France's secret weapon

 

A classic piece of silliness from Noughties UK skit show Harry and Paul....

The national anthems are usually a bit of a chore to sit through at a big sporting event like this - often, I fear, even for citizens of their own country. And our own, the dirge-like 'God Save The King', is, I'm sorry to say, one of the worst. There's hardly an Englishman alive who wouldn't far rather have 'Land of Hope and Glory' or 'Rule, Britannia!' as our anthem - both, alas, tainted with the bombast of colonial ambition, but at least rather more rousing tunes. 

Being confined to a military band rendition is half the problem, I think. A small string section would add so much more emotional texture to the sound. Or, gosh, what about a bit of swoony saxophone or clarinet? Alas, no; we're always stuck with tinny brass and snare-drums. The mode of performance seems to have influenced the choice of songs as well, since we almost always seem to get pieces with the plodding tempo of a slow march. Some of the more exotic ones at least offer the diversion of eccentric structure, with something like a 'symphonic' form with distinct 'movements', wildly different in style and tempo, rather than just a metronomic verse-chorus repetition. I always thought the Italian one was rather fun, even though - or perhaps because - it sounds as though it was composed for the hurdy-gurdy; but of course we're not getting to hear that one this time.

The USA has a surprisingly potent one: a bit slow and po-faced, certainly, but undoubtedly very emotive.

But France wins hands-down. It is, I think, the only national anthem in the world that other countries like to listen to - and might even, occastionally, get tempted to sing along with.

It is because it's such a bloody good tune? Or.... is it all just down to Casablanca??

And France are getting to play their semi-final on their National Day. That's not nothing - it might give them just that little extra emotional lift (as if they needed it!!).

Adam Clery, my favourite of the Youtube tactical analysts, a couple of weeks ago identified another significant advantage the French team may be enjoying - something that has gone largely unnoticed by other pundits. Because Luis Enrique likes to rotate his big players at PSG to keep them fresh for the Champions League, and because a number of them have had spells out with injury this season, a lot of France's top creative talents have played less than 3,000 minutes over the past season, some not much more than 2,000 minutes. (Half of England's starting eleven have clocked well over 4,000 minutes. It's small wonder that Declan Rice looks so constantly knackered, after being asked to play almost every single minute of Arsenal's long and gruelling season.) France's key players still have relatively fresh legs - compared to just about all the other major European teams.

English bookies are apparently still pricing France at around 11/5. That might be partly because patriotic optimists are now backing England heavily. France really ought to be odds-on. Backing them at that price looks very much like free money to me!  [Once again, I find myself with cause to be relieved that my online betting account is inaccessible to me at the moment! France didn't get the expected additional lift from playing on their National Day; in fact, they produced one of their flattest performances in years. Spain certainly knocked them out of their usual comfortable rhythm. And Deschamp made some questionable selection decisions again. But really, France just didn't show up for this one; every single player had an off day...] 

A Happy 'Bastille Day' to any French readers who may happen past.... (Though I don't think it's commonly called that in your country, is it?)  And best of luck for tonight's game!!

A few thoughts after the World Cup Quarter-Finals

Hey, Jude.... 

A slightly dull round...

After such a thrilling tournament, with so many 'surprises' in it, it does feel like something of an anti-climax to have a round where everything pans out pretty much exactly as expected. The only real exception was Belgium, who were much better than I'd expected, and managed to give Spain a little bit of a scare by scoring the first goal they have conceded in this tournament - but were eventually overpowered. And Switzerland gave Argentina a damn good fight, forcing them into extra-time. But the other two challengers, Morocco and Norway, both showed a disappointing lack of ambition, and produced their weakest performances of the competition. 

Prospects for the semi-finals

But these results have set up a fascinating pair of semi-final ties: the 'old enemies' of Argentina and England pitched against each for the fifth time in a World Cup, and the two favourites, France and Spain, facing off in a premature final. It's not often that we actually get the best four teams all advancing to the semis, but this year, somehow, it's happened. (Well, OK, I wouldn't necessarily rate England as the fourth best team in this tournament, even with Bellingham's supernatural contributions: I really think Morocco and Colombia and Norway have, mostly, looked much better, and arguably Cabo Verde too; and Mexico and the USA were much better in the group stage. However, these are the top four teams in the FIFA rankings, so the 'seeding' for the tournament has worked out perfectly.)

