Thunk! David Attenborough goes into overdrive as two World Cup heavyweights go into premature mating ritual

The Wonderful World of Nature

Check out that extending baton finger. It looks like something out of one of those Terminator movies, where the sexually ambiguous T-8Million kills its victims by overextending its forefinger into their brainpan. Who would have thought that Portugal’s self-styled ‘most hated footballer’ would be able to assassinate his opponents so post-modernly? And by the way we’re talking about Pépé, not any other Portugeezer.

David Attenborough (not to mention the BBC’s entire natural history unit) would have gone mental watching this game. It was like going on holiday in the savannah and filling in your safari bingo card on day one. Rarely seen big beast prowling to no great effect? Check. Bunch of funny chimps failing to get their act together? Check. Slightly disturbing (parents take note, not for the younger children) take down of sprightly gazelle by nasty hyena beasts? Check. Testosterone heavy adolescents play-fighting in pseudo-mating ritual? Check. In fact, there was so much animal action going on that they wouldn’t have known where to point their cameras.

One of the great things about this World Cup is that it has already thrown up a number of classic face offs, the sort of thing that usually doesn’t happen until the later rounds. Chief among them is still Holland’s outstanding demolition of Spain, but this one was still what you could call a Big Match.

However, it was pretty much over once the gazelle (a plucky Mario Goetze) was taken down by the nasty hyenas in the 11th minute. The unheralded, yet somehow awesomely effective, Thomas Müller bashed it home and that, bar a bit of malarky, was that.

Sure the ‘malarky’ involved a hattrick for Müller, the continuing absence of big beast Ronaldo (although Inmarsat have apparently pinpointed a new likely region for searches should the world’s government still be interested), and a bit of bother between the younger boys. The latter, naturally, involved football’s equivalent of the mental rhinoceros adolescent who can’t tolerate even his own kind, Real Madrid’s red card walking Pépé.

Like said rhino, Pépé just can’t help getting angry and involved with anything that moves, whether it’s another human footballer or simply a pretend cow made from balsa wood and old curtains. His mantra seems to be, if it moves fist it, if it doesn’t immediately die, then put your head into it. Amazingly this kind of animal savagery seems to have served him well for years (although he only made the bench for La Decima).

This time he was undone by the slightly more savvy meerkat that is Thomas Müller. Having been facepalmed by Pépé, he had the timerity to ‘fall over in an offensive manner’ and thoroughly deserved to have Pépé kidnut him while he was down. Sadly this is only recognised as a total foul by the lawmakers of football.

So the rutmastering rhino was taken off to be shot up with sedatives and moved to a reservation somewhere far, far away from the rest of humanity, where he can live out his days headbutting trees and growling at shadows.  Meanwhile, wildlife scientists are following up on a possible Ronaldo sighting somewhere in the mid-Pacific.