FANTASY FOOTBALL HIJACKED MY LIFE
“IF MY CAPTAIN DOES S**T IN A FRIDAY NIGHT GAME, IT RUINS THE WHOLE WEEKEND”
It must be the trickiest conflict for modern football fans. A Mo Salah, Harry Kane or Bruno Fernandes finds a gap inside your team’s penalty area: do you scream for defenders to intervene… or secretly hope he scores? Because that opposition hotshot is also your fantasy league captain – double points; perhaps even your Triple Captain. The question is: which team is more important?
For such a wildly accessible and increasingly huge game, fantasy football can really mess with your head. It’s not for the game-weak.
“You have to be ruthless,” says Rui Marques, who won major fantasy leagues before his move into ‘proper’ football. “I was third at the 2006 World Cup – my first big one. I was cheering against Portugal, because Bastian Schweinsteiger scored twice in the third-place play-off. I celebrated. It was against my own country, but you have to swallow your pride.”
Most of us have probably tried this simple but infuriating game – pick 15 players and amass points for every goal, assist, clean sheet and more. Many take it super seriously, though, and it’s been particularly intense over the last 18 months: as can attest, fantasy football matters more when real life goes kaput.
