The World Cup Draw!

So I was sitting on the sofa scratching my balls, when some lights on the TV catch my attention and it turns out that there's something I'm interested in: it's the ceremony of the draws for the World Cup group stages! I saw it and wrote a serious article on it which can be found at footballitaliano.co.uk (probably Saturday or Sunday, not at the time of writing). I didn't really have space there to discuss the ceremony itself, so I'd like to dedicate some minutes to it here.

I'd like to do this because I've never seen a process more mysterious as to its purpose than this show. What people were doing there and why is something that I spent most of its duration puzzling about. It started off with some random images of good-natured people in Africa, presumably because the producers thought it would be in bad-taste to open the World Cup ceremony with images of civil-war bombings in Zaire or the Apartheid, and I thought that that was good. It was fun and it made for a sweet introduction. Then we're led to the podium for the spectacle itself, which struck me as remarkably resemblant to the one used for the Oscars (they might have rented it in the haste, unless they were planning on rewarding Thierry Henry's diving skills - they're even better than his recently displayed and much admired volleyball skills, check them out).

Here we go, the draw is about to take off! ...No wait, there's some fat white guy with a guitar who has to play a song or something before we can all start. Whatever. It's pretty dire stuff and his fat-rolls are bouncing underneath his sweat-patches, so it doesn't make for superb television to be honest. When it ends, even the commentators of the Italian TV can't help but remark that "this isn't going to top the charts in Italy." Then Charlize Theron is invited on stage and I obviously start scratching my testicles again - saucy lass. She makes some pointless speech on how excited she is and how she obviously never gave a fuck about soccer herself but she nonetheless hugely respects the sport and the passion and the players and yadda yaddee doo. Not sure why she was called on if she doesn't like football, perhaps for the size of her boobs, which admittedly made me reel when she presented the new football - the jugs are about the same friggin' size!!!! Oh God, marry me Charlize. At that, and as though anyone gave a flying shit, we are shown an ad that has been running on South African TVs for the past year or so and which explains the history of the World Cup in the most cloying rhetoric. Mmmmkay. Are you going to start the draw now?

No! This gigantic barrel of lard of a woman comes roiling on stage like a mammoth sporting a hangover and she starts singing! It reminded me of this. As in accordance with the disney video, the music is a bit better this time, so at least I can get my hand off my balls while a bunch of singers are leaping up and down the stage for some reason which appears completely disconnected from the music.

The musicians get off, what a relief. At that point Blatter is invited on stage. Fuckin' hell. I take it back, I'd rather have the musicians. Blatter is a character I've always found to be INCREDIBLY IRRITATING, not only because his name sounds like the Italian word 'blatta,' which means 'one foocking oogly bug' (so 'blatter' would probably mean 'the mother of all them foocking oogly bugs'), but because he is the dimmest, most arrogant prick in the world of football. Cue his single-handed arrest of the process of five-man refereeing for 2010, something which we all would very much have needed. Until Blatter gets out, there will be no progress in the books of this tournament - and until he's found having his testicles squeezed by leather-dressed Nazi prostitutes like Mosley did, I fear that that's so not going to happen. *sigh*.
Oooohhh, look at me, I'm flirtatious!
Blatter starts telling the interviewing lady how he came to the country and immediately fell in love with it. Then we are treated to the pathetic show of him making a pass on the interviewing lady: apparently he is also falling in love with her. Ooohhh this is painful! Finally he is sent away (to everyone's relief) as some athletes are called onstage to draw from the urns. First there's a marathon runner, then a rugby player, then... hold on a second, David Beckham?? What the fuck is he doing there? Did they even let him through customs with that hairstyle? He could be hiding a frat-bomb in there, man.

Finally we can start with the draw.

...No! Onstage runs a group of guys dressed like Denzel Washington in the dance scene of "Malcolm X" and they start fucking singing! Most embarrassingly, they start asking the audience to clap their hands and all that shit! Unbelievable...But! The face of Domenech as he has to clap in tune like a kindergarden assistant is so priceless that it could probably make it onto a Mastercard ad. Hah!

Then they shut up and, finally, draw the names. The entire process could have been executed in ten minutes. Man, it wasn't worth interrupting the scratching of my balls for that. But Charlize Theron was definitely worth it. Hmm-hmmmm.