The more predictions the better. Creative Ukrainians find dozens of ways to predict successful results of Ukraine's football team on the Euro 2012 European football championship. And the fact that these predictions are not always accurate enough doesn't take the charm away.
This time
Ukrainians have seen pleasant soothsaying in the old yet mute Soviet cartoon
about three cossacks. The series of cartoons about the three heroes consists of
nine short parts. The second part in the series, called “How the cossacks
played football,” was produced in 1970 and tells the story about three friends
who came back from abroad, gathered a team of cossacks and taught them to play
football.
Ukraine’s brave
defenders decided to give up on fighting, left their weapons at home and went
to conquer the world with their football talents.
“Just like
the modern Ukrainian soccer team,” might think Ukrainians who watched the
nation team beat Sweden 2-1 on July 11. Ukrainian media, including Ukrayinska
Pravda, BBC Ukraine and some central TV channels, have gone with the news that
the cossacks’ first contenders were Swedes.
Such a
childish prediction can even beat the already popular Ukrainian fortune-tellers
hog Funtik and polecat Fred, whose images about the future are not always
that pleasant. Hog Funtik has once already endangered himself by wrongly
predicting Sweden’s victory over Ukraine. Ukrainian football fans all over
social networks have promised that the pig would be eaten if that prediction
would have come true. Funtik, however, chose Ukraine over France in the June 15
match.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEB0scnJKO4
The magic
cartoon is much more pleasant to believe in. Cossacks’ next contenders were
French and English football teams. In the cartoon, Ukraine wins both matches
and even thumped their last contenders.
Such a
scenario seems to match the ideal Euro 2012 progress for all the Ukrainian
football fans, though the accuracy of such an optimistic prediction will remain
questionable until Ukraine’s last group match against England on June 19.
Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko can be
reached at [email protected]
