Larissa Riquelme bares all, Maradona doesn’t

This World Cup has been quite interesting in the amount of publicity it has generated off the pitch, rather than on it. Going by the adage ‘No publicity is bad publicity’, FIFA and Sepp will be grinning from ear to ear at this event which has now truly attained the status of a global event (unlike the Americans who call their 16-team leagues the ‘World Series’). Of course, now and then they’ll have to make noises about making better refereeing decisions while still going ahead and appointing Howard Webb as the referee for the finals – a decision which certainly won’t go down well with our resident Scouser. Overall though the ‘FIFA World Cup’, as it has been branded everywhere, has become a self-feeding propaganda machine that can run on itself now. We thought we had already caught the craziest, wackiest types among those in our post here, but clearly we missed out the big newsmakers! So for those of you who have been living under a rock, here they are, in descending order of shock value.

Larissa and her... um... friends.

Larissa Riquelme – If you did read the crazy, wacky post we referred to above, you would’ve seen how we thought Dallys Ferreira was the best thing to happen to South American football this World Cup. Clearly, we were wrong. Larissa Riquelme and her two friends  (Featured above. Yes, we mean the old chap and the one with the blue cap!) placed on the table an offer that none of the 23 Paraguayan squad members could refuse. The deal was simple – Paraguay pulls down Spain’s shorts in the quarters, she pulls down her shorts, tops minis and micro-minis. As Óscar Cardozo stepped up to the penalty spot that day, 3 billion minds were willing him to score… the penaly. However, in a clear contradiction to the theories of such scientific geniuses such Dan Brown and Dr. Xavier of the X-Men, all that Free Will bulls**t came to nought as Iker Casillas instantly became the most hated man on the planet after Howard Webb. The gracious girl though, because of all the milk of human kindness overflowing from her heart, decided that it is trying that counts and not winning or losing. Rather, it’s not winning the match for losing her clothes that counts, so she went ahead and lost them anyway. Diario Popular has promptly splashed her on the cover page and for more, er, high-res pictures, I’m afraid you boys are going to have to turn to Google.

Girlfriend of the World Cup

Diego Maradona – The man who is under fire the most after Fabio Capello but we just don’t know it because we do not read the Spanish press. Argentina collectively getting their pants pulled down  (yes, I’m using that pun again) by Germany ensured, however, that the world was spared the same thing from happening to Maradona individually. As much as I like the man for his drug-addled antics and his complete disrespect for any of the great footballing ‘institutions’, I think we agree that the collective reaction of Buenos Aires after Germany’s 4th goal was more a sigh of relief, because the match was already past them anyway. That one game had enough nightmares in it for the collective consciousness of all the Argentine population for the enitre next year. Thankfully, we won’t have Maradona adding to them. No donuts for Messi in the near future, I think. Dios Mio…

Paul the Octopus - Our resident gooner has already composed an ode to this fellow  fit for a martyr, so no more about him. It’ll be interesting to see which way he swings for the third-place game though… we will probably get a decision on whether he really becomes a martry too, then. On a side note, I don’t get what it is with gooners and a penchant for the lyrical/musical. Remember the Barclays Fan of India?

Liji Fransis – For those of you going ‘tell me something I don’t know already’, here goes. Of course, I’m hoping that this is something which is not as googled as the above three terms and hence most of you wouldn’t have seen it.

I’ll only say, Thank God there’s still hope for Football in India. That’s always a good thing.

Off to the finals then. Hopefully at least that game will give us enough to actually talk about the football.