France will be facing a real challenge for the first time, as Spain probably won't allow them to have much of the ball. But Spain's finishing has often been quite poor so far, with Oyarzabal blowing somewhat hot-and-cold. And Yamal hasn't yet shown that kind of 'I don't care if the rest of my team isn't very good, I'm going to win this game on my own' mentality that we've seen from Messi and Bellingham (and Mbappé; although his motivation to produce at that level is less acute, since France are actually a really good side) - so, I'm expecting that France will win it, but perhaps only narrowly, and it might well go into extra-time.

I am similarly expecting Argentina to prevail, narrowly, over England. But that one will almost certainly depend on the pair of star players who have been carrying the two teams in this tournament. I think Argentina-without-Messi are better than England-without-Bellingham, but if those two are playing at the top of their game, the result will probably turn on which of them can produce the bigger performance on the night. It should be a great watch.

Bellingham v Messi

One of the things that is marking this out as probably the greatest tournament ever is the truly astonishing form that these two players have been showing. They've both regularly been achieving a god-level of performance, single-handedly dragging their fairly mediocre teams to the brink of the Final. It is all the more remarkable to be seeing this from Messi, who is well past his prime and really ought not to be capable of dominating a tournament like this any more. Whatever happens in these last few games, seeing two such phenomenal players achieving such heights at the same time has been a remarkable privilege - something all football fans should cherish forever.

Mind you - much as I strive not to succumb to foolish, painful optimism about England's prospects, I have always fancied that 2026 ought to be 'our year',.... if only because it fits so well with the scansion of the song: "Sixty years of hurt... never stopped me dreaming...." [I only just found out Ed Sheeran's done a new variation on the beloved classic for this tournament. Feels a little bit sacrilegious - the original Lightning Seeds anthem with Baddiel & Skinner is so iconic; although the update they did for '98 World Cup in France was arguably even better.]

More 'controversies'?

The online hordes on the Fantasy Football forums display two ridiculous vices: they only 'notice' decisions which go against the team they like, and these decisions are always deemed to be obviously 'wrong' and 'unjust' and even 'corrupt'. I often try to gently point out to them that something is not a 'controversy' simply because they disagree with it. But many of the mainstream media outlets add fuel to these fires with silly clickbaity headlines listing the supposed 'controversies' in the latest round of matches.

Norway appeared to have taken the lead again when Heggem lashed home a corner 10 minutes into the second-half; but Haaland had clearly shoved Anderson to the ground just before the corner came in, so it was quite rightly disallowed: no 'controversy' there. There was also a claim that goalkeeper Nyland's clearance had brushed one of the cables supporting the overhead 'spidercam' immediately before Bellingham equalised on the stroke of half-time. If such a contact did occur, it had no material effect on the flight of the ball - so, I don't feel it can really be considered any sort of injustice; the handful of Norwegian players who insisted they'd seen this contact were in a tiny minority in the stadium, and appeared to be just clutching at straws. None of the officials saw this, there were no still or video pictures clearly showing that it happened, and FIFA insist that the in-ball sensor did not register any such contact - so, in effect, it simply 'didn't happen' (even if it did; only a handful of people think they saw it, and there is no independent evidence to corroborate their appeal). Again, that's hardly a 'controversy'. Norway deserved to lose because they sat back and allowed England to have the ball for long periods; and they wasted the few chances that they did create.

Switzerland had lost momentum again, after the sustained period of pressure that got them back in the game, and were starting to look like they were just hanging on rather than actually going after the game to win it - before the Embolo sending-off. So, although an incident like that obviously had a negative impact for them, it's hard to argue that its effect on the game outcome was really decisive; Argentina were simply the better side. And it was an obviously correct decision: Embolo was guilty of a ridiculously exaggerated dive; and it was his second yellow-card offence, so he had to go. The only element of 'controversy' here concerns the manner in which the decision was reached. The referee had originally interpreted the incident as a foul by Paredes and given him a yellow card. VAR intervened, citing the 'Mistaken Identity' rule - but that is only supposed to cover cases where the referee erroneously shows a card to someone other than the player who committed the perceived foul, not to cases like this where the referee misinterpreted the foul. It's hard to complain about this too much (unless you're the Swiss coach!!) as justice was clearly done - but there does seem to be some doubt as to whether correct protocol was followed by the VAR team.

Of course, most of the world was rooting for these 'underdog' teams, so it rankles when they appear to have suffered some tough breaks. But Embolo clearly did deserve to be sent off; and it didn't really appear to affect the course of the game very much anyway. And the Norwegians really didn't have much of a leg to stand on with their two complaints about goals scored or not scored. So, 'controversies'?? Not really.

