Fantasy Premier League : Is it just a game or is it ruining the EPL?

For those of you who do not know about it, Fantasy premier league is an online game which has been running for quite sometime but really got going in the last two seasons and the football fans have been following it almost as keenly as the matches itself.

To kick things off, let me give a couple of examples to all the fans out there who follow the English premier league and at the same time show good interest in the Fantasy premier league :

Let us say you support some club and your club has a weekend match against a team whose main striker is the captain of your fantasy team. Ok, that sounded confusing. I’ll give an example to make it less complex. You support Manchester United who have a weekend match against Arsenal and Van Persie is your captain in the fantasy game. As a true fan, you would obviously want United to win. But let us say the score at half time is 3-0 in favor of your team. You then have a quick look at your fantasy table. The person closest to you has Rooney as captain who let us assume has 1 goal and 1 assist and is leading you.

Referee Howard Webb talks with Wayne Rooney, Ashley Young and Ryan Giggs of Manchester United during the Barclays Premier League match between Sunderland and Manchester United at Stadium of Light on May 13, 2012.

Now comes my question, “Did you secretly want Van Persie to score 2 goals and hope the match ended 3-2 and also pray Rooney (I’m assuming your favorite player) doesn’t score any more”?? (In the hope that you are not a plastic; or u would want RVP to score a hat trick or even more)

Another scenario : You support Arsenal and you have the likes of Bale, Terry Modric and Ivanovich in your team. You want Spurs and Chelsea to lose, not only because they are your two fiercest rivals, but also because all the three teams are closely fighting for the 3rd place in the table. So suppose Chelsea kept a clean sheet; were you satisfied with the big points you got through their defenders instead of being sad that they did not lose? Or if Spurs won the game 2-0 with Bale and Modric scoring, were you pleased and convinced yourself by saying “Never mind, they did me a big favor this week but they will surely lose the next week “?

I hope by now, you must have understood the point i’m trying to make here.

A few of you might not care about the fantasy and all you care about is your team’s win and your rival’s loss. Respect to you lot.

But if you found yourself in the above scenarios or something close to it in the last two years, then this article is for you. And I’m sure there are a good number of fans out there who have experienced this. A few reasons why to treat it just as a game and not to get too involved in it :

• Your love for your club is reducing : You might be a big-time supporter of your club and go on verbal wars online in order to save your clubs prestige but then quickly open the fantasy game in a new browser and chose to select the game over your club. It is just a fun game to pass your time and premier league (or for that matter football) is leagues above it. You are, in a way, hampering your love for your club, knowingly or unknowingly.
• You will not win anything: Well unless you are in the top 100 out of the 2 million contestants.
• How much more stress?: You have to follow the premier league, cope with your team dropping points, then face the other fans. You might not care what they have to say, but you are certainly not happy when your team doesn’t win. Why do you want to take this game seriously and add more stress to your life? You will probably ruin a good weekend feeling bad about your fantasy teams loss despite the win by your favorite club.
• You are not a plastic, but are you turning into one?: This question arises when you select that footballer whom you’ve been taunting all season but pray he scores so your fantasy team does well. A few examples : Gooners and Clichy/Cole, Red Devils and Balotelli, Citizens and Reds choosing Rooney, Blues selecting RVP etc.

Well I’ve been following the premier league for close to 10 years now and have a fantasy team since the past two years and also have done well in the game, mind you. And I am very much looking forward to both the Premier league as well as the Fantasy premier league the coming season. But never have I hoped for a rival striker to score despite him being the captain of my fantasy team. It’s a game, take it as a game, enjoy your football matches and move on.