You can be forgiven for not having caught the ‘World Cup Fever’. Maybe sports just isn’t your thing. Maybe the whole event is too political for your liking. Nevertheless, there are still ways to have fun with the World Cup, particularly for us scholars.

A few weeks back, we told you about the Penguin Cup: a mock tournament created by Penguin Books UK that pit national teams of literary legends against each other in a battle for literary supremacy. Taking today’s games as an example, it really puts some new perspective on a matchup between, say, France and Germany. Just imagine how announcers might call a game between those two literary giants:

Announcer 1: Marx with the ball now…he’s owned that left wing all day.

Announcer 2: If France have any hope here, they’ll have to take the pressure off of Victor Hugo in the back line. He’s looking a little hunched over.

Announcer 1: Marx is so industrious with the ball, plays just seem to manifest when he takes possession. Here he is taking on Hugo…but oh! That’s a good tackle by Dumas, who seemed to come out of nowhere.

Announcer 2: All for one. That’s Dumas’ motto.

Announcer 1: And Kafka looks a bit bugged by that play. Nietzche was also calling for the ball. Naturally.

Yes, it might go something like that. Or it might be more like Existential Comics’ imaginative rendition previewed below, which widens the philosophical field.

Image courtesy of existentialcomics.com

Click on the image to read the full comic, and check out the Monty Python skit that inspired it in the “Didn’t get the joke?” section.

Happy Friday!