MADRID. Confused and frightened Spanish footballers screamed and wept yesterday as the World Cup turned out to be a chocolate replica covered in gold foil and melted in the Madrid heat. Amid the pandemonium, the mother of Fernando Torres, Excruciata Inquisitoria, 57, vowed to shave off her moustache to offer as a sacrifice for the return of the genuine trophy.
What was supposed to be a moment of Spanish jubilation ended in tears, recrimination and sporadic outbursts of witch-burning as the 40-degree summer heat revealed the cruel hoax.
According to Spanish star Xabi Alonso, who apologised to journalists for spitting phlegm at them whenever he pronounced his name, the players had first become suspicious after spotting their coach licking the bottom of the trophy on the flight home from South Africa.
But, said Alonso, nothing had prepared them for the scenes that followed once they stepped out into the baking Madrid sunshine.
“The World Cup, she go mushy,” he sobbed, covering his head with his mother’s apron while Mrs Armada Alonso gently combed his hair with the a comb allegedly made from St Paul’s left collarbone.
“One moment she is stiff and proud, the next moment she is a brown chocolate blob on the floor.”
He added that when the team saw that it had been cheated, players did what all footballers are trained to do when faced with adversity.
“We all fall down and scream and hold our ankle like the coach she tell us to do,” he said.
However, when this failed to turn the trophy from chocolate back to gold, players burst into tears and phoned their mothers.
This morning Excruciata Inquisitoria Torres said she had prayed deep into the night, and had decided to shave off her moustache and offer it on the altar of Saint Francesca del Barbarossa, Holy Sister of Jilted Hirsute Ladies, in the hope that divine intervention might help find the trophy.
Spanish police are remaining tight-lipped about the apparent trophy switch, but hinted that they are currently focussing their investigation on a small group of possible suspects, including Protestants, witches, Muslims, Basque separatists, German bankers who won’t bail out Spanish speculators, British tourists who say “Eye-beeza” instead of “Ee-beetha”, and Sir Francis Drake.
Meanwhile FIFA boss Sepp Blatter has expressed his shock over the incident, but added that it was “only a matter of time before someone with the means, motive, opportunity, all-access card-key and armoured Mercedes limo” walked off with the trophy.
However, he vowed to “get right on it” and track down the missing solid gold trophy after he and his unusually heavy luggage returned from a brief holiday in Switzerland’s famous Munigrubber banking district.
