football – Page 12 – The Jeff Kenna League

How to pick a winning tournament team

Tempting at this time of year: Andres Iniesta scores goals and gets assists

MANAGING a team in regular fantasy football contests offers little true variance.

Sitting at your computer and picking the same two strikers 100,000 others have, while the War Office reminds you it’s bin day tomorrow is unpreferred.

Having to then spend the tournament logging on to make transfers and, God forbid, ‘pick captains’, is quite frankly unacceptable.

In the Olisadebe auction, managers lock horns in that most competitive of arenas, the pub.

Once the auction’s over, managers are free to enjoy the tournament in the patented Ruud Gullit ‘bars and discotheques’ style.

For the uninitiated, here an idiot’s guide to the rules:

Each manager has £100m to buy 11 players in a 4-4-2 formation
Each team may have no more than one player of each nationality
Managers breaking the rules are subject to the Titus Bramble Ruling.

The second rule in particular makes the Olisadebe ultimately challenging. Buying a bottom-drawer player from a top team is folly.

Going around the table, each gaffer takes it in turns to introduce a player to the bidding. The auction ends when every team is filled.

The Olisadebe ‘Brambles’ will be announced next week.

What experience tells us

Looking below at the top performers from the last international tournament, the Doctor Khumalo 2010 World Cup, the immediate thought is: what the bejabbers was someone up to spending £31.5m on a holding midfielder like Schweinsteiger?

During a domestic season, steady Eddies like Bastian ‘Pig-overseer’, making regular appearances and nicking the odd goal can be useful.

But in tournament football, where an absolute maximum of six games awaits, the only successful midfielders are those scoring just as many goals as their striking counterparts (Wesley Sneijder).

Forwards regularly finding the net and back fives from organised teams picking up clean sheets offer the best return on investment.

Creative wing backs getting assists and goals, while their side keeps clean sheets, are a handy addition.

The second thing you’ll notice from the table is that some household names went for chicken feed. There are three reasons for this:

all the other managers had bought their quota from that country (Iker Casillas)
those at the auction simply hadn’t considered that player of value (Thomas Muller)
the player had initially been bought for a large sum, forfeited through the Titus Bramble Ruling and bought on the cheap later in the evening (David Villa)

Top European’s from the 2010 Khumalo World Cup in South Africa

Name	Position	Country	Points	Auction price
Thomas Muller	Striker	Germany	42	£0.5m
Wesley Sniejder	Midfielder	Netherlands	40	£36m
David Villa	Striker	Spain	39	£0.5m
Iker Casillas	Goalkeeper	Spain	35	£0.5m
Gerard Pique	Defender	Spain	33	£22m
Carlos Puyol	Defender	Spain	33	£1m
Sergio Ramos	Defender	Spain	28	£1m
Mesut Ozil	Midfielder	Germany	26	£0.5m
Miroslav Klose	Striker	Germany	25	£7m
Manuel Neuer	Goalkeeper	Germany	24	£0.5m
Phillipe Lahm	Defender	Germany	22	£13.5m
Arne Friedrich	Defender	Germany	22	£1m
Arjen Robben	Midfielder	Netherlands	21	£15m
Bastian Schweinsteiger	Midfielder	Germany	21	£31.5m
Andres Iniesta	Midfielder	Spain	20	£19m
Giovanni van Bronckhorst	Defender	Netherlands	20	£5m

Follow the auction live on Twitter @jeffkennaleague or #eurosauction on Tuesday 29 May from 7pm (BST)

Look out for more news and features about the Olisadebe in the build up to the auction.

Final 2011/12 Kenna table

AS ROMAN Abramovich composes his classified ad for the Russian oligarch equivalent of Autotrader (‘millions spent, could run well for another year or so’), another season of domestic football draws to a close.

For the sake of posterity (and to make room on the homepage for the upcoming Emmanuel Olisadebe European Cup), the final league standings for 2011/12 can be found below.

Final Kenna League standings 2011/12

Alan Hansen’s coloured performance chart

George Bush gets down — “No, no, no, that’s wrong. This is how you ask for marajuana in Coldharbour Lane.”

