After a shocking 5-1 loss to the Netherlands in their opening game and today’s sore 2-0 loss to Chile (a nation only as wide as Rob Ford’s waist, I might add) the blogosphere/interwebs are full of faux soccer experts trying to explain why the winners of the 08 and 12 Euro cups and last World Cup have failed so miserably in Brazil this June.  After analyzing thousands of pages of historical documents, numerous infographics on the world geopolitical situation, dozens of ESPN pseudo-science things called “metrics,” and the shape of Gerard Pique’s cow lick, I have come to these indisputable and immutable truths regarding Spain’s recent performance.  Here are the 10 reasons Spain lost this World Cup:

1.  King Juan Carlos I abdicated earlier this month.  With the abdication of the world’s second to last great absolute monarch (after Denmark’s King Diamond), the Spaniards simply lost faith in their empire’s ability to humiliate and subjugate people in Latin America.

2.  The Spanish assumed that the Dutch were illiterate and therefore a poorly disciplined team given their clear misspellings of major cities (see Nijmegen, Leeuwarden).  It turns out being illiterate is not an impediment to athletic success, however (see Marshawn Lynch, Terry Bradshaw)

3.  Andres Iniesta and Sergio Ramos broke up shortly after arriving in Brazil when it came to light that Iniesta had secretly hooked up with Busquets after their win against Uruguay during last year’s Confederations Cup.  To make matters worse, Raul Albiol had secretly liked Busquets and had wanted to ask him out but didn’t think that Busquets would think he was cool cuz he wasn’t even starting for Napoli at the time.

4.  Coach Vincente del Bosque was a fraud.  Despite his claims that he was the reincarnation of Miguel de Cervantes’ lovable hero Don Quijote, the Spanish players soon learned that the actual reincarnation was a vagabond named Silvio whom I knew in Guatemala last summer.  This revelation contributed to serious trust issues between the coaching staff and players who doubted that del Bosque even knew how to properly joust a windmill.

5.  Ronaldo and Messi don’t actually play for Spain.  It turns out not everything that the average uninformed American believes is true.

6.  Divine retribution for Spain’s betrayal of the Papal States in the war of the League of Cognac, 1526-1530

7.  Divine retribution (Muslim edition) for the Reconquista

8.  Divine retribution (American edition) for not supporting the invasion of Iraq.  1,300 troops in Najaf under the MNF-I hardly counts

9.  The Spanish refused to take Arjen Robben’s attacking threat seriously because they thought his name sounded girly

10.  International Jewry.  If 19th and 20th century European politics are any indication, you can get away with blaming most of your problems on the Jews