The fatuousness of the FIFA 'conspiracy theories'

We see this ridiculous bias in counting up grievances against the offiating - only decisions against the team I like are worth noticing and remembering, all such decisions are obviously and inevitably wrong - in the case of Argentina, who are now widely derided online as being at the centre of a comprehensive FIFA conspiracy to ensure that Messi wins the Cup for a second time. These dingbats now tally up the number of 'injustices' in Argentina's favour to include every penalty they've been awarded (all four of them pretty unarguably correct), the Messi foul on Algerian right-back Aissa Mandi in the opening game (he clumsily stepped on to the back of his calf, but with zero force, zero follow-through - it probably should have been a yellow card, but it was nowhere near a red card offence), and the two disputed goals in the Egypt game (similar, but conclusively different circumstances in the two incidents; again, tough though they were to accept for Egyptian and neutral fans, both decisions looked unarguably correct); all incidents where the detractors insist that the referees were wrong - with no foundation to their argument at all.

But of course, these loonies then take it a step further, and maintain that not only are all these unjustly favourable decisions racking up to Argentina's advantage, but that they are being orchestrated to this end - that FIFA is repeatedly seeking to 'rig' their matches. They omit to consider how many other factors are having a major impact in games - how do FIFA ensure that Messi is playing such god-like football, how do they ensure that Julian Alvarez can score one of the goals of the tournament to avoid having to face a penalty shootout with Switzerland? They can't, they aren't; Argentina are progressing on merit.

Probably some wrong decisions have been made in this World Cup, some perhaps in Argentina's games. But none of the headline 'controversial' decisions the conspiracy theorists cite appear to be anything other than straightforwardly correct. And when mistakes do happen, they are more likely the result of simple human frailty rather than conscious bias, or wilful corruption.

The one area where some kind of a case could be made for Argentina having received 'favourable treatment' is in the small number of yellow cards they have received - with Messi, in particular, appearing to be utterly card-proof (this was even more conspicuously the case in the last World Cup in Qatar, where he committed several clumsy challenges which could have been eligible for a yellow card - including two in the same game on one occasion - yet he wasn't shown even one in the whole tournament). But this is probably the result of a natural human sympathy rather than orchestrated match-fixing. It is entirely likely, unavoidable, that referees may tend to be a little more lenient to the best teams and the best players. Argentina - strangely - have not been a very physical or 'dirty' team in this tournament so far; they haven't needed to be, as they're tending to have the lion's share of possession most of the time, and so they're not having to go chasing after the ball very much - hence, an impressively low number of fouls and yellow cards. (They probably should have picked up one or two more cards than they have, but it's hardly a glaring bias in their favour.) And Messi, of course, is a notoriously mild-mannered and affable player, always well in control of his emotions; he can occasionally be a bit clumsy or over-eager in his challenges, but he's not a very physical player, and he almost never evinces any sign of aggression or petulance. So... he's not the kind of player referees are inclined to give cards to; if you have the reputation of being a bit of a 'hard man' or a thug, you're far more likely to receive a yellow card for a challenge that might be only borderline card-worthy; whereas, if you're a player like Messi, you're quite likely to be let off the occasional quite bad foul, because the referee appreciates that it was untypical, an unfortunate accident, not likely to be repeated. There's nothing very surprising or 'unfair' about that. And it's not as if Argentina and Messi are the only beneficiaries of this sort of leniency: Mbappé hasn't been booked either, and England have received remarkably few yellow cards in the tournament so far.

For me, however, the most ludicrous part of the prevalent 'conspiracy theory' is the total lack of motivation for it. Messi is 'yesterday's man' as far as FIFA are concerned. He'll almost certainly be retiring this week, from international football at least, if not from football altogether. (I'm sure he won't want to limp on into his forties and become a laughing-stock, as has unfortunately happened with Cristiano Ronaldo.)  He's been the leading draw in the game for the past decade-and-a-half, but the baton is being passed on now. FIFA does not have some weird sort of homo-erotic fetish for Messi; their interest is solely in consolidating their brand and maximising their revenues from sponsorships, ticket sales, TV rights, etc. They are interested in narratives that promote those ends. Messi has been their trump card for a long time now; but that stops with this tournament. They are surely now going to be far more interested in building up the 'legend' of Jude Bellingham or Kylian Mbappé; and if there were any 'match-fixing' going on at this stage, it would be more likely directed against Argentina than for them.

