Saturday, October 1, 2022

The Totally Random 2022 FIFA Men's World Cup

 FIFA Totally Random Men’s World Cup

The FIFA Men’s World Cup is the biggest sporting event on the planet.  It is bigger than the Olympics and the final will be watched by more than half the world’s population.  Even bigger, however, is the Totally Random Men’s World Cup.  In this tournament, home field, form, injuries, managers, and team chemistry have nothing to do with the results.  The tournament is run only once.  Here, then, is the most coveted random tournament on earth.

Group A

Final rankings:

Ecuador

Qatar

Netherlands

Senegal

 

This is a pretty shocking result.  It is the most up-side-down group.  I’m very disappointed the Dutch failed to advance, but everyone else rejoices.  For some reason I fail to understand, most of the world hate the Dutch.  Germany declares a National Day of Celebration.

 

Group B:

Final rankings:

England

USA

Wales

Iran

 

The Iranians would be bitterly disappointed.  They do have a 5-3 victory over the USA to console them, but given how well Iran played last World Cup, this result is disappointing.  I can honestly say Iran was one of my favorite teams to watch during the last tournament.  England win the group despite going down to the USA 3-5.  I guess the USA were so stunned, they failed to show up against Iran.  But when all is said and done, England and the USA are through.

 

Group C

Final rankings:

Saudi Arabia

Argentina

Mexico

Poland

 

Things started very poorly for Argentina going down 0-3 to Saudi Arabia.  But they scrape through thanks to a dramatic 4-5 win over a disappointing Poland.  Mexico never had any consistency.  Now they can sit back, relax, and watch the USA advance.  This makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

 

Group D

Final Rankings:

Denmark

Tunisia

Australia

France

 

Wow, what a disappointing World Cup for France.  They could only manage two points with a 0-0 and 1-1 draw to Australia and Tunisia respectively.  Denmark was solid as usual, and Australians realized why their team barely scraped through as they fail to advance.  Tunisia is happy to advance and are doing Africa proud so far.

 

Group E:

Final Rankings:

Germany

Spain

Costa Rica

Japan

 

I think this group more or less aligned with real world expectations.  Germany and Spain looked amazing at times, and pedestrian at other times.  Costa Rica were OK but as usual, fail to do anything in the World Cup.  It looks like the USA will be the flag bearers for mighty CONCACAF.  As for the Samurai, all they can hope for is that South Korea bombs out.  This is a bitter pill to swallow for them.

 

Group F

Final Rankings:

Croatia

Canada

Morocco

Belgium

 

I felt the window is closing on Belgium but in the Totally Random tournament, the window slammed shut and the glass was shattered.  As for the US bearing the CONCACAF flag, not so fast.  Canada topped CONCACAF qualifying and they do quite well in the Totally Random World Cup continuing their momentum.  Croatia advances as expected.  Belgium’s exit leaves this side of the bracket wide open.

Group G

Final Rankings:

Serbia

Cameroon

Switzerland

Brazil

 

OK, this is Totally Random.  Switzerland surely expected more and as for Brazil, if I were the players, I would defect because going back to Brazil after finishing last in the group is just not good for the health. Brazil prides itself on its goal scoring ability, but when you give up 10 goals in the group stage, which is what Brazil did here, well, forget advancing.  It turns out, however, that Brazilian players do not need to defect because newly reelected Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro claims Brazil actually won the World Cup and will host a parade for the “winning team” in Rio.  The world wonders whether Bolsonaro will wait until the actual World Cup finishes before he does this.

 

Group H

Final Rankings

South Korea

Ghana

Portugal

Uruguay

 

Ghana is one of those teams no one really pays attention to, but when you look up at the end of the group stage, they are often still around, and this is the case here.  The highly fancied Portuguese team is humiliated and like the Brazilian players, the Uruguayan players might want to consider defecting as well.  Perhaps the two teams could merge to form a super team.  But no, they despise each other too much for that.  I guess they will have to wait for the next World Cup.  And the Japanese are disappointed because South Korea advances.  Japan declares a National Day of Mourning and the population is encouraged to pray at their family shrines for deliverance from this national nightmare.

 

The Round of 16

Wow that was a lot of random games.  Now we get to the knock-out phase.

Ecuador 1-0 USA

Ecuador and the USA don’t like each other so this is a big win for the South Americans.  The goal is controversial, but it stands.  The young USA team really wasn’t expected to win the World Cup, but I had hoped they might win this Totally Random tournament.  It is not to be.

Saudi Arabia 5-0 Tunisia

Was this game fixed?  Don’t look now but Saudi Arabia look marvelous in this tournament.  They are a real juggernaut. 

Germany 0-1 Canada

It turns out Canada are the sole flagbearers for mighty CONCACAF.  This is truly a shocking result.  What happened to Germany here?  They pressed, and they pressed, but to no avail.  Canada gets a completely unexpected win.

