unfortunately lose the support of the ZGWC for their match against Colombia. Colombia has returned home again, into the good graces of the ZGWC. Muey bueno.
