Officially bumping this thread because kicking things is more fun than not kicking them (with the exception of animals, don't be cruel!)

And once again my national team Romania is not there, in the 80's,90's we were the best, we could beat everyone, and now we're shit, can't even beat Greece.

The Official English History of the FIFA World Cup

The game of football as we know it today was invented by Sir Stanley Matthews in 1932, when he took what was usually a group of English men from the pub kicking around the hopes and dreams of their wife and turned it into a proper sport, with athleticism and stuff. The idea of international games was not a new one, however, as Scotland and England had played the first ever international football match in 1872, but since Stan Matthews hadn't invented proper football yet it was basically just gruff bearded Jocks throwing haggis at stuffy men in bowler hats and sock-suspenders - all of whom smoked pipes while playing.

It was not just England's Sir Stan who was having the idea of this 'beautiful game' however, as some French fella called Jules Rimet also had the idea, but given that he was French he didn't work on it nearly as hard as his Northern English counterpart, given his short working week and his constant need to strike to improve his working conditions - Therefore it was in 1950 that Sir Stanley Matthews launched the first ever World Cup. His humility resulted in him naming the trophy after the Frenchman who stole his ideas.

The competition was to be played every four years, and it was intended to show off the best of English talent, only it didn't go so well as in all the competitions between 1950 and 1966 the rest of the world blatantly cheated. You can hardly even find any video coverage of the games, because it was all covered up by Jules Rimet, who in his bitterness at having been bested by Matthews decided to start a global conspiracy against letting England win the World Cup.

In 1966, however, Sir Geoff Hurst's goals in the final against the not-communist Germans managed to break the evil conspiracy, apparently because Hurst had stubbed his toe on a magic talisman left by The Queen three days prior to the tournament. Captained by Bobby Moore that England side were the national pride, and were treated like Supermen.

Incidentally this came back to haunt them in the 1970 World Cup when some shifty Mexicans fed them kryptonite, again cheating England out of victory.

In fact, every World Cup since 1966 has involved everyone else in the world cheating again. Most of the time England either were cheated out of qualifying or were cheated out of winning by cheats, always foreigners. Funnily, the foreign insistence on ruining England's one national pastime - Football - led to a massive indulgence in their second national pastime - xenophobia.

Thus the Xenophobia World Cup was also born, played out every four years in England and called the 'General Election'.

Things really came to a head in 1994, when in a plot not just to destroy English football, but to destroy football as a whole led to a direct Terrorist attack by Diana Ross, whose pathetic inability to kick a ball straight led to the disintegration of all footballing equipment in the USA, starting with the goal posts (Not to mention Roberto Baggio being so traumatised he could not stop reliving the moment in his head, and his penalty kicks) - This is why England didn't win the World Cup then, and why any matches played after Diana Ross's attack definitely do not count. The reasons behind the US attack on football are still, as yet, unknown, but some suspect the game does not feature nearly enough breaks in which to buy beer and snacks - something synonymous with all American sports.

1998 saw the revival of international football. A group of Romanian wizards cast powerful spells to revive the equipment left decimated by the Diana Ross incident. However their powerful magic had many side effects. The first of them was obvious and innocent, the magic was so powerful it changed the pigment colour in all Romanian people's hair to yellow. The second side effect was that it imbued Petrescu with the power to score a goal at will, a wish he chose to fulfill, cheatingly, against England and thirdly, it gave England Midfielder David Beckham an inexplicable twitch in his leg that led the referee to mistakenly believe there was malicious intent to harm another player causing a harsh, discriminatory sending off that was the reason why England didn't win. Overall, however, the magic was a good thing because it meant football was alive again, even if it was part of a global conspiracy to stop England winning the world cup.

The 2002 World Cup saw the unfortunate incident of someone fixing it so Brazil played in the tournament, and played against England. Which is so obviously not fair. Everyone knows Brazil is not a real national team - they're one of those made up Superteams you get to play charity events. I mean, the 2002 Brazil World Cup squad featured some of the BEST players in the world at the time. No national team has that many amazing players. It was obviously part of the conspiracy to keep England down and it is transparent as anything!

2006 and 2010...No conspiracy, England were just shit.

However, Ghana were great in 2010 and Luis Suarez is a cheating little gobshite and it should be made legally mandatory in every nation's legal system that any Ghanaian is legally allowed to whack Suarez on the hand with a really heavy thing wherever he goes for his ridiculous performance pretending to the be the goalkeeper and basically cheating Africa as a continent out of the dream of having an African semi-finalist in a World Cup IN AFRICA! And no, before anyone argues that Ghana had the penalty and so it's their fault - JUST NO! A penalty is given for denying a goal scoring opportunity. Suarez did NOT deny a goal scoring opportunity, he denied a certain goal, ILLEGALLY! The trade for denial of a certain goal should NOT be a CHANCE at a goal - Suarez should have been sent off and a goal should have been given. The rules need to be changed for the result of illegal denials of CERTAIN goals. I think Africa has been robbed of enough hope to last a thousand lifetimes, they do not need cheating little bastards robbing them of more... (I may have broken satire here to express some very angry personal opinion...)

So here's looking forward to the 2014 World Cup, in which England will definitely win - unless we get unceremoniously dumped out by a team with more class and talent like we do every four years - but only because they all cheat. I'm sure it'll be the ref's fault, or the fault of the ball, or maybe that the players couldn't see their wives, or that their wives were a distraction or that the press put too much pressure on them, or that the press did not put enough pressure on them so they didn't believe. Whatever happens, there'll be an excuse for England for another four years and it's all definitely the fault of a global conspiracy to keep England from winning the World Cup.

Well...Australia's pretty much screwed. Got both Spain & the Netherlands in their group.

World Cup preparations in chaos as unsafe food found and 'state of emergency' declared in host city

and

Goldman Sachs Predicts the World Cup Winner (By using math or something)

Just hours ago: Staggering Images Of Brazil's Indigenous Tribes Taking On The Riot Police With Bows And Arrows

Portugal and Brazil: brother countries steeped in history

One Week

And Dr Dre made a World Cup commercial?

My team, Scotland, never made it coz we're pure shite so I'll be supporting all the teams who play against England (WANKERS) and hoping they (England (WANKERS) fail miserably (as usual).

BR here, may I rant about my government and FIFA? :)

ONE WEEK

Are Uruguay or Costa Rica any good? The sooner England goes out, the better.

I just want Uruguay to win this WC because it would be hilarious.

well, we almost caught a break

Ronaldo in line for Portugal return

go go go Poldi

Costa Rica World Champion

Germany all the way

"FIFA go home"

Ok... So?

Gamers are too nerdy to get excited about sport events.

Gonna be funny watching all the European teams wilt in the heat, humidity and altitude.

Welcome to the Thunder Dome, bitches.

You can stream the game for free on ESPN3, not sure if they're airing the opening ceremonies. Wouldn't be surprised if FIFA will be streaming it too, and ABC should air a bunch of the games as well (online and free).

All free in the UK on BBC and ITV so if you have access to those it's game on. Both channels also have media players so if you can fool these into thinking you live in the UK you're sorted.

magine might work, too