Fantasy dilemmas for the Semi-Final round

Since the 'favourites' all got safely through the quarter-finals, most of us are left in a not-too-bad condition with our squads ahead of the penultimate MatchDay. I only lost 4 players from mine (although I had taken the chance of leaving 3 blank spaces on my bench). This means that I can probably get by without using my Wildcard (if France and Spain had both been eliminated, I would have had to), and can keep it up my sleeve for the Final (although I probably won't need it there either, and it will have proved to be superfluous).

Fantasy points don't always correlate very well to actual individual and team performances, but... I think it is rather telling this year, powerful evidence that England are much the weakest of the four semi-finalists, that apart from Bellingham and Kane, none of their players has averaged above 4 points per game. Even though they've come through three knockout rounds and are on the brink of an historic appearance in the Final, it's really a bit of a struggle to think of any players apart from the 'big two' that you'd want in a Fantasy squad. Maybe Saka, if you could rely on him starting; maybe Rice, for the chance of an assist from a corner; maybe Anderson for 'tackles' points, or Pickford for saves....? But I'd only go for one of those options, not more... and only if I felt fairly confident that they would get past Argentina to play again in the Final - and I'm afraid I don't. But things aren't much better with Argentina: who do you want, apart from Messi? Maybe Emi Martinez or one of the defenders, maybe Julian Alvarez or Enzo Fernandez?? So, I'm looking at a 5-3-3-2 split across France, Spain, Argentina, and England - with a couple of non-playing 'enablers' still on my bench (Kobel and Dest!). And I'm going to risk my last booster chip, the 'Maximum Captain', in this round rather than the Final (only one opportunity to rotate the captaincy in this round, and a large number of potential contributors that you thus might miss out on).

It is a pity that France and Spain have to face-off in this penultimate round. I think they are clearly a class above either of the teams in the other semi-final, and whoever wins this tie should go on to lift the trophy relatively comfortably. So, I want to go in fairly heavily for their players, expecting that they'll do well for me in the Final too. (If I'd had another Free Transfer to spare, I would probably have gone for Unai Simon as a back-up keeper, in case France should be the ones to go out and I lose Mike Maignan.)  But you really don't want to go anywhere near the maximum quota of 6 players per country at this point; even going to 5 with France is a bit of a big risk. I could potentially lose 8 players, including my only keeper, if France and Argentina go out; so, I'd probably resort to my Wildcard then. But I'm hoping I might only lose 5 players, and be able to leave it unused. If I didn't have that Wildcard in hand, I probably would have left 1 or 2 more spaces on my bench, and settled for a 4-4-3-3 or a 4-4-2-2 distribution, so that the 6 Free Transfers for the final would have been enough to rebuild my starting lineup, whatever the semi-final results.

The imponderable wrinkle for the last phase of the tournament is that the Third Place Play-Off game is also part of MatchDay 8 alongside the Final. (A lot of Fantasy managers seem to be playing their 'Qualification Bonus' chip in this round, in the deluded belief that everyone is guaranteed to 'qualify' for another game - sorry, folks, it doesn't work like that: getting into the consolation game is not 'qualifying'!)  This should at least mean that you're not really 'losing' any players, regardless of the semi-final results. But in practice, of course, teams tend not to take the play-off game very seriously, and often field a second-string team; so, there's no way to know how competitive this game might be, what the most likely result is, or even who's going to start in it - so, for Fantasy purposes, it is best avoided; you really want a full squad (or at least a full starting eleven; you don't really need a bench for a single match) playing in the Final.

I rather fear that both games could largely turn out to be tactical stalemates - all teams being a bit over-cautious because of the magnitude of the occasion, and largely cancelling out each other's threat with an emphasis on ball retention and defending deep. It would be nice if we could see an early breakthrough goal in both games - that might force the opponent to open up more, and perhaps see the games develop into end-to-end ding-dongs. I'd like to hope that we might see a thrilling pair of 3-3s or 4-4s, but dour 1-1s seem much more likely. Either way, I fear both games might have to be decided by penalty shootouts - I really hope not, but that's what my gut is telling me at the moment. We shall see.

BEST OF LUCK, EVERYONE!!!

