Flour Power

If you’re expecting some form of analysis that has anything to do with football, this is not the post you are looking for. There are already hundreds of those articles around the web, and a lot of them written by people that know much more about football than I do.

I’ll instead present some of the things that made this World Cup special despite not being specific to the sport itself: the buzzing vuvuzela, the most famous fan of the World Cup, two psychic animals and a pornstar’s marketing stunt.

The Vuvuzela

The most noticeable thing while watching the games was definitely the incessant noise of the vuvuzela. It was in fact so annoying that, as annoying things tend to do, it originated all kinds of jokes around the Internet: Youtube added the “Vuvuzela button”, Hitler complained about it, and the Vuvuzela Radio was born, just to name a few. Soon enough people started coming up with ways to remove the annoying sound, but those without the technical skills to implement them had to endure that buzzing sound through the whole competition, because attempts to ban it from the stadiums failed.

Larissa Riquelme

Don’t know who I’m talking about?

What about now?

Larissa Riquelme is a Paraguayan model and actress that rose to fame during this World Cup due to pictures such as the one above. She became the most famous fan of the World Cup, and was named “Girl of the World Cup” by Marca, the largest Spanish sports newspaper. Following her rise to fame, she promised to run naked (wearing only body paint) through the streets of Asunción if Paraguay won the World Cup, or even if they reached the semi-finals by beating Spain. Paraguay ended up losing its match against Spain, but Larissa announced that she will fulfill her promise anyway.

Paul the Octopus and Mani the Parakeet

Paul is an octopus living in a tank in Germany who is used as an oracle to predict football matches, usually international matches where Germany is playing:

During a divination, Paul is presented with two boxes containing food in the form of a mussel, each marked with the flag of a national football team in an upcoming match. He chose the box with the flag of the winning team in four of Germany’s six Euro 2008 matches, and in all seven of their matches in the 2010 World Cup.

He also predicted Spain’s win over the Netherlands in the final, which makes his predictions 100% (8/8) correct for the 2010 World Cup.

Paul is now retiring from soccer predictions.

Mani is another animal oracle that became famous during this World Cup. This parakeet from Singapore picked the correct winners for all of the quarter-final games, as well as the Spain-Germany semi-final. But he went against Paul in the final, ending his streak of correct predictions.

Bobbi Eden and #teambj

That promise that Larissa Riquelme did? That’s nothing compared to Bobbi Eden’s. The Dutch pornstar promised to provide oral sex to all her Twitter followers if Holland won the World Cup.

This made her Twitter follower count jump from around 5k to more than 100k in just a few days. Because Holland was defeated in the final, we won’t see it happening, but Bobbi promised some consolation prize. It’s a pity, I was looking forward to find out how would she be able to do it. Just think about the logistics involved!