EMERSON World Cup organisers have admitted funny fantasy football team names will be harder to come by this summer than previous tournaments, and launched an appeal for ideas.
“We’ve had our top minds putting their heads together for the last three days and the best they’ve come up with is ‘Copa Lallana’, ‘Kappa-Wearers’ and ‘Just Like Watching Alan Brazil’. It’s a bit embarrassing really,” lamented the chairman.
Other names to come out of the Emerson think tank include: ‘Christopher Samba School’, ‘Man or Manaus’, ‘Rio de Mistrugstessed’ and ‘Just Like Watching Savile’ – the last a reference to the childhood innocence of many Emerson managers in the 1980s.
“Two years ago Poland and Ukraine had the social shortcomings and unfortunate 20th Century history which meant inappropriate team names were easy to come by,” reminisced the chairman. “And the 2010 Dr Khumalo World Cup, well, I can tell you our lawyers are very happy those weren’t published online.”
The admission has led to fears the Emerson will simply not be as irreverent as previous tournaments.
The chairman this morning launched an appeal for anyone with a sense of humour to come forward with team names ahead of the Emerson auction, which is scheduled to take place in a London pub on Thursday 12 June, the evening of the opening game.
The 2014 Emerson World Cup is sponsored by Soul Glo: Let Your Soul Shine Through.
Chocolate hostage: The Judean Peoples’ Front manager claims a rival Welshman took advantage of his singular bowel movement ritual (photo: FluffyPuppy2007)
THE Judean Peoples’ Front manager has claimed an ill-timed call of nature at the second transfer window flushed away his chances of finishing third in this season’s Kenna League.
Having occupied the number three spot for over three months as the season approached its back end, Judean Peoples’ Front were wiped down to fourth on the penultimate week of the campaign by rival Welsh manager’s side Bala Rinas.
As it is, while the JPF manager was in consultation with this number two, Bala Rinas signed Nasri for £2.5m and shot to third, his best ever finish.
The Breivik lookalike maintains insider knowledge of his unusually lengthy toiletting habits were used by the Bala manager, who is also the Kenna treasurer, to secure Nasri while he was dropping the kids off at the pool.
“I would have come third if I hadn’t gone for a shit. It’s as simple as that,” said the JPF manager yesterday.
“The treasurer, he’s a sneaky one. He knew I had more money than him on that transfer night and that I wanted Nasri. He knows I take a long time to park the fudge, so he waited for me to crimp one off and signed the midfielder on the cheap.”
This is the second time Samir Nasri has unwittingly found himself at the centre of this season’s Kenna League narrative.
Many managers were stunned the Frenchman was available in the first place.
The Piedmonte manager inexplicably released Nasri ahead of the second transfer window in favour of the services of Andros Townsend.
Presented with a genuine shot at the title two months ago, Piedmonte eventually hit the skids while Nasri flourished. For the second time, the Wulfrunian manager finds himself at number 2 – his ninth tilt at the title down the pan.
Asked today how he has masterminded two Kenna doubles in just three seasons, the FCT manager said: “It’s a giddy mix of knowledge, preparation and luck.”
In further comments that will not endear the already unpopular manager to the rest of the league, he continued: “Having said that, I’d consider ourselves unlucky this season. Had the lady smiled on us, rest assured your crushing under foot would have been far more emphatic.
“We’d have ripped your heads off and shat down each and everyone of your necks, real diarrhoea style.”
Rare sticker: In an 18-year career, Emerson never made more than 86 appearances for a single club
DODGY hair and Brazilian flair in the most unlikely of places are what most people recalled when former Middlesbrough midfielder Emerson was announced last week as the figurehead of this summer’s fantasy World Cup contest, but what is really remembered of the 1990s powerhouse on Teesside?
In this fascinating insight, the Still Don’t Know Yet manager recounts life in the smog during those sledgehammer strikes and unusual nightlife habits:
It was 1996. Heady days. Gina G was riding high in the charts, Tony Blair was seen as the potential saviour of the country rather than a warmongering poodle with a taste for Far Eastern women, and, at Middlesbrough’s Rockcliffe Park training complex, Bryan Robson was busy plotting how to build a side which could lose two cup finals and get relegated in a single season.