Cabo Verde's finest

I mentioned the other day that we probably shouldn't have written off Cabo Verde - just because they're a tiny nation that most people have never previously heard of... in any capacity, let alone as a footballing nation. I myself made that mistake prior to the tournament, having not been able to follow any of the qualifying from around the world. But I pointed out in that earlier post about how things were shaping up after the 2nd Round that Africa has become such a strong footballing continent now that we should probably be wary of anyone who gets through one of their qualifying groups. And, frankly, apart from the outstanding Morocco, the little Cape Verdean team have been looking the best African team so far - and one of the most impressive defensive sides in the entire tournament. It seems rather cruel that their stronger-than-expected finish has landed them a 'Round of 32' tie against Argentina. (Apparently the bookies have them at around 15/1 to get through that. I'm almost tempted to have a wild flutter on them.)

Many people, I suggested, might not even have recognised the name of the little Atlantic island nation, a former Portuguese colony. But, for various reasons, a very good friend of mine happened to be a fairly regular visitor there throughout the 1990s, and so I learned a little of the place through his stories. And I was particularly glad that he introduced me to the music of Cesária Évora, the islands' national treasure, one of the most remarkable female singers you'll ever hear - a voice so rich and drenched in emotion, it will send shivers down anybody's spine. The performance of Bésame Mucho above is from a celebrated show she did at Le Grand Rex theatre in Paris on 5th April 2004. It was recorded in full for a concert film, Live D'Amor, which you can currently watch on Youtube here.

A little bit of Zen (95)

"Roads are made for journeys, not destinations."

Kong Qiu ('Confucius')

"Money's just something you throw off the the back of a train..."

Tom Waits - 'Long Way Home'

Money, after all, is just a crystallization of effort, a convenient medium for translating effort into different material benefits. But money, like effort, like all manifestations of the material world, is ephemeral: we use it, and it is gone forever. Nothing lasts; but the true value of a thing arises precisely from the fact that it can only be experienced for a fixed amount of time. The value of an FPL season is not found in the numbers recorded against your name at the end of it, but in the memories of all the doubts and struggles and difficult decisions grappled with over the past nine months.

A VOID in our lives

 

Warm-up friendlies for the World Cup are all very well, but - damn, I am already starting to miss my regular fix of proper competitive football. And we're barely half-way through this insane three-week intermission in the Premier League schedule....

So, here's another little bit of fun to distract ourselves with for a moment: Bored, a song that first achieved popularity during the opening year of the Covid pandemic, when it resonated with many people who felt their spirits worn down by being stuck indoors during the extended lockdowns.

[Yes, I am a fan of Tessa Violet! And I'm not even Russian. But I am a middle-aged heterosexual man with a fondness for smart pop music - so, I am easy prey. Although I defy anyone - of any age, gender, or sexual orientation - not to be beguiled by her in this video.]

A LONG 'vacation'

 

Good gracious, what is this??

Thanks to the odd scheduling quirk that we have an international break this week, followed by the Quarter-Finals of the FA Cup on the first weekend of April, we're now faced with nearly three weeks without any Premier League football!

Since the quarter-finals of the European competitions don't kick off until 7th/9th April (and only 5 of our 9 participating clubs are still involved there, after a disastrous 'Round of 16' in the Champions League), I imagine the 14 Premier League sides no longer in the FA Cup will be taking a nice warm weather break somewhere around the Mediterranean as soon as everyone's back from the internationals. (Spurs and Newcastle, out of Europe and the Cup, can take a proper holiday....)

I can't recall such a long interruption to the League schedule ever happening before. It's really a bit too long of a break, I fear - too disruptive of regular fitness and tactical preparation routines, likely to lead to some odd hiccups in form when the League resumes. But... time enough to worry about all of that next month!

After the relentless FPL onslaught of the last few months - often two games a week since early December, and endless injury problems as a result - it will be NICE to have a little bit of a rest from it all.

I feel like a song to celebrate this welcome 'time off'. Here's an old favourite from my childhood, Bing Crosby and the cast performing 'Busy Doing Nothing' from the charming 1949 film adaptation of 'A Connecticut Yankee At King Arthur's Court'. This upload to Youtube has combined the song with a montage of clips from classic comedy duo Laurel & Hardy.

That's better. I feel quite jolly now!

And, darn it, that chorus punchline might be the most Zen thing I've ever posted on here:

We'd like to be unhappy,

But we simply don't have the time.

Keeping oneself occupied is the secret to a contented and fulfilled life. That might be just that little bit harder for the next two-and-a-half weeks...

Going with the flow

Here's a funny thing: although I have a great fondness for the late Shane MacGowan and his songwriting,.... most of my favourite Pogues songs are in fact written by other members of the band. This one, a rather beautiful love song by banjo-player Jem Finer, is from their later era in the '90s, after the band had finally been worn out by Shane's looney escapades and had to sack him.

