It’s that time of year again. Football fans around the globe are pouring over player statistics in newspapers and on websites convinced they can build a fantasy team that will bring them untold fame and fortune.
Okay. I exaggerate. But trips to the Champions League final, match tickets, official replica team shirts, PlayStations and other great prizes are up for grabs in OleOle’s recently launched Fantasy Football competition.
There are five European leagues to choose from: the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, French Ligue 1 or the German Bundesliga. There is also OleOle’s exclusive European Super League, in which you can select players from all five country leagues.
Being a proud Englishman I’ve chosen to concentrate on the world’s best league, the English Premier League, mostly because my knowledge of European football is somewhat limited (some would say my knowledge of the English Premier League isn’t much better; let’s not go there).
So I present to you the Roadhouse Blues, a team consisting of three Aston Villa players, three Wigan players, two from Portsmouth, and one each from Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City, West Bromwich Albion, Everton, West Ham United and, last but not least, Chelsea, all managed by old school wheeler dealer Harry Redknapp.
4-4-2: Brad Friedel; Paul Scharner, Ricardo Carvalho, Martin Laursen, Joleon Lescott; Jimmy Bullard, Ashley Young, Niko Kranjcar, Luis Antonio Valencia; Luke Moore, Jermain Defoe.
Subs: Joe Hart, Matthew Upson, Wilson Palacios, Giovanni Dos Santos.
Chelsea Blog regulars BlueBoyDave and LimeTreeBower inspired me in my decision not to include any Arsenal, Liverpool or Manchester United players. I like a challenge. And I intend to stick to this rule throughout the season.
I’ve set up a Chelsea Blog mini-league (yes, you are permitted to select players from the red teams!). Simply pick your English Premier League side then join the mini-league named ‘chelseablogpremier‘ using the password ‘chelseablog‘. I will add the mini-league table to the blog soon.
If you fancy competing on two fronts, LimeTreeBower has set up a Chelsea Blog mini-league at the Guardian newspaper’s Fantasy Football site. League name is ‘ChelseaBloggaz‘, password is ‘musumba‘. I shall enter my team in the very near future.
Good luck and all that.
Let it roll, baby, roll…
Update: Jonathan’s preview of the season is in today’s Observer newspaper. You can read it online here.