Already the pieces were beginning to fall into place. In Chris Morris he had the heir to a successful Cornish pasty making dynasty, in Nick Barmby the world’s most unlikely gambling addict, and in Juninho he had signed, pound-for-pound, the best player in the league.
But he needed something more. His Brazilian star playmaker’s problem of not being able to see over the ball and being blown off course by a gust of wind from the wings of a passing butterfly, meant he needed to strengthen his midfield.
Swigging gently from his ninth can of Carling (admittedly it had been a slow day, he had yet to sign Paul Merson) Robson believed he had come up with a solution.
Emerson – a man with all the flair, touch, passing ability, and shooting technique of his diminutive fellow Brazilian, but actually human size. Prizing him away from from his former England manager at Porto should have been an near impossible task if it wasn’t for Bobby Robson’s already advancing dementia, similarities in surname, and the corrupt nature of Iberian administrative staff.
Soon everybody knew that there was a new force on Teesside (except for Bobby Robson, who only found out that Emerson had left two weeks later during a conversation with the kit man about how he’d parked his Seat Leon 10 days ago and had been unable to find it since).
Emerson had the two ingredients necessary to be a foreign star in the Premiership in the 1990s – unlike domestic players he could control the ball in less than three touches and he absolutely despised the club and area where he was contracted to play. But having grown up on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro there was one thing that attracted him to Teesside – the resort town of Redcar.
The similarities may not be obvious, where Rio has Christ the Redeemer, Redcar has one of the world’s largest blast furnaces. While crowds flock to the Brazilian city’s famous beaches, the biggest petrochemical complex in western Europe largely drives away the tourist trade from the Teesside town’s sands.
Emerson, though, had a taste for slightly different delights. He was a creature of the night, and when it came to clubs and pubs Redcar could hold its own with any international rival. You want to see people dancing in cages? Head to Sharky’s. Triple vodka and coke for £1.80? That’ll be Leo’s. Want to try supping your pint whilst starring at the floor because if you look up you’re guaranteed to get punched? It’s The Hyrdo.
But it wasn’t even one of the three corners of Redcar’s legendary ‘Triangle of Death’ that attracted Emerson. He preferred the unique ambiance of Klub Kudos, a sparkling gem of night spot that insisted on the best of everything except for music, hygiene, and effectively checking people’s date of birth at the door.
Emerson loved Kudos so much he had his own special room there, and what went on inside is a matter between him and the members of Operation Yewtree.
That no action was taken at the time is probably down to the long standing incompetence of Cleveland Police and the fact that if you score against Sunderland in back-to-back seasons people on Teesside will forgive most things.
Juninho on the other hand settled for a few drinks at Guisborough Quoit Club (sadly, now a shadow of its former self) and went on to win the World Cup. A salutary lesson perhaps for any budding young footballers.
The 2014 Emerson World Cup is sponsored by Soul Glo: Let Your Soul Shine Through
Frooming marvellous: FC Testiculadew will spend the last competitive week of the Kenna cruising to victory
DURING the final stage of the Tour de France it’s customary for the cyclist wearing the yellow jersey to toast his journey into Paris with a glass of champagne.
Even though there are still 100 or so kilometres to go at the start of the day, a challenge for the top spot in cycling on such a flat leg is considered over after a month of punishing mountains, gruelling time trials and simple French country folk. It’s also considered ungentlemanly.
Ironic then that the man who killed the chivalrous spirit of the Kenna by discovering the sharp practice of tactical Brambling finds himself in a similar champagne finish in the league this week as his team march inexorably towards the elysian fields of an unprecedented second Kenna double.
A goal from Juan Mata and two from the irrepressible Edin Dzeko saw FC Testiculadew beat Northern Monkeys 3-2 in the Canesten Combi Cup final this week. FCT now only have one more match to negotiate until adding the league title to a groaning club trophy cabinet.
Barring an unlikely 12 goals on Saturday from second-placed Piedmonte‘s Shane Long, the FCT manager will pick up two Kenna doubles in three seasons, potentially making him the most successful Kenna boss of all time.
