2018 World Cup Mascot

The 2018 World Cup continues. We have come, at last, to the semi-final matches and one burning question is on everybody’s mind: “does this thing even have a mascot?”  The answer, as it turns out is a resounding “yes”.  Exercising uncommon self-restraint, the Russians managed to find a mascot who is not a bear! They didn’t sugarcoat the formidable nature of their vast cold, forested realm though– the mascot of the 2018 Russian Worldcup is a ravening wolf—a wolf wearing special goggles to keep the blood out of his eyes.

The wolf’s name is Zabivaka which means “He who scores goals” or possible “He who accomplishes goals [by means of cunning social media manipulation].”  The wolf was the apparently legitimate winner of an apparently legitimate election, and since we are all busy ascertaining what exactly has gone wrong in real elections around the world, we will accept that as a fact (although this wolf beat out a cat and cosmonaut tiger, which hardly seems like the result one would expect from an internet competition).

Clearly, I am poking some fun at Zabivaka (and, um, also at the fact that our national leaders are so pusillanimous and power-hungry that they are happy to let Russia call the shots here in America for less money than Larry Ellison spends on a single dessert), but he really is a cute little wolf.  I especially like his gleeful eyes and the wild disheveled (yet naturalistic) look of the fur near his paws.  I hope we have some more wolf-mascots soon: he has the fearsome appearance one would expect from a Siberian wolf, yet he is genuinely likable and cuddly too.

Astute observers will note that this post contains almost nothing about actual World Cup soccer (or “football” as it is known in the rest of the world).  This is as it should be, since Americans know almost nothing of the sport other than that it takes place with a spherical ball and a great deal of running about.  A friend of mine speculates that soccer is slow hockey, but, when we tried to watch a match our attention wondered off before we found out whether this is true (although it snapped back for the thrilling zero-zero finale).  Despite this handicap in understanding the game: my predictions from the last post did quite well.  Of the 4 teams in the quarterfinals with red uniforms, 3 made it to the semi-finals.  Since one of the 4 matches involved two teams with red uniforms pitted against each other, the “reds” had to lose one (likewise there was a match with no red uniforms, which explains how the French “bleus” got the semi-final).  I guess I will go on record as saying the winner will wind up being Belgium, since a Belgian friend helped me program my magical online oracle.  If this doesn’t sound right to you, you can go to the magical omniscient fish we made and ask it yourself.   One of these days we have to see if anybody else has a flounder mascot.

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