The Pogues have a special place in my heart because they rose to prominence - indeed they were, somehow, one of the biggest bands in the world for a while back then! - during the 1980s, the period when I was transitioning from high school to university, and then from university to 'the world of work' (ha!), that age when we tend to listen to music most, and be most affected by it.

Although this song was released on their penultimate album, Waiting For Herb, in the mid-90s, I always associate it with a rather earlier moment in my life (funny how the mind works!). Back at the end of the '80s, I was doing a teacher-training course in the north of England, and was attempting a long-distance relationship for the first time, with a devastatingly beautiful young woman I'd just met who was at art college in London. (I always seem to fall for creative types: actresses, dancers, writers, musicians...) And although she never stood me up at a bus station, as in the scenario of the song, there were a number of  times when hoped-for visits were cancelled, or when we had awkward conversations from a payphone at a bus station (one of the most readily available to me at the time, since I was living in a small village some way outside of my university town, and having to take a bus home almost every evening). Because of these associations, several years later, this became for me, retroactively, 'our song'.

The song is notable musically for being an instance of the use of 'Infinite Guitar' - a feedback effect that allows a note to be sustained indefinitely at constant volume, here producing a melancholy and haunting background. The device was apparently invented by a Canadian guitarist called Michael Brook in the 1980s, but it is most associated with his countryman, Daniel Lanois, who did a lot to develop, or at least 'popularise' the innovation. Also a talented musician and songwriter, Lanois became best-known as a producer, particularly for his work on a number of U2's most successful albums. He introduced the 'infinite guitar' gizmo to The Edge, who was quite besotted with it for a while, and used it most memorably on the hit single With Or Without You - which probably creates some additional resonance with this song. (I'd never been much of a fan of U2 or The Edge, but I got to meet him and hear him perform at a private music biz party in the '90s, and found myself very impressed: he is a rather cool dude, and a much better player than I'd realised.)

I particularly like the opening lines, repeated as chorus:

Listen to me, baby: Once upon a time....

My heart, it was an ocean,

But you swam against the tide.

It's a song about acceptance, about moving on - without enmity or regret. How many of those are there?? It might be unique.

It's a good lesson, for life - and for FPL. Sometimes - often, most of the time - things don't work out the way we want them to. We have to try to understand how these setbacks happen, without apportioning blame - to ourselves or others. And we have to learn to bear these disappointments with good grace - and summon the will to keep moving forward.

And yet, of course, I can't escape the conviction on occasions that the girl was wrong, that life is often wrong; that the tide of my feelings was 'right', and that the girl - and the world - would have done better to have gone along with my flow, rather than opposing it.

Yes, EVERYTHING can become a metaphor for me.  Life is a metaphor for FPL, FPL is a metaphor for life.... Life is FPL....

Forgive these idle musings. I am making rapid progress into a bottle of Tullamore Dew this slow Tuesday evening....

A nomad once more....

I've just endured a rather unpleasantly fraught few weeks (in the real world, rather than the relatively benign realm of FPL), after my batty landlady decided she wasn't going to extend my lease after all (though, of course, one generally assumes that this should be a mere formality; and we did appear to have reached an agreement in principle to go ahead on much the same terms as the past year, back in the middle of January), but dawdled about telling me, and - really - didn't give me any proper notice at all.

Suddenly faced with unexpected homelessness in a little over two weeks, I have had to scramble rather to.... sort out the next phase of my life.

And, since I didn't feel I had enough time to both househunt and pack,... I took this unpleasant surprise as a cue to revamp my life rather dramatically. Instead of packing up my life into boxes and finding another house to rent, I have.... sold (or given away) everything I own, and laid plans to hit the road. As of tomorrow, I shall be a vagabond again.

If I have one greater love in my life than football, it is music. My parents had quite an extensive and diverse collection of records (though mostly rather middle-of-the-road), and a wonderful old 'gramophone' in a walnut chest with which to play them. During my early childhood, I would sit cross-legged on the floor in front of this marvellous device, in utter rapture, for hours at a time. And one of my great favourites from those early listening sessions was this mid-60s hit by the country singer Roger Miller: King of the Road, a defiant celebration of the hobo life - humorous, and oddly inspiring. I often wonder if my love for this song hasn't led me astray in life. Not only am I unafraid of having no fixed abode, no steady income, and few personal possessions; I actually tend to view such a situation as a desirable ideal.