Serbia 5-1 Ghana

Serbia has a really solid team.  They are not spectacular, but anytime you score five goals against anyone in the round of 16, you must be taken seriously.

England 4-0 Qatar

This game had a massive scandal attached to it.  Reports surfaced that Qatar offered to bail out the English economy if England let Qatar win.  No money changed hands because it turns out that British Prime Minister Liz Truss had no idea what a bail out was, and in any case, was never interested in actually fixing the economy.  Thus it was that England played to its potential and blew out the host nation.  Thank you, England.  Well done.  Although Qatar is temporarily disappointed, they take the long view.  They will eventually buy all EPL teams and call England’s national team their own one day.

Denmark 0-3 Argentina

It looks like Argentina has figured out their team balance and will be a force to be reckoned with.  Argentina no longer depends on Lionel Messi for everything.

Croatia 1-3 Spain

Spain looks like their dazzling, attacking selves defeating a stout but ultimately disappointing Croatian side.

South Korea 1-3 Cameroon

Africa is still well represented as Cameroon surprises South Korea.  Japan declares a National Day of Celebration as the Africans advance.

The Quarterfinals

Ecuador 0-3 Saudi Arabia

The Saudis are the best team in the tournament thus far.  Let’s face it, both teams overachieved but, in this case, Saudi Arabia keep on achieving.

Canada 2-4 Serbia

At last, the noble Canadians go down.  O Canada, you tried.  It is looking more and more like this solid but unspectacular Serbian side might go all the way.  Serbia’s four goals had more to do with Canada being in way over their head than with spectacular play.  Having said this, Serbia has been a scoring machine thus far.

England 1-3 Argentina

OK, NATO went on high alert before this game.  This is the game England really wanted to win.  But sadly no.  There is rioting in the streets all over England after this result.  Argentina, on the other hand, hosted the mother of all parties.  What is it about these two countries.  This time, there was no hand of God.  However, with the score tied 1-1 in the second half, Argentina scored on an unbelievable deflection that completely surprised English goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.  The goal was put down to one of those freak things that happen sometimes except for the fact replays baffled experts.  How could that ball have deflected in like that since it did not seem to come off of anyone.  A day after the game, a team of video experts in Switzerland discovered a mysterious shadowy hand seen in a Skycam shot from above that changed the direction of the ball.  “It was almost imperceptible” said Dr. Ludwig Schwartz, a well-respected professor at École Polytechnique Federale of Lausanne.  Dr. Schwartz continues to insist the shadowy hand is not the result of a deep fake.  This only increased the rioting in England.  This is now known as The Hand of Maradona. 

Spain 4-1 Cameroon

The courageous Africans were bound to go down eventually, and they went down in the quarterfinals just as that magical Roger Miller led team did in the 1990 World Cup.  Spain is cruising.

The Semifinals

Tensions are high now.  We are close to the finish line.  The betting public have their money on Saudi Arabia because they believe the fix is in.  After all, the fix was in for Qatar to host this tournament in the first place.

Saudi Arabia 1-5 Serbia

The fix was in but not as people thought.  A lot of people lost a lot of money on this game and now Serbia is one game away from paydirt.  People suddenly realize this team is solid and spectacular.  Serbia has scored 14 goals so far in the knockout stages alone.  At this to the 13 goals they scored during the group stages, and we are looking at the highest scoring World Cup team in world history.  This team was under the radar for too long but after this game, the world sees Serbia as a dominant force in world football.   It is worth pointing out that a few people won a lot of money on this game.  Hmm.

Argentina 2-4 Spain

In a game for the ages, this is the match everyone hoped would happen.  It was 2-2 with 15 minutes to go when Spain went ahead on a controversial penalty that reduced Argentina to 10 men.  In the 90th minute, the entire Argentinian team were red carded awarding Spain another goal.

The Who Cares 3rd Place Game

Saudi Arabia 2-3 Argentina

FIFA really needs to ditch this game.  I had to beg my random number generator to work for this game.  Even a mindless random number generator doesn’t care who wins this one.

The Final

By now, most of the four billion people watching this game are going for Serbia.  No one gave them a chance.  They have been defensive gold all tournament long, and they will need to produce one more time to stop the rampaging Spanish.  Serbia’s defense gives up 3 goals.  However, Serbia has been scoring in this tournament as well, and they also score 3 goals.  The World Cup final goes to extra time.  In the second half of extra time, Serbia scores a spectacular goal reminiscent of Super Mario’s goal that gave Germany a dramatic 1-0 victory over Argentina in the 2014 World Cup.  Serbia hangs on to win against a desperate Argentina.

Congratulations Serbia!  You are the 2022 FIFA Totally Random World Champions.  In the totally random world, anything is possible!

 

 

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