In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Somewhat less controversially, but no less improbable, South Korea beat Czech Republic 2-1 at Estadio Akron in a display that suggested the cosmos has been taking probability lessons from a particularly studious dolphin. The match unfolded with the kind of mathematical precision that would make the designers of Deep Thought weep into their tea — assuming they drink tea, which is itself a probability calculation too complex for most planetary computers.
Stock Liga's algorithm had gazed into the swirling chaos of Group S and pronounced, with the confidence of someone who has read the user manual to existence (twice), that this match would produce more than 2.5 goals but fewer than 5.5 goals, and that both teams would score. The probability of all three predictions landing was roughly 847,392 to one — which is, by an extraordinary coincidence, exactly the odds of finding a decent cup of tea in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. Yet land they did, with the kind of satisfying thunk that accompanies a piece of toast falling butter-side up in defiance of all known laws of breakfast physics.
The Czech Republic entered this fixture with the air of a team that had forgotten where they put their towel — always a dangerous sign in international football, where knowing your place in the cosmic order is roughly 42% of the battle (the other 58% being the ability to kick a spherical object in the general direction of a rectangular frame). South Korea, by contrast, appeared to have not only located their towel but had it neatly folded and monogrammed. The first half suggested that both teams were engaged in an elaborate game of cosmic hide-and-seek with the goals, which remained stubbornly at 0-0 until the universe decided that things had been quite boring enough, thank you very much.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about second-half comebacks: "Inevitable, assuming the proper application of improbability mathematics and at least one decent cup of coffee." Korea applied both with the methodical precision of someone following assembly instructions for a piece of IKEA furniture — if IKEA furniture occasionally burst into song and made grown men weep. The Czech response, while admirable, carried the slight desperation of a team trying to convince customs officials that their luggage definitely doesn't contain any illegal probability drives.
In the vast sweep of cosmic time, this result will be forgotten before the next ice age arrives to redecorate Earth's surface. But for now, in this tiny moment between the birth and heat death of the universe, South Korea advance and Czech Republic contemplate the curious mathematics of football, where two plus one sometimes equals everything, and sometimes equals nothing at all.