Here it is.....!

 

For an Englishman like me, there is only one 'Best Christmas Song of All Time'; and it's certainly not the cringe-inducing Wham! or the saccharine Mariah Carey offerings that get so exasperatingly overplayed at this time of year. No, of course, it's 'Merry Xmas, Everybody!' by Slade - an actual celebration of the occasion, rather than just a routine love song cynically grafted into a seasonal setting, and just the right combination of simplistic structure but great melody and raucous rock energy to propel it into the stratosphere of ageless anthemic songs.  What would Christmas be without it?

Merry Christmas, Everybody!!!

Takin' it easy.....

These international breaks may seem irritating to some, interrupting what soon become cosy, familar routines in our FPL life. But we should rather be luxuriating in the rare joy of TIME OFF.

Here's one of my favourite-ever celebrations of goofing off, Louis Armstrong and Gary Crosby (a son of the great Bing, with a very similar vocal style) in a 1950s recording of the Johnny Mercer/Hoagy Carmichael song Lazy Bones.

LOCKED OUT??!!

 

The FPL website has bugged the crap out of me for years, and I've complained a number of times about how glitchy it can sometimes get - how, for example, it's dangerous to leave team selection until too close before the weekly deadline because the site is quite prone to crashing altogether when traffic volumes peak.

This year, I gather (from perusing various online forums about the game), the smartphone app version of the game has proven particularly unstable and frustrating in the opening weeks, forcing many people to have to turn to the web version instead in order to get their weekly housekeeping taken care of. I only ever have the web version at my disposal, as I am an avowed smartphone refusenik.

And I've been especially vexed by the fact that there no longer seems to be any option to 'stay logged in' for any extended period; and, indeed, I was often being logged out every hour or so. Also, when I did log in, my password was otten somehow 'forgotten' by the system, and I was having to go through the tiresome rigmarole of reopening my account with a 'recovery code' sent to my email.... sometimes multiple times in a day.

Annoying as this was, I was getting kind of used to it. 

But then, our FPL Overlords escalated to the next level of vexatiousness, and stopped sending me the recovery code.

Now, I thought at first that the recovery code emails had just gone astray somehow, or been delayed for a little while. I checked in my spam folder a few times; I chccked my Inbox every hour to see if the codes had yet shown up; I requested a code to be re-sent several times. But this was Friday evening, just before the Gameweek 2 deadline, so things were getting rather critical. And in my timezone, the deadline is in the wee small hours of the morning; I really didn't fancy staying up all night for what was seeming increasingly likely to be a vain pursuit of regaining access to the account in time to update my team. So - I gave up on it. No team tweaks for me this week!!

However, I hadn't quite yet given up hope that this noisome glitch would eventually resolve itself, and my account be restored to me.

But over the weekend, the bastards revealed that they still had one further level of escalation: yep, they suddenly stopped recognising that there was a Premier League/FPL account 'associated with' my email address, and wouldn't any longer even give me the option to request 'recovery codes' that they wouldn't actually send.

Well, except that they didn't quite expunge my former account from their consciousness... If that email address was now 'unknown' to them, I should have been able to use it to open a new account, shouldn't I? But, oh NO - they weren't having that, either.

Now, if I deluged them with trenchantly worded emails about this business, perhaps they would relent and magic my old account back into existence. Maybe it would reappear naturally, if I just waited long enough - patiently trying to log back in every day, for a week or several.....  And, sure, I have several other email addresses I could have tried to use to create a new account (albeit that I would have missed the first two gameweeks, so any whole-season goals or objectives I might set for myself would already be out of the window).

But you know what? I just couldn't be bothered. I took this as a sign from Fate that I wasn't meant to take part this year.

Heck, maybe I'm used to it - since I stopped taking part a little over half-way through last year as well (in protest at the noxious inanity of the dratted 'Assistant Manager' chip).

And I have often joked - with friends, and in various online forums I frequent - that I really enjoy thinking about the game more than playing it, and actually having a team of my own in competition isn't that compelling an element of my interest in FPL.

Maybe I'll return to it next year. Maybe I won't. (It might depend on how many more unnecessary changes the game's overlords try to foist on us next year!)

But what I chiefly love about the game is the added incentive it gives me to follow the Premier League more attentively - and the different perspective it gives me in my watching of the football every week. That, I believe, can continue.

And I have also come to enjoy reflecting on my experiences, insights, and opinions relating to the game of Fantasy Premier League, and to find satisfaction in sharing some of them with other enthusiasts - on platforms like this blog. That will certainly continue.

