Estadio Azteca, Mexico City The visiting group of alien buddies crossed roughly four billion light-years to attend the 2026 FIFA World Cup. They were now ready to pack it in and go back home. "This sucks," one uttered in a garbled, subsonic language.
"Soccer," the friend-pod's spokesbeing said, "is just too wussy for a trans-stellar species."
The World Cup had been described to them as humanity's premier event, the contest for which entire nations stop working, riot in their biggest cities, and commit murders when their team loses. The friend-pod watched twenty-two adult humans chase one ball for an afternoon and produce a single point. It took longer for them to find a parking spot.
"When will we see blood and entrails?" the spokesbeing asked.
Aliens Showed Ancient Civilizations the Way
"We taught your early civilizations to build arenas, to arm your slaves, and to settle the afternoon with blood," the friend-pod said. It harkened back to the gladiatorial games of Rome, the ball courts of Mesoamerica where the losing side was sacrificed, and the assorted festivals that ended in a funeral.
"The evolution of your sports has been absolutely pathetic," it said. "Where is the blood-soaked glory? Where is the agony of no feet? A species is defined by its sport. No wonder you have such a pathetic civilization."
The E.T. group seemed to fondly reminisce about its own history of bloody athletic competition. "Blood sport builds character! You'll never be a great civilization if you just allow everyone to live."
This Is Not the Way
Returning for Disclosure Day, the friend-pod was hyped to see gory fields, littered with meters of human intestines. Instead it found soccer.
FIFA marketing may be to blame. Interplanetary brochures had advertised 'thrilling one-on-one combat' and 'lifelong rivalries' to potential interstellar visitors.
"Is this how humans challenge a lifelong rival?" the spokesbeing asked. "By falling down and pretending your leg is cramped?"
FIFA's motto of 'For the Game. For the World.' did not clarify anything. "The winner gets the planet, right?" the spokesbeing asked. "How could a penalty kick authorize any sort of genocidal dictatorship? We wouldn't trust any leader that couldn't demonstrate their prowess on the battlefield."
"Remember that Colosseum we built for you?" the spokesbeing said. "We turned our backs for two thousand years. A mere two-thousand years! And you substituted the Finishing Kill with an offside rule. We still can't even figure out what offside is, but we see that zero evisceration is involved."
Suggestions for Improvement
When asked what could improve their experience, the group waffled at first. "I don't know. Maybe make parking easier? Our craft is hovering by itself in restricted airspace right now with the emergency blinkers on."
"How about at least one guaranteed death per half?" asked another friend in the pod. "We've been here three hours and nothing. We have waited longer for elevators."
The suggestions continued to flow like blood from a severed neck. "Okay okay okay, you know what would be COOL," the quiet one in the back added. "Soccer balls that EXPLODE. Like you're dribbling, you're dribbling, and then BOOM. It blows their legs right off. And then the other guy has to score before HIS ball goes off."
It was only getting started. Motor racing, it proposed, should be run without seatbelts, and also without brakes, and also the cars are on fire the entire time, and at the end the winner is "whoever is still on fire the LEAST." The reporter present noted that the friend-pod had begun supplying its own sound effects. Pkow. Pkow. Vrrrm. BOOM.
"And skydiving, right, but no parachute," it continued, now on its feet. "And the ground is lava. And there are sharks in the lava. Flying sharks. With little jetpacks." The marketing team at FIFA started to lose interest, but a nearby writer for the James Bond film franchise began scribbling furiously in a notebook.
The pitches accelerated past the point of transcription. Boxing, but the ropes are electric and the floor is electric and the gloves are tiny men. The marathon, but the whole route is on fire except for one tile, and the tile moves. The high jump, unchanged, except that the bar is a second, hungrier competitor, "and he is also on fire, and he has a sword."
FIFA Awards the Peace Prize to Brutal Bloodthirsty Aliens
At a hastily arranged ceremony, FIFA presented the friend-pod with its annual Peace Prize, citing the visitors' "tireless commitment to the destruction of civilization" and their "bold new vision for ruthless dictatorship." The honor, FIFA noted, remains true to its lineage of sociopathic recipients.
The friend-pod snatched the Peace Prize in an ungracious, dominating manner, thanked themselves, and then asked the presenter, live on stage, whether he would like to have his own legs blown off, "just a little, just for the cameras." FIFA later described the exchange as the most authentic moment in the ceremony's history, and confirmed that next year's prize was "already spoken for."
At press time, the bored aliens had moved on to viewing Spanish telenovelas. "These people know what it means to be ruthless barbarians."