LIKE KING Kenny’s chances of being down with the kids of Brixton, the season is well and truly over.

To complement January’s big mid-season review, the Kenna has added the second half’s performance chart to the mix (below).

Back in early January, Lokomotiv Leeds had enjoyed a prosperous Christmas and dislodged FC Testiculadew from the top of the table.

FCT’s response was emphatic.

Producing what will probably turn out to be one of the highest-scoring months in Kenna history, Wayne Rooney & co were so rampant for the first four weeks of the calendar year that their manager wasn’t even inclined to attend the February transfer window.

Having lost Yaya Touré to the battlefields of Africa, Lokomotiv’s form nosedived in January and February, leaving FCT to sail over the line.

Meanwhile at the other end, Polonia Forsyth didn’t exceed average performance for the entire season.

Lurliners, Vasco De Beauvoir and the Dan Terry Seduction almost joined them.

So what does the aristocrat of Match of the Day punditry make of all this?

“Pace. Power. Determination. FC Testiculadew have it all in hatfuls.

“Solid at the back. Tight in midfield. When they get the ball in the final third, they’ve got that killer pass that makes all the difference.

“If I were to describe them in one word, it would be ‘quality’.

“When I was at Liverpool…”

We’re sure Alan will be back to provide some more insightful analysis in the near future.

Alan Hansen's coloured performance chart 2011-12 — Alan Hansen’s coloured performance chart 2011-12

End-of-season prizes announced

Tiger — Cheerio, cheerio, cheerio: all three sacked managers picked up turkey of the month awards

THANKS to their league and cup double, in addition to August and January’s Manager of the Month awards, the FC Testiculadew manager has earned a tidy £212.80 this season.

Despite picking up three MOTMs, the Lokomotiv Leeds boss could only muster second place, but still goes home with £79.80.

Steady Newington Reds couldn’t impress in any particular month, but came third to pocket their gaffer £19.

The managers of Just Put Carles, Pikey Scum, Spartak Mogadishu, Young Boys and Judean Peoples’ Front all trousered £11.40 each.

At the other end, the now-former Thieving Magpies manager scooped three turkeys of the month to go with his relegation Giro queue invite.

El Gran Cat-fight

Just Put Carles sink below PSV for first time
War of words erupts between Catalan managers

Donkey derby: the battle for 12th refuses to be a peaceful one

HOSTILITIES have been declared between the Kenna’s Barcelona contingent.

The knives were out in ‘La Liga Latina’ after early-season front runners Just Put Carles dipped to thirteenth in the table, one place below fierce Catalan rivals PSV Mornington.

Comments made by the JPC manager at a post-match interview on Wednesday evening ignited the row.

“N’hi ha per llogar-hi cadires!” fumed the JPC boss, in a language only a handful of people understand, when asked what it was like to be below PSV for the first time in the season.

Yesterday morning’s front cover of Sport, Catalonia’s best-selling sports daily, featured a cartoon depicting the PSV boss trying to lure passers by into an empty stadium.

“Tallo el bacallà!”

The PSV manager’s response was unequivocal. Interviewed through the window of his Continental city car arriving at work yesterday he said: “Sabràs dos i dos quants fan. Està tocat del bolet. Tallo el bacallà!”

By Thursday lunchtime, the quote was all over the news. Photoshopped pictures of the JPC boss eating cod and mushrooms went viral.

“Ets un somiatruites i un tap de bassa!,” said the JPC manager emerging from his afternoon siesta when quizzed by reporters about his rival Catalan’s comments.

Mexican stand-off

Late Thursday evening, the PSV boss was forced to abandon his customary, midnight, family paella to address the rabble of hacks assembled outside his house.

“No sabeu el pa que s’hi dóna,” is all he would explain to Sky Sports News while eating a suspiciously-large piece of nougat and making a flicking gesture with his thumb and front teeth.

Even though just five points separate the two teams, both managers repeatedly refuse to acknowledge they are in a ‘Mexican stand-off’ for 12th place.

They outrageously claim the British media are ‘portraying negative stereotypes of Hispanic culture’.