Cruel Fate has kicked me out of the game. But, in the words of Bernie Taupin, "I'm still standing...."

A little bit of Zen (51)

 

"I know I ain't doin' much. But doin' nothing means a lot to me."

Bon Scott  (from the AC/DC song 'Downpayment Blues')

We have barely a month to enjoy our leisure before the new Premier League season kicks off. We should make the least of it!

One of my favourite AC/DC tracks, a rare dive into pure blues....

Always fun to see Angus live, but... unfortunately, this isn't a great video or recording. And this is a 1980s performance with Brian Johnson on vocals; for the original album version by Bon, you'll have to go here. Enjoy!

A little bit of Zen (44)

 

"I've looked at Life from both sides now,

From 'Win' and 'Lose', and still somehow...

It's Life's illusions I recall;

I really don't know Life at all."

Joni Mitchell - 'Both Sides, Now'

Normal 'service' will be resumed.... LATER

I am of Irish heritage, and hence struggle to resist the temptation to a once-yearly indulgence on this day in what an old college friend of mine once termed 'the Celtic melancholy' - drinking too much, listening to emotional music, and getting all weepily maudlin and nostalgic... for hours on end. 

For several years in my youth, I was quite interested in horse-racing, and lived fairly near Cheltenham; so, that was sometimes a happy pretext for even further alcohol-related revelries. (The Cheltenham Festival, a four-day steeplechase and hurdles meeting in mid-March, more-or-less coincides with St Patrick's Day every year, and traditionally draws huge numbers of Irish racing fans to the small West Country town for the week. The event thus becomes as much about the peripheral craic to be enjoyed in the evenings as about the races in the afternoons...)

Also, my mum's birthday was the day following, so for much of my younger life I was dutifully travelling long distances by train or bus the next day to see her - generally looking very much as if I'd slept in my clothes, if at all, the night before. I believe she was duly impressed by this reliable display of filial devotion, even if she might also have fretted that I might be "going to the bad...."

All of which is simply to say.... that posting might be a bit light for the next day or two, while I indulge... and then (hopefully) recover.

Of course, the Australian-Scots folk singer Eric Bogle (a splendid chap, who I once had the great pleasure of meeting, and seeing perform - in an intimate setting in Toronto) said it best....

So long, farewell.....

 

I'm DONE for this season.

I have thrown in the towel - in protest at the introduction of the ridiculous, unnecessary, game-distorting 'Assistant Manager' chip.

However, since one of the many infuriating deficiencies of the FPL user-interface is that it does not allow you to delete a team without deleting your entire account, I am obliged to leave my team going as a dormant - or 'zombie' - competitor. 

[I'm not so concerned about losing my prior game history, as I've lost my account twice before for various reasons, so only have one or two previous seasons recorded under this one. I prefer to keep my own records of progress anyway. And I'm not keen on having a publicly available record published on the Internet - I value my privacy too much!

However,.... it seems I would also delete a couple of mini-leagues I administer, and I don't want to do that to the other participants. So, I'm stuck with having to remain nominally involved in a game I'd rather walk away from completely.  Sigh.]

Nonetheless, I am ever on the lookout for a new 'challenge', a new focus for my boundless curiosity.... So, I am finding myself quite intrigued to see what will happen to an unchanged team over the remainder of the season.

Last year, a competitor in my local mini-league had an outrageously lucky start to the season and was 200 points or so ahead of the field by Christmas. But sometime around January or February, he somehow got himself locked out of his account (although his 'form' had already started to crumble a bit while he was still active). I think it was only in the penultimate week of the season that I and another competitor finally managed to overhaul him.

I'm top in that league again at the moment, but without a very substantial cushion; so, I imagine it will not take my local rivals very long to outpace me. But it will be interesting to see.

I've set up what I hope will be a strong squad for the remainder of the season, and it should continue to produce pretty well - unless I get hit with a lot of injuries. But of course, I will get slammed by the blank and double gameweeks that I can't adapt to. And I won't be playing that 'Assistant Manager' chip, which is potentially worth a huge number of points....

So, farewell then, my friends.....

But, as Arnie would say..... "I'LL BE BACK!"

A little bit of Zen (14)

 

"Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letterbox...."

John Lennon - 'Across the Universe'

This is one of my favourite covers of The Beatles: Fiona Apple's version of 'Across the Universe', commissioned for the soundtrack of Gary Ross's 1998 film, Pleasantville.