Culture

The Nine Most Meme-worthy Moments Of The World Cup So Far

Flying Dutchmen? Check. Biting other players? Check. Sex Rules? Fuck yes, check!

by Kemal Atlay  30 June 2014

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The 2014 FIFA World Cup has turned out to be one of the most entertaining sporting events in a long time. While there have been some truly spectacular games that have been jam-packed with jaw-dropping goals, it’s what’s been happening on social media that has everyone hooked. With Twitter, Instagram, Vine and the Internet in general cranking out some glorious memes and gifs, the world game has been transformed into something completely different and has managed to draw the attention of people who normally could not give a shit about sport in general.

With the conclusion of the group stage matches on Friday signalling the official halfway point of the tournament, we thought we would celebrate with a wrap-up of all of the awesome things that have happened so far in the 2014 World Cup, and all of the wonderful, wonderful Internet nonsense they’ve inspired.

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1. The Flying Dutchman

Undoubtedly the most highly anticipated match of the tournament was the Netherlands vs. Spain, a replay of the 2010 World Cup final. The Dutchmen were eager to redeem themselves and, to everyone’s surprise, beat the Spaniards with an embarrassing score of 5-1, causing the reigning champions to leave the football pitch with their tails between their legs. One of the most amazing moments of the match was Dutch striker Robin Van Persie’s diving header:

The Twittersphere went wild and were quick to dub him “The Flying Dutchman”, leading to some of the best Photoshop work you’ve ever seen:

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 2. The Celebrations

There have been some truly amazing goals in the World Cup so far, but it’s the celebrations by the goal scorer, their teammates and even the coach that are the sweet cherry on top of the fucking scrumptious cupcake that is a goal.

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3. The Skinny Dippers

The beautiful men of the Croatian football team decided to have a relaxing swim in a hotel pool to just unwind after their loss against Brazil. Under the impression that they had full privacy, they decided to forgo bathers in the pool area and swim completely naked. Luckily for us, a sneaky paparazzo was able to sneak in and snap up some saucy pictures. Enjoy.

(Warning: manbutts, NSFW.)

Croatia2

Croatia1

 Unfortunately, the players reacted to the cheeky scandal by putting in place a media blackout for an unspecified length of time. Party poopers.

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4. The Headbutt

Portugal’s Pepe, infamous for his short fuse and hot temper, got himself a red card when he headbutted German striker Thomas Mueller while he was down on the grass nursing an “injury”.

Now, the whole situation was a bit of a mess — it was clear to both fans and the referee that Mueller had thrown himself onto the grass after his tussle with Pepe for the ball — but it was Pepe’s stupidity in coming back to Mueller and “headbutting” him (really just a friendly nudge between opposing skulls) that caused the defender to be sent off.

MuellerHeatMap

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5. The Knifing

So Croatia’s Mandžukić fell down when Cameroon’s Song seemingly punched him in the back when running for the ball. Someone made this short video about it.

While this didn’t actually happen, it’s good enough to make you almost wish it did.

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6. The Flops

If you know anything about soccer, you know about the flops.

To be fair, there are sometimes genuine injuries during football matches. The time taken to deal with an injury and take the player off the field, as well as other factors like corners and throw-ins, are all taken into account when calculating how much stoppage/extra time should be added at the end of each half. Here’s a pretty interesting tally of how many injuries and total “writhing time” that has been clocked up by each team:

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7. The Upsets

Some people have been calling this the ‘World Cup of Goals’ and the ‘World Cup of Memes’, but for those who take their football a bit more seriously, this has undoubtedly been the ‘World Cup of Big Upsets’. When the 2010 World Cup champions, Spain, went down 5-1 against the Netherlands, everyone knew this was not going to be business as usual – and then their loss against Chile secured their elimination from the tournament.

Italy and England, who are both in the same group and were expected to breeze through to the Round of 16, couldn’t handle the pressure from their South American opponents and have also bowed out of the competition. And Portugal, home to everyone’s favourite pretty boy Christiano Ronaldo, struggled against their German and American opponents and were unceremoniously thrown out of the World Cup as well. All in all, a lot of footballers are being very sad.

The knock-out stages will be particularly exciting to watch now that four big favourites have been sent packing, and at this stage it looks like it could be anyone’s game.

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8: The Sex Rules

Believe it or not, some national team coaches have implemented various rules on player conduct to prevent anything from interfering with the team’s tight training regimen. Four coaches who are still convinced that sex before a match will harm a player’s physical performance have placed restrictions on the team’s sexual activity:

Source: SBS.

Source: Quartz.

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9: The Bite

I thought I’d save the best for last — the Uruguayan player who has a tendency to fucking bite players on the field.  In the match against Italy, the Uruguayan forward decided to bite Italy’s Chiellini on the shoulder.

I’ve watched a lot of football games and have seen some truly abhorrent un-sportsmanlike behaviour, but Suarez has been an absolute disgrace. Maybe he forgot to carbo-load before the match and was feeling a bit peckish for some Italian, or maybe he just likes the taste of human flesh (he’s been known to bite players before). Thankfully, FIFA has penalised Suarez with a ban from all football matches for four months and a ban from playing in nine matches for his nation.

At least we got some good Twitter pics out of it.