That Which Has Been Born: Part 2 of 2

Frederic Carver finishes off what he started on the alternative World Cup. Find his brilliant blog here, which he hasn't updated for a year but is still well worth a trawl. 

Last post I started off ranting about Marxism and then started to tell you the story of the delightfully quirky ConIFA World Cup – the World Cup for countries who struggle to obtain. I introduced the cast, now I’m going to tell you how they did.

That Which Has Been Born: Part 1 of 2

In the interests of keeping up the facade that we champion 'proper' football writing every now and then, please give a warm welcome to Frederic Carver, who delves into a very different World Cup.

“The working men have no country. We cannot take from them what they have not got. Since the proletariat must first of all acquire political supremacy, must rise to be the leading class of the nation, must constitute itself the nation, it is so far, itself national, though not in the bourgeois sense of the word. National differences and antagonism between peoples are daily more and more vanishing, owing to the development of the bourgeoisie, to freedom of commerce, to the world market, to uniformity in the mode of production and in the conditions of life corresponding thereto. The supremacy of the proletariat will cause them to vanish still faster. United action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the proletariat” – the Communist Manifesto

Why A European Side Is Going To Win It This Year Or We'll Delete This Post

"Awww shit. Magic Spongers got it right again."

A lot is made about how European teams cannot win a World Cup on Latin American soil. Probably because they never have. So far, so fair enough. But as we’ve never let the problematic presence of ‘facts’ get in the way of our writing, we’re going to stick our necks out and say that this is the year it all changes and a European side will do just that. And this is a win-win situation for us because, if a European side does win it, we’ll just delete this very sentence, say "we told you so" and we’ll be the toast of the internet. And if a European side doesn’t win it, we just delete this entire piece. Or we keep it in and we look ‘meta’. There are plenty of ways to skin an onion.

Preview #2 - the World Cup is ACE

IT'S GOING TO BE ACE YOU F***S

Part two of our World Cup preview goes all Eric Idle and looks on the bright side. It's a World Cup. In Brazil. A WORLD CUP. IN BRAZIL. What's not to love, exactly?

When is a preview not a preview? When it comes after the event has started? Oh shit. We better start writing then. Plans here to concoct something approaching a coherent preview and even a series of podcasts have gone awry in a blaze of work deadlines and £4.50-for-two vodka and coke deals in York’s premier nightspot, Fibbers. So what we’ve decided to do, in principle at least, is make a half-arsed attempt to cover as much of the tournament as we can, which will probably end up being a solitary article lamenting England’s winless, car-crash of a capitulation at the group stage, while taking the piss out of the root and branch enquiry into the national team’s failings in South Africa four years ago. Business as usual then.

Preview #1 - the World Cup is AWFUL

'Corruption you say? Kiss my ball(s)'

It's the first of our, let's call them 'anticipated', World Cup previews. We were going to do the positive one first, but we thought 'sod it', which before you start moaning is exactly the attitude you'll have too once you've finished with this one.