Tag: fantasy football

BOTAFOGO Pirates FC pillaged their way to the top of the Emerson World Cup over the quarter final weekend, and with two of the tournament’s standout players it’s not hard to see why.

Colombian midfielder James Rodriguez and Uruguay defender Diego Godin walked into the Emerson Team of the Tournament so far, made up of one player from each country to be signed at the auction last month.

Rodirguez looks a snip at £17m for his 50 points, but it’s not all been plain sailing for his Somali manager – he also has three players in the worst team of the Emerson.

Quite how Botafogo Pirates FC find themselves top of the table with Xavi, Loic Remy and Samuel Inkoom, who have scored three points between them, remains a mystery.

At £10m for his two points, Xavi is almost the worst signing of the auction, yet the Pirates stand seven points clear at the top, largely due to their two stars. The manager will look to the trio of Jerome Boateng, David Luiz and Sergio Romero to carry his side over the line.

Many fingers will point when it comes to worst signing of the auction, but the Horn of Africa really should have sounded loudest for two players.

The first is Fabio Contreao of Kappa Wearers FC. For his £10m the manager didn’t even get an appearance. Pepe ended on nil points too, but at least he picked up a red card.

The second is Lokomotiv Leeds £10m gloveman Vorm, who after Saturday night’s penalty drama appears to be the only Dutch goalkeeper who isn’t part of Louis van Gaal’s plans.

Only four games remain of this scintillating World Cup. Will Testiculadew Land’s Leo Messi, Toni Kroos and Daley Blind close the eight-point gap on the Pirates? Have Fred, Wesley Sneijder, Martin Demichelis and Thomas Muller got at least seven points in the tank to take top spot? Who will win the Emerson Unfair Play award?

Look out after the semi finals for the next thrilling instalment.*

*may not be thrilling

Emerson Team of the Tournament

• Total points: 306
• Team value: £155.5m

GK – Hugo Lloris (FRA), Sporting Lesbian, £0.5m – 21 points

DF – Diego Godin (URU), Botafogo Pirates FC, £11m – 13 points

DF – Rafa Marquez (MEX), Los Rojos, £0.5m – 21 points

DF – Jan Vertonghen (BEL), The Man From Piedmonte, £10m – 19 points

DF – Gary Medel (CHI), Fat Ladies, £0.5m – 11 points

MF – Arjen Robben (NED), Los Rojos, £29m – 39 points

MF – Thomas Muller (GER), Fat Ladies, £27m – 36 points

MF – James Rodriguez (COL), Botafogo Pirates FC, £17m – 50 points

MF – Xhedran Shaqiri (SUI), FadjeetaCabana, £2m – 23 points

ST – Neymar (BRA), Copa Lallana, £8m – 37 points

ST – Messi (ARG), Testiculadew Land, £50m – 36 points

Worst Team of the Emerson

• Total points: 7
• Total value: £46.5m

GK – Michele Vorm (NED), Lokomotiv Leeds, £10m – n/a

DF – Fabio Contreao (POR), Kappa Wearers FC, £10m – n/a

DF – Laurent Ciman (BEL), Copa Lallana, £3.5m – n/a

DF – Inkoom (GHA), Botafogo Pirates FC, £1m – n/a

DF – Azpilicueta (SPA), Young Brazilian Boys, £0.5m – minus 1 point

MF – The Ox (ENG), Fat Ladies, £0.5m – n/a

MF – Willian (BRA), Bauru XI, £8m – 1 point

MF – Antonio Valencia (ECU), The Man From Piedmonte, £0.5m – 2 points

MF – Xavi (SPA), Botafogo Pirates FC, £10m – 2 points

ST – Loic Remy (FRA), Botafogo Pirates FC, £7m – 1 points

ST – Hugo Almeida (POR), Ophelia Hunt FC, £5m – 2 points

Emerson table

FOOTBALL World Cups must put unnecessary strain on a Welshman.

Having not appeared in the tournament since 1958, and only then because the Suez crisis had made a farce of qualification, the Dragons have spent the last 56 years in the wilderness. Little wonder they’re always banging on about rugby.

For this summer’s event in Brazil, the closest a Welsh footballer has come to participating is either wearing an Alice band for the commercial breaks in ITV coverage or as a pundit whose CV is laughable compared to his colleagues on the BBC sofa.

Even the traditional schadenfreude of watching their enemy over the dyke lament the state of the English national side has been dampened by a universal lowering of expectations in the Three Lions.

And how confounding must it be for the rest of the world to ask why the future Prince of Wales is president of the English Football Association?

All of which should go some way to explaining the ever more erratic behaviour of the Young Brazilian Boys manager.

All his life a proud son of St David, the Welshman first began to show signs of mental fragility on the opening day of the competition. He turned up to the Emerson World Cup fantasy football auction three hours late wearing a replica Belgium shirt and made wild assertions about his nationality, like Tin Tin putting on a Welsh accent and telling Captain Haddock he did know the difference between an AC Cobra and a two tone BMW 525.

It was a matter of minutes before the Young Boys manager lost the power of addition, overspent his budget and forfeit his £75m Brazilian striker Neymar, becoming the biggest single victim of the Titus Bramble ruling ever recorded.

The next indication of the manager’s failing faculties happened a few days later. Under continued questioning on social media over his phoney Belgian credentials, the wayward Welshman set out to prove his place of birth was Brussels – previously his second favourite vegetable after leeks.

Paying little to no attention to the threat of identity theft, he tweeted an inconclusive photo of his passport to the world. Several individuals with supporting paperwork claiming to be the Young Boys manager have approached Emerson organisers since. The Belgian embassy have washed their hands of the affair.