As the Kenna moves into the final month of the season, the spat appears far from over.

Quick guide to Catalan idioms

N’hi ha per llogar-hi cadires! > You could even rent chairs with this!
(I can’t believe it / this is incredible – in a negative context)
Sabràs dos i dos quants fan > you know what two and two make
(There will be consequences if I do not get my way)
Està tocat del bolet > He is touched by the mushroom
(He is crazy)
Tallo el bacallà > I cut the cod
(I’m in a position of power)
Ets un somiatruites > He is an omelette dreamer
(He is a daydreamer)
No sabeu el pa que s’hi dóna > You do not know the bread that is given
(You do not really know what is this about)

For more information about Catalan idioms and the region itself visit All about Catalonia.

Bikini bottom

It’s an unnerving time for the mid-table Kenna manager.

Dangling above, FC Testiculadew are slowly drawing in to tea bag the rest of the league.

Lying below, the tangled mess of Hairy Fadjeetas writhes unenticingly with just seven points this week.

“Sh1t! Football is sh1t!” fumed an apoplectic Fadjeetas boss from the rolled-down driver’s window of his 1995 Renault Clio, before checking the mirror, looking both ways and pulling away at a brisk, but ultimately sensible, speed from the hack pack outside the club’s Bikini Lane ground.

Somehwere between the rotten balls and manky bush lurks the thorny issue of seks and drug allegations in the Judean Peoples’ Front camp.

“We’re doing everything we can to get Titus back to full two-appearance-points status,” said the JPF manager, while breathing heavily down the phone to a girl on the witness protection scheme.

The Friday Poll: Tevez or Fabregas?

The word ‘wantaway’ crops up every summer to the chagrin of the Kenna manager.

With the auction taking place three weeks before the end of the transfer window, there’s always a risk of blowing the budget on a ‘top, top, top, top‘ player for him to do one before the season has even begun.

In no time has the risk been higher than now, with captains Cesc Fabregas and Carlos Tevez both heavily tipped to either leave, be frozen out by their manager or fly to Luxembourg at half time

So with the potential for either player to stay in England and rack up a Kenna-winning points total, which player is more likely to go for the most money at auction?

[polldaddy poll=5255561]

Latin heat

PSV Mornington manager — Iberians: a compact style of play

The Iberian peninsular produces some of the most technically-gifted football players in the world.

But in one of the few lands where no one can agree lyrics for the national anthem, which language claims supremacy on the pitch?

Ever responsive to the feedback of managers, the number crunchers at HQ have conducted another study of similar depth and learning to last week’s look at the Kenna slavic contingent.

Spanish, Basque, Catalan, Valencian, Aragonese and, for good measure, Portuguese players have been pitched against each other to determine precisely which brand of tiki-taka managers should adopt next season.

The outcome

From the small data set available, it’s concluded that Valencian players offer the best return. Basque players are also a good investment, provided they’re not extorted for revolutionary tax by their fellow countrymen. The Portuguese are an excellent choice and Castilians are a safe bet.

Players from Aragon and Catalonia are overrated and should be left well alone.

Castilian

Player	Club	10/11 points	Value (£m)	Points/£m
F Torres	FC Gun Show	127	33	3.85
J Reina	Thieving Magpies	107	1.5	71.33
D Silva	Deportivo Kensington	140	19	7.37
C Cuellar	Athelico Temple	29	7	4.14
	Total	403	60.5	6.67

Basque

Player	Club	10/11 points	Value (£m)	Points/£m
M Arteta	Athletico Temple	89	9.5	9.37

Valencian

Player	Club	10/11 points	Value (£m)	Points/£m
J Enrique	Bashers FC	93	1	93

Catalan

Player	Club	10/11 points	Value (£m)	Points/£m
C Fabregas	Athletico Temple	118	43	2.74

Aragonese

Player	Club	10/11 points	Value (£m)	Points/£m
M Almunia	PSV Mornington	36	9	4

Portuguese

Player	Club	10/11 points	Value (£m)	Points/£m
Nani	Dynamo Temple	171	8	21.38