FOXBOROUGH, Mass. The last World Cup match to be played at Boston Stadium ended with France defeating Morocco 2-0 yesterday, and many in this area say they will miss the color and excitement brought to their region by soccer fans from around the world. “The Scots were so friendly, and the Norwegians so enthusiastic,” says Miles Skandok, a plasterer, before adding “I wasn’t impressed by the Freedonians.”
Freedonia, a Central European country formed out of portions of Bosnia, offal and macadam following World War I, fielded a team in the Fictional Nations “knockout” stage, facing arch rival Ruritania in a match that ended in a draw of 1 to 1 as both teams scored “own goals” against themselves. “It was very instructive for my students,” says fifth-grade teacher Emily Lespion. “We used the final score in a segment on negative numbers.”
But it was the Freedonian fans who caused the greatest controversy when their overt attempts to forge friendships with locals were rebuffed or misinterpreted. “I would love to live in America!” Glaspon Vreekrek took to shouting at a local strip mall after seeing the array of lunch meats in a supermarket. “How do your farmers persuade livestock to crawl into plastic wrappers for sale in convenient 16-slice packages?”
Freedonian mini-van
Local waitstaff complained that the visitors from the land-locked nation were cheap, but the Freedonians claim they followed guidelines provided by their Department of Tourism faithfully. “We were told twenty cents was the minimum tip, and twenty-five was a really good one,” Vreekrek says. When this reporter informs him that the advice should have been expressed in percentage terms, Vreekerk scoffs. “Go on, I know that 25 percent is less than 25!”
Local geography confused Freedonian fans, who were often late for the national team’s matches. “The games were played in Boston Stadium, but it was not in Boston” says Leannink Vrostrek, an Undersecretary of Spare Parts in Freedonia’s Ministry of Farm Implements, referring to World Cup rules against corporate names that prohibited the venue from being referred to as “Gillette Stadium.” “We were told to go to Foxborough, but when we got there the u, g, and h were missing, and that spells ‘ugh.'”