Tag Archives: France

Russia 2018: The Return of Psychic Saiga!

14 Jun

14 June 2018

It’s been four long years, but with the World Cup about to kick off in Russia, kazaxia has finally managed to track down Psychic Saiga, that elusive soccer tipster, and he’s pointing to France as the competition winners.

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Psychic Saiga, a long-nosed antelope with paranormal powers, who is located in a secret location somewhere on the steppe in Kazakhstan, is predicting a victory for France over Brazil in the 2018 World Cup Final in Russia.

Psychic Saiga makes his choices by pointing his right horn at lamb bones bearing an etching of the national flags of the competing teams. This time round, he’s predicting that France will triumph over Brazil in the final, while Peru and Portugal will be the losing semi-finalists, with the Portuguese grabbing third place on penalties for Christian Ronaldo’s swan song.

When asked to make two choices for Group A, the long-nosed antelope with special powers controversially pointed at Egypt and Uruguay to progress, with host-nation Russia unceremoniously dumped out in the group stage, discounting the notion of home advantage – Russia are the weakest team in the tournament, according to FIFA’s latest rankings.

He also made his predictions for Group B, with Portugal and Morocco expected to advance, suggesting that Morocco will take advantage of strong favourites Spain’s disarray – they sacked their manager just before the start of the tournament. This will make up for Morocco’s disappointment in failing in their bid to host the 2026 World Cup Finals.

For more predictions of who will get through the group stages, follow us here on kazaxia or follow @psychicsaiga on twitter.

Saigas, which are members of the antelope family, once roamed the Eurasian steppe from the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains and the Caucasus into Mongolia and Dzungaria. Their numbers are now critically endangered, with 60% of the world population wiped out in a mysterious epidemic in 2015.  Nowadays, saiga herds are restricted to remote areas of Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan

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Kazakhstan Hands Wooden Spoon to Latvia

13 Oct

Kazakhstan pulled off a sensational victory in Riga last night to condemn Latvia to last place in their UEFA 2016  European Championship qualifying group.

Islambek Kuat’s 65th-minute goal was enough to see off the Latvians and ensure that Kazakhstan edged their former Soviet Union rivals on goal difference in Group A. The win was Kazakhstan’s first in this round of qualification matches and means it avoided the wooden spoon which is now in Latvia’s hands.

The Czech Republic headed the group followed by Iceland. Turkey also qualified for the finals in France next summer as the best third-placed  team. The Netherlands could only finish fourth in the group and will not be going to the finals.

The win comes at a time when Kazakhstan’s all-powerful Nazarbayev clan are sniffing around the national football federation. President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s grandson, Aisultan Nazarbayev, made his case for the top job in football in Kazakhstan in an interview with to Sports.kz last week citing his extensive soccer experience.

Aisultan Nazarbayev, the son of the president’s eldest daughter Dariga Nazarbayeva and Rakhat Aliyev, who committed suicide  in an Austrian prison cell earlier this year while on remand facing murder and kidnapping charges.  Aliyev was a former head of Kazakhstan’s football federation so Aisultan Nazarbayev would be following in his father’s footsteps if he gets the nod for the job.