Tuesday, July 01, 2014

World Cup Sketch: Unbeatable Russians Comedy Pitch

Two really good matches were played in the World Cup today, and Germany won!  Which made for a good day.  Tomorrow, I'm heading downtown to join in a block party  viewing party for US Men's National match against Belgium - should be a really fun time.

With all the World Cup watching I've been doing, I have this comedy concept brewing in my head.  The genesis happened when I was watching a Russian match, and it got me to thinking about the Russians of the past:  The 1960s Basketball Teams and the Hockey Teams of the 70s and 80s.  It got me thinking about the idea of in the mid-1940s, the Russian Soccer team loses a match, and then a firing squad comes out and kills all the members of the team and coaching staff.  The Russian Federation then announces that anytime their team loses, their entire team will be executed.  Every match that they play, there is an eleven-man firing squad waiting on the sideline.

For the next 70 years, Russia wins everything that they compete in.  Every Olympics and every World Cup, always ends with a Russian victory, because every other team is afraid of winning and being held responsible for the murders of the Russian squad. This leads to Russian players staying on the team far longer than they ever should.  They end up with fifty and sixty year old players - like a 60 year old goalkeeper, who is almost always out of position and the opposing strikers purposely miss.  It's just a pointless and depressing event to be a part of, but FIFA won't do anything to change it.

Finally, in a complete accident, an opposing goalkeeper attempts to kick the ball clear and it goes all the way down the pitch, bounces over the elderly players and despite his own teammates attempting to prevent the goal - they still score and Russia loses 0-1.  As the tension builds and mounts, the firing squad members just drop the guns and walk away.  Revealing that the entire "We're going to kill our team" was just a Russian Ruse to help this win so many trophies over all the years!  They also reveal that the original murders were all staged, and those members are alive and well, living in a soccer convent where all they do is watch matches and play foosball all day long.

It's a very cheesy concept - but something that I feel was very SNL sketch inspired.
That was my creative brainstorm for today!

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