A World Cup Group Guide Free of Soccer Information and Taste

Are you a busy business traveler who doesn’t have the will to actually pay attention to world football but wants to be able to spout Gladwellian chestnuts of

Are you a busy business traveler who doesn’t have the will to actually pay attention to world football but wants to be able to spout Gladwellian chestnuts of relevant smalltalk to your more cosmopolitan colleagues? Well, we can’t help you. But we can provide a guide to the World Cup draw that will in no way help you better understand the World Cup draw.

Group A: Brazil, Croatia, Mexico, Cameroon

It's the World Cup according to a combo of Simpsons bits making fun of soccer. It’s so perf. “Jonaldinho passes to Pino, who passes back to Heraldo-Faldo. Heraldo-Faldo holds it … holds it … holds it … Intercepted by Gork!”

Group B: Spain, Holland, Chile, Australia

Katryna, a creative assistant, lives in one of those $7,000-a-month condos in Brooklyn and is planning a vacation to Group B because oh my GAWD you guys I’ve been literally working like literally to DEATH. She will return to Brooklyn and be yapping about her unique and life-changing vacation so loudly at brunch that the sound waves will escape the exosphere and echo in space in an infinite loop of inanity, forever. Barthelona, ya’ll! Amsterdam, ya’ll! Awthtraaaaalia, ya’ll! Chee-lay, ya’ll! #blessed #Facebook. #GroupB #Inspiration #SoccerGroupsofInstagram

Group C: Colombia, Greece, Ivory Coast, Japan

Now this is a wacky party. All of these countries are cripplingly in debt, which is not funny at all. It’s really depressing. If any of these underdogs manage to win the World Cup, the gold will be melted down to fund austerity payments.

Group D: Uruguay, Costa Rica, England, Italy

Break out the industrial crates of that weird numbing spray that trainers use when a footballer hurts his shin. Toss in England’s burly, uncoordinated midfield with some of the world’s biggest floppers and it’s sure to be unbearable. Be prepared for hours upon hours of Italians and Uruguayans tweaking their calves and rolling around pulling the Nancy Kerrigan face as their teammates try to harangue the referee into giving a yellow card with that specific brand of smarminess employed by men who wear very thin chains.

Group E: Switzerland, Ecuador, France, Honduras

Corrupt, sexist, racially-insensitive FIFA president Sepp Blatter is Swiss, and oh hey, would you look at that? Switzerland has been drawn into the weakest group of all-time. Weird. Weird, weird, weird. Oh, well. At least they’re joined in this laughable cakewalk by a country that could really use a break for once. France! Couldn’t have happened to a nicer people.

Also, the next World Cup is going to be played in the summer in Qatar, where temperatures eclipse 100 degrees Fahrenheit and homosexuality is banned. Blatter’s advice for gay fans attending the 2022 World Cup? “Refrain from any sexual activities.”

IN THIS HEAT? ARE YOU MAD?

Group F: Argentina, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iran, Nigeria

Oh, dear. This group is kind of war-crime-y! These game will be a lot of fun because the cameras will undoubtedly cut to the VIP section where charming FIFA President Sepp Blatter will be chumming it up with an honest-to-God autocrat and/or human rights violator over Bellinis and caviar. “Only 4,000 migrant workers were maimed in the frenzied construction of this fine stadium, you say? WHAT A DEAL.” Messi, nuclear proliferation, and black-market arms dealing all in one group? Spicy!

Group G: Germany, Portugal, Ghana, USA! USA! USA!

Nooooooooooooo. Welp, this is going to be embarrassing.

What happens next is a metaphor for America’s slow, excruciating transformation from swaggering global hegemon to neutered, socially-stratified, post-Hummer hellscape. We are going to get absolutely obliterated and your great uncle is going to walk into the room asking a) if East Berlin still exists and b) why the hell you are watching soccer, you namby-pamby? And boy, you’re going to fume on social media as you watch the unabated destruction unfold. USA! USA!

Group H: Belgium, Algeria, Russia, South Korea

Group H just brought out a plate of food for you to try and it’s gelatinous and indecipherable in its consistency and maybe has some kind of shrimp floating on top of the broth? Is that a shrimp? I mean, what else could it be? Okay, just smile. Just take a bite and smile. It’s a shrimp. But, wait, where’s the water around here? Where would they get a shrimp from? Is it something else? Just breathe. Smile. This is what you came to Tamanghasset for, not to get drunk in bars and explain away to the increasingly belligerent locals that you’re cool, you voted for Obama. Just eat it. This is going to be bad. You should have gone on that yoga retreat in Mykonos with Becky. Idiot.

This group has Belgium’s Marouane Fellaini, who has a lavish afro and had to move to a different club team because he was being overwhelmed by groupies in Liverpool.

The World Cup, ya’ll.