I sat all night cracking the code
I was shaking all over when I found out what the secret was
The collision trajectory is calculated accurately
Every moment that passes shortens the distance
On February 1, a very insignificant event happened on his face.
An anonymous Norwegian guy has opened a Twitter profile dedicated to Fantasy Premier League. Dozens of similar profiles open daily but this account was not like all the accounts.
FPL Insider, which as of this writing already has over 56,000 followers, tweeted five tweets that day, all in the same two regular formats and one of them caught the eyes of Premier League fantasy fans all over the world –
“Andy Robertson took out his teammate Sadio Mane.”
This is where the story begins, but as far as it goes, that Norwegian fantasy fan did not dream about it either.
They knew very well where all this would lead
But lost control after it started
Many days have passed since the launch of the Premier League’s fantasy game in the 02/03 season. While then about 75,000 people took part in the game, in recent seasons the game’s popularity has grown tremendously and this season the number of participating teams has crossed 8 million (it is important to note that the actual number of players is closer to 3.5 million as there are more than a million inactive teams , A large number of players with multiple teams and thousands of teams that are opened every round by players who are already active).
One of the reasons for the rising popularity is that the Premier League is actively promoting the game, including through an official Twitter page (which recently turned out to be operated by the same operator of the league’s official Twitter page), a weekly program, monthly awards and more. Beyond that, the league encourages Premier League players to take part in the game, holds weekly interviews with the players about their fantasy teams in the weekly program where they are asked for recommendations on which members of their team they recommend buying.
Leeds striker Patrick Bumford recently spoke in an interview after a game against Leicester about playing a fantasy game. “Thanks to you, I got 13 points in my fantasy team,” the interviewer told him at the end of the interview (readers who play will now rightly say to themselves “those were 15 points”). “You know what? I watched the Captain movie myself! I’m really angry,” he replied Bumford And in a moment fantasy fantasy enters the worlds and the hearts of fantasy actors all over the world.
And that’s exactly the point. By promoting the fantasy and encouraging players to take an active part in it, the Premier League brand is strengthened. Fans feel close to players who in turn receive thousands of tags on Twitter before and after each game and in rare cases like with last season’s Rahim or Alan San Maximan, also respond directly to fans.
It’s something global, it’s not my point
It’s Mega Abu Mega and it’s not friendly
Back to our Norwegian friend and the Twitter page in question. The same Norwegian guy who simply calls himself “Henning” has managed to make headlines in England and annoy one in particular, Dean Smith, Aston Villa coach.
What Henning actually did was deafen the fantasy pool, find the teams of active players and leagues in which they participate, cross-reference information with the popular computer game Football Manager and LinkedIn to find staff members working in teams like masseurs, analysts, and even head chefs. He then created a bot that alerts if one of those players / teammates brought in or took out one of his team’s players, which can only be known after the deadline set for the upcoming fantasy round, but in some cases that team’s game will not take place in the next 48 hours. This was exactly the case before the 25th cycle which began on 19 February.
The bot spotted no less than five players and staff members who took Villa star Jack Grillish out of their fantasy squad ahead of the home game against Leicester in two days. Earlier, Villa fans noticed that Grillish did not appear in any of the photos the group posted on its official pages on various social networks, which immediately lit a red light in the fantasy community, Henning’s bot simply confirmed the rumