Wishful Thinking: Leeds Fantasy Football in a Leeds Premier League

I remember, as a ten year old, putting together my first ever fantasy football team. I was quite proud of it, until someone pointed out the chance of David Batty scoring a goal was only marginally higher than the chance of him sprouting wings and morphing into a heron.

Back then, my fantasy football strategy was this: choose the players I like best, find myself horrendously over budget, swear a bit, then replace half the team with whatever cannon fodder I could afford. In short, I picked the team with my heart, not my head. Now, of course, I have a completely different approach. I get drunk first.

I’m aware that a better way exists, but I’ve sworn a solemn vow never to take that path. In my day job I’m an analyst. I’m good at making data tell a story and know how to use it to predict what is likely to happen. It wouldn’t be hard to set up an Excel spreadsheet to calculate which players gave the best pounds-for-points return last year and pick my team accordingly.

I won’t be doing that. Data is my work and football is my leisure and I’m not going to mix the two. I don’t need to understand the internal mechanics of a rollercoaster before I board it — I’d much rather sit back and enjoy the ride. I see the importance of xG and other statistical analysis in informing a club’s transfer strategy, but I’d prefer them to stay behind the scenes because they have nothing to do with the reasons I fell in love with the game. Modern football has ruthlessly stripped out most of the magic and mystery and I need to preserve what little is left. And if that means a disappointing 9th place finish in the Shimmy Shimmy Pimps League, then it’s a price worth paying.

Please don’t think I’m a complete Luddite, or fantasy football’s answer to Dave Hockaday. I’m not dreadful at it. I’m just overly prone to irrational, sentiment-driven decisions which tend to come back to bite me on the arse at the business end of the season. I can’t quite get over my aversion to Manchester United players, which puts me at a considerable disadvantage when one of them hits a run of form. I don’t care how many points the confusing (and seemingly arbitrary) Fantasy Premier League bonus point system is going to give when Bruno Fernandes converts yet another dubious penalty. I don’t want to have the cognitive dissonance of being happy about a Manchester United goal eating away at my soul. It’s not worth it.

Last year, however, was a bit different, because Leeds United entered the equation. And, for once, my muddled, partisan thinking actually helped me. I was always going to select the maximum three Leeds players, and there were bargains everywhere. A criminally underpriced Patrick Bamford went straight in, as did penalty taker Mateusz Klich. It still kills me that I swapped Stuart Dallas out for Luke Ayling at the last minute. There was loads of cash left over so I filled the rest of the gaps in the squad, and my team — christened Derpy County — was ready for action.

Leeds, and particularly Bamford, started well, meaning Derpy County got the drop on most of the other teams in our mini-league, climbing to the top of the pile. I captained Klich for the game against Fulham (a decision fuelled by bravado and several JD and cokes) and was rewarded with a goal and an assist, the points from which were doubled. This was great. Leeds were winning and I was magically good at fantasy football even when inebriated. Everything was going to be fine from now on.

Of course, dumb luck and wishful thinking can only take you so far. My dogged reliance on Leeds players put me out of the title race by Christmas, although a strong second half of the season at Elland Road kept me at the right end of the table. Derpy County ended up sealing 3rd place in the final gameweek, thanks to an assist from Pablo Hernandez — it just didn’t feel right to have anyone else as captain that day. Tellingly, out of the eleven teams in our league, the ones finishing first, third and fourth were all managed by Leeds fans, while all the Liverpool fans gravitated to the bottom of the league. You can draw your own conclusions about the role that club bias played in that.

If I’m honest, once the initial novelty wore off, I didn’t entirely enjoy it. There were times when the fixture list threw up an unfriendly looking game for Leeds, meaning I had to exercise some pragmatism and exile my three Leeds players to the bench. I felt bad for benching Bamford when we played at Leicester, and felt more than a little daft when he promptly scored one and assisted another. As wonderful as the result was, I couldn’t quite shush the nagging little voice in my head, telling me what a silly sod I was for ever doubting him, when all I wanted to do was enjoy the win. It all just felt like unnecessary external noise, complicating the matchday experience.

This year I thought about giving it a miss, but as I write this just ahead of the season’s start, FOMO has reeled me back in. It costs nothing, after all, and I’m from Yorkshire. I’m ready to unleash the newly created Atlético Muffins on the league. And this time, in an effort to improve my fortunes, I’ve given my head free rein over my heart. I’ve ended up with fewer Leeds players as a result and, worse still, Harry Maguire and Bruno Fernandes, both of whom will be facing off against Leeds in a couple of days time. I don’t feel good about this. Let’s see how I’m feeling after the game, whether it was worth selling my soul and risking possible excommunication from TSB.

[Postscript, after the, erm, game]

Yeah. It wasn’t worth it. I fudged it. I committed the mortal sin of picking Bruno Fernandes but couldn’t bring myself to make him captain. Now I feel bad about my treachery but also annoyed that I didn’t double down on it. The end result is I’m stuck in 3rd, feeling like I should have got much more out of the resources at my disposal, having also exposed myself as a terrible hypocrite. Basically, I’m Frank Lampard. There’s a lesson in here, somewhere. ◉