In the battle for third, the league treasurer’s team Bala Rinas are putting in a sprint finish to stake a claim over rival Welshman the Judean Peoples’ Front manager.
JPF were in the top three for 13 weeks until now, but are in danger of dropping even further down the table if Team Panda Rules OK striker Olivier Giroud can continue his streak this weekend, or in the remote chance Ahmed Elmohamady and Laurent Koscielny have the game of their lives for Pikey Scum.
In the jostle of the peloton no amount of substance abuse will make the season anything but an exercise in mediocrity.
Bringing up the rear in Bramble Jerseys, the bottom three found themselves aching and tangled in a barbed wire fence on a rural roadside in the Auvergne sometime ago. P45s await, or in one case was an early Christmas present.
Silky: Emerson appeared for 14 professional football clubs in an 18-year career
LONDON’S best pub-based fantasy football World Cup competition will be named after former Middlesbrough Brazilian flop Emerson, it was announced today.
Best remembered in England for his two-season stint on Teeside in the 1990s, Emerson’s unfulfilled potential, meandering CV, failure to appear for his national side and dodgy haircut were key factors in the Kenna HQ committee’s decision to make him the contest’s figurehead.
For the first time the traditional auction will be held on the opening day of the tournament, Thursday 12 June. The match between Brazil and Croatia will kick off halfway through an auction experts predict will last around five hours.
“The 2014 Emerson World Cup auction will be a continuous, high intensity affair that will test managers’ skills to the very limit,” enthused the chairman.
As with the 2010 Dr Khumalo World Cup in South Africa before it, the Emerson will limit managers to buying no more than one player of any nationality.
Managers will also be required to set their teams out in a rigid 4-4-2 formation, a proven formula at international level.
The Emerson winner will receive an estimated £150 cash prize, with the two runners up also getting their mitts on some dosh.
In a move away from previous international tournaments, there will be no prize for the best individual player. Instead a radical new system will see the team with the worst disciplinary record winning the Emerson Unfair Play award. It is hoped the award will keep wider interest further into the competition.
In unrelated news, the official partner of the 2014 Emerson World Cup has been confirmed as Soul Glo – a Jheri Curl product: Let Your Soul Shine Through.
Toucans in the park: Standard procedure for Polish customers of Kenna HQ’s neighbourhood off licence…and now the Piedmonte manager too.
TURKISH convenience stores seldom come less complete than the premises around the corner from Kenna HQ.
Marathon opening hours, ready access to tonic water and fresh limes, and a proprietor always up for a discussion on the latest developments at Galatasaray mean the chairman is often found locked in conversation over a can of Coke, litre of Delmonte orange juice or 10 Camel Lights.
During one particularly lengthy debate on the decline of Wesley Sneijder while buying a 750ml bottle of Leffe Brune, it emerged the shop’s cash cow is beer, a large array of which dominates one refrigerated wall.
What has this to do with the Kenna title race? There are two parallels.
First, much like Gala in the Turkish Super Lig, Piedmonte find themselves well and truly beaten into second place this week. Two goals from Edin Dzeko have put FC Testiculadew well in control of the Kenna: 53 points ahead with 10 days to go.
It would take hat-tricks from Shane Long, Peter Odemwingie, Mark Noble, Jason Puncheon and no more slip ups from Steve Gerrard this Sunday to get Pies back in contention. A remote scenario considering the second parallel.
Tweeting a photo of two cans of Polish beer about to be consumed in public can only confirm the Piedmonte boss has lost interest in his side’s pursuit of the Kenna title and has turned into the average customer of the International Food Centre.
It’s only a matter of time before he’s sitting on a park bench in an obscure replica football shirt, fiercely telling anyone who’ll listen about the two times he almost won the Kenna, while seamlessly inserting the word ‘kurwa’ three times into each sentence without breaking syntax (see demonstration below).
Looking ahead to this weekend, the FC Testiculadew manager has the chance to scoop his second double in three seasons as his team face Northern Monkeys in the Canesten Combi Cup final.
Considering FCT have scored 2.83 goals a week for the last six and Northern Monkeys just 1.16, the bookies are favouring the Tactical Brambler.
Should the tie be a draw, the final will be decided on number of points scored.
In the unlikely event the two sides are equal on goals and points, a tie breaker will be played over the last weekend of the season, on goals then points.
Athletes: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and the KS West Green manager
ROUTS don’t come much more convincing than FC Testiculadew’s league win two seasons ago, but the same manager is poised to scoop another title with ease albeit without making such a mockery of the other competitors.
Goals from Edin Dzeko, Jonjo Shelvey, Mesut Ozil and a brace from Juan Mata have put FC Testiculadew 61 points clear of the nearest challenger with three weeks to go – all but delivering the trophy to the self-confessed Tactical Brambler.
For a while the Piedmonte manager appeared to be making a genuine case for a grandstand finish, but like a Nigerian striker getting in his 4×4 after an ambiguous conversation with a club suit, that looks to have petered out.
Despite also showing strong signs of promise in the manager’s fifth Kenna season, Judean Peoples’ Front failed to live up to the task. Now more than 100 points off the leaders, the Anders Brievik lookalike‘s woes add fuel to the argument that to be truly competitive at this level a manager needs both kidneys.
The organ grinder is still calling the tune for the dancing monkeys battling it out for fourth. The debutant manager of Team Panda Rules OK saw his side come to within two points of the league treasurer’s team Bala Rinas. Defending champions Sporting Lesbian also compete.
A remarkable turnaround this season has come from Young Boys of Vauxhall. The manager made eight changes to his struggling side at the February transfer window and this week finds his side climbing one place further from the danger zone.
Taking to social media last week, the Young Boys manager was quick to point out the prolific form of controversial signing Martin ‘the ginned up lollypop lady’ Demichelis in comparison to other more recognised names.
The KS West Green manager was only to happy to remind his midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain of this little stat when he bumped into him at a charity dinner last night.
@jeffkennaleague The ginned up lolly pop lady has now scored as many EPL goals this season as The Ox, Ashley Young, Cisse, Michu and Caroll
Kevin Mirallas scored twice to edge FC Testiculadew towards a second Kenna double (photo: deeegaogtgjg123)
KEVIN Mirallas and Christian Benteke may be a mini Belgian injury crisis for FC Testiculadew, but the club still moved one step closer to a second Kenna double in three campaigns this week with an assured display.
On his way to the physio’s bench winger Mirallas notched two goals to put the side managed by the founder of tactical Brambling both in the Canesten Combi Cup final and extend their lead over Piedmonte to 36 points.
Hopes of snatching the title at the final fence look even more remote for the Piedmonte manager even though his side put in another solid week led again by Jason Puncheon. If only he’d kept Samir Nasri – the Frenchman picked up a goal and an assist to help Bala Rinas into fourth place.
With just four weeks left of the season and relegation all but rubber stamped for the bottom three clubs, the race for the Wenger Trophy is shaping up to take centre stage in the league’s remaining narrative.
Just 30 points separate the five clubs floating around the final prize spot, and the cast are varied: Sporting Lesbian are defending champions, Team Panda Rules OK debutants and the other three managers are league committee members yet to find silverware in the quagmire of political intrigue at Kenna HQ.
Another subplot is the miraculous cup run of Northern Monkeys. The manager voiced concerns over the ability of Samuel Eto’o and Fabio Borini back in February, but the pair earned the Monkeys a place in the final at the expense of a toothless St Reatham FC.
It seems unlikely the Monkeys’ luck will continue into the pageantry of that May afternoon. With David Silva possibly out injured for the rest of the season, the midfield consists of Antonio Valencia, Stewart Downing and forfeit player Stuart Hazell.
No amount of cash in the attic could buy a goal for that lot.
“What do I think of the Piedmonte manager?” (photo: Rod McLaren)
TITLE races don’t come much more thrilling than this season’s Kenna, but when it’s all over one manager may look back on a transfer window with severe regret.
The Piedmonte manager has his best chance of winning the league since its origins in 2005. It would be quite an itch to scratch considering he was among the eight pioneers of the Kenna that fateful night in The Old Bank of England.