By Wednesday it was clear the Welshman’s sanity was hanging by a thread. The manager published a pseudo-paramilitary photo on his Facebook page of himself in the same Belgium shirt he wore at the auction (has he taken it off in two weeks?), a flag, face paint, fag end jammed in his mouth, wearing pharmacy bargain bin sunglasses and a beret.

Metropolitan Police have increased security at local schools.

After the last 16 round of matches in the Emerson World Cup, only a few points separate the top few teams. It comes as little surprise that the Young Boys manager is nowhere among them.

Download the latest Emerson World Cup team points and tables from The Rub

Emerson table – post round of last 16

 

 

 

A SHOCK bid of £1m has already been tendered for Luis Suarez ahead of next season’s Kenna League, despite the striker being banned from football for four months.

The chairman submitted the offer earlier today, convinced the Uruguayan would return to be top scorer next season. Fifa discounted the bid as ‘football related activity’ after a surprise inspection at Kenna HQ.

“We’ve learned from past World Cups that any Premier League player who emerges as the villain goes on to have an incredible season following the tournament. You just know with Suarez that he’ll come back from the ban all guns blazing,” said the chairman.

There is a modicum of evidence backing up the chairman’s wild claim. In the summer of 2006, Cristiano Ronaldo emerged from the World Cup branded ‘The Winker’ and proved so unpopular with Kenna managers he went for a snip at auction – just £22m.

Ronaldo went on to be top points scorer and helped FC Gun Show take their first Kenna title.

Aficionados will also remember Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, who had so dramatically failed to ‘dovetail’ at that same tournament, were the second and third top scoring players that same season. It’s unlikely this fact will have any impact on the value of James Milner come August.

Back at the top of the game, Luis Suarez may have hogged the headlines in Brazil, but in the Emerson World Cup another controversial figure is stealing the show.

Not content with sparking the ‘tactical no show’ scandal of the auction two weeks ago, the Testiculadew Land manager shot to the top of the table on goal difference today after another assured performance from striker Leo Messi.

“He’s bloody top!” exclaimed the chairman, who was being unusually loquacious today. “This begs belief. He used to have to turn up to auctions to hand the rest the league their behinds on the pitch, but now he can do it remotely. No manager is safe while he’s around.”

Testiculadew Land share the same points total as FadjeetaCabana, whose midfielder Xhedran Shaqiri scored a hat-trick last night.

Previous leaders Fat Ladies drop to third place. The chairman’s side Copa Lallana were shuffled down to fourth.

Lokomotiv Leeds maintained seventh place, but with a strike partnership of Suarez and Gervinho an Emerson World Cup challenge looks all but over for them.

Points scoring is expected to slow down considerably once the final group games have finished tonight and many players return home.

Points and goals team by team available from The Rub.

Emerson table

FRESH controversy over suspicious auction tactics has overshadowed the opening 10 days of an otherwise thrilling Emerson World Cup.

Flouting a widely-advertised ban on bidding in absentia, the Testiculadew Land manager – who finds his side in third place going into the final group games today – claimed to have been delayed on his way to the auction a week last Thursday.

In their munificence, Emerson World Cup organisers allowed Testiculadew Land to begin buying a side using cross-platform mobile messaging smartphone app Whatsapp on the assumption the manager would eventually turn up to complete his business.

The manager did not show up. The other 17 managers endured the pressure-cooker auction night atmosphere to buy 11 players, desperately scrabbling through the haze of Continental lager and gastro pub burgers to fill their teams at closing time.

All the while, the Testiculadew Land spent most of his budget on five players, and outside of the bedlam coolly selected the remaining players, emailing them to organisers afterwards.

The T-Land manager, who discovered the pernicious practice of tactical Brambling at the Olisadebe Euros auction two years ago, maintains his inability to attend the evening was for an innocent reason and that it gave him a disadvantage.

Emerson organisers aren’t so sure, and have hinted at wholesale changes to the practice of ‘filling up’ up teams once the auction has closed.

“If it was anyone else, I wouldn’t bat an eyelid, but this particular manager has more form than a Michaelangelo exhibition,” quipped the chairman this morning at a press conference in the saloon bar of the King’s Arms in Waterloo.

“There is a clear advantage to spending the lion’s share of the budget on five or six top quality players, knowing that – particularly in a World Cup with so many teams – there are plenty of players still out there.

“We’ve been in locked in the Kenna HQ situation room with the chaps from charts and graphs. In future any gaps in teams will be filled at random by some clever piece of spreadsheet jiggerypokery.”

In the Emerson itself, Fat Ladies top the table going into the final round of group games.

A hat-trick from Thomas Muller and a goal from Nani put Fat Ladies – whose manager made his first appearance at an auction since August 2009 – top, above a strong showing from Los Rojos.

Unlike his national side, the Spanish manager’s outfit started strongly, with three goals from Arjen Robben, one from Claudio Marchisio and one from Daniel Sturridge, although one of those sources will dry up very soon.

Down in the ‘England Basement’, Rio De Je Don’t Know bring up the rear. The manager will be hoping Hulk and Jelavic can conjure his team’s first goals on the tournament later this evening, but he’s probably not holding his breath.

Christopher Samba School, The Man From Piedmonte and Ophelia Hunt FC have also all failed to register a goal between them.

Leading the scoring charts with six goals are the chairman’s side Copa Lallana. The chairman now regrets abolishing the golden boot cash prize in favour of the Emerson Unfair Play award.

Full points and table available here

Emerson table