It’s fantasy football league

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Chelsea’s new manager, Andre Villas-Boas is unlike his counterparts for the simple reason that he has never played professional football. However, football critics often hail this former FC Porto manager as a ‘tactical genius’.

Theoretically speaking from the example of Villa-Boas, you don’t have to be a football player to manage a football team. For somebody who seems so unlike a manager in real life, the virtual world is a plausible and practical option.

The Fantasy Football Manager, the official game of the English Premier League, and other similar online games are where football lovers log on to apply their managerial skills. The gamers create a team selecting players from the various football clubs, make predictions about goal scorers and get points based on the performance of the players.

The game goes on for a complete season and requires the gamers to closely follow the happenings in the world of football from things like who will be playing the next game and is he in form or injured or is he likely to score and various other calculations that truly require a manager’s brain.

“It is like when you were in school and the teacher tells you to write about a subject such as, ‘If you were the prime minister, what are the things you would do?,” says Samuel Abraham, a soccer fan based in Delhi, who plays the online game.

“The games are challenging, because you never know who will win or who will score but you make a guess and pick somebody. It’s really all about following the game closely. I’m a Manchester City fan and they are doing great after their two games and I have picked their players in my team so it was a lucky week for me. I don’t know how things will go for the rest of the season,” said Samuel.

There are reasons aplenty—prizes or passion or time pass — for gamers to fantasise. Vishnuprasad S. Pillai, a student based in Hyderabad is a Football Manager buff who does it for the excitement and the thrill he derives.

“I’ve been playing for the last four years. It’s all about the thrill and excitement of getting to manage a football club, predicting and picking players who we think will perform well on each game week and also beating your friends and rivals and getting the maximum points,” says Vishnuprasad.

“I follow all the matches praying for my players to get goals and clean-sheets. I’m an Arsenal fan and my club is having a bad patch, but I’m glad that my fantasy team has been performing well so that gives some relief,” he says.

You heard them. If you love football and have a dream to be a football manager, log on, lie back and boast about running a football team — virtual or real! Get addicted!