As this season rolls into the final five weeks, Piedmonte find themselves just 25 points behind flash new boys FC Testiculadew. Dismissing a potentially catastrophic oversight by league organisers, one manager will be spraying champagne onto the bare breasts of high-class escort girls while the other will be throwing up a bellyful of Frosty Jacks in the park, along with the rest of the league.
If the Piedmonte manager finds himself waking up in his own vomit, as he has eight times before, the sale of Samir Nasri at the second transfer window will be a source of tortuous despair.
Eyebrows were raised that night in The Enterprise when the silky-skilled Frenchman found himself back on the market and snapped up for £2m by Bala Rinas.
Now Piedmonte find themselves so close to missing out, the manager is introspectively taking to social media:
@jeffkennaleague I’m sure if I hadn’t done any transfers at all this season I’d be top of the league. Got rid of Adebayor & Nasri! #kenna
He’s wrong. The fact is that if he’d made no transfers he wouldn’t be top of the league, but his team would have scored more goals (see below).
No one could criticise the Piedmonte manager for releasing Emmanuel Adebayor at the October window. The Togolese didn’t score a single point in those first six weeks, and looked to be having another season the elephant would sooner forget.
His replacement Jonathan Walters used to be one of those bargain Kenna bankers, but he’s had a torrid time of late and in 13 weeks for Piedmonte scored at less than two points a week, notching just two goals in the process.
‘The Pies’ replaced him with Peter Odemwingie, a huge gamble considering the Nigerian’s troubles, but he’s gone on to score a whopping 44 points in the last 10 weeks.
So no strikers sleeping in the car park – it’s in midfield where the manager has come unstuck.
A handful of good games, including one for England, meant Andros Townsend was so universally fashionable earlier this season he was even talked about in space.
But since joining Piedmonte, Townsend has clocked up a miserable 1.4 points a week. In the same time Samir Nasri has been going at an astronomic rate of 4.9.
Even more confounding for the Pies managers is that while Nasri’s purple patch has come since he left the club, he was already scoring at a very respectable 4.26 points, and if he’d kept the Frenchman he would be 20 points above FCT and have scored two more goals.
That’s going to haunt the Piedmonte manager if he misses out in yet another season.
Piedmonte scoring
Current total: 990 points, 43 goals
Starting XI total: 983 points, 49 goals
If he’d kept Nasri: 1,025 points, 47 goals
Piedmonte average points scored a week – individual
Krul – 2.47
Ben Davies – 2.34
Hangeland – 1.44
Phil Jones – 1.47
Jags – 2.66
Stevie G – 5.09
Noble – 3.09
Puncheon – 3.19
Nasri – 4.26 for Pies, 4.56 for the season / Townsend – 1.4 for Pies, 2.41 for the season
Long – 2.81
Adebayor – 0 for Pies, 3.06 for the season / J Walters – 2.77 for Pies, 2.41 for the season / Odemwingie – 4.4 for Pies,
BLUNDERING blazers at Kenna HQ are desperately scrabbling to find a tie-break solution after chances mounted this week that the top two clubs could end the season on the same points and goals.
Another notch from in-form Jason Puncheon and an assist from Steve Gerrard helped Piedmonte close the gap on league leaders FC Testiculadew to just 25 points. With five weeks left of the campaign only two goals scored separates the sides.
What’s now being billed as the closest Kenna title race ever could turn into a shambles as bungling officials at league headquarters admitted there was no contingency plan should two sides end level on points and goals scored.
An extraordinary committee meeting was convoked earlier today to discuss a solution.
Leaked minutes revealed the Kenna executive is considering a number of tie-break options, which include going down to points scored in the final week, ranking the teams on the number of clean sheets kept or declaring the 10-month competition a draw.
One committee member even suggested managers sending in a one-minute video plea for the championship so the rest of the league could vote on the most deserving.
The news will be of severe concern to both the Piedmonte and FCT managers, the former hoping for his first title in nine years of trying and the latter in the hunt for an unprecedented second Kenna league and cup double.
Should the FCT manager win the league outright, he could rue his team’s Canesten Combi Cup semi-final performance this weekend. The former cup winners failed to register an away goal in their sibling derby with Headless Chickens.
In the other semi, Northern Monkeys took a two-goal lead over St Reatham FC thanks to Per Mertesacker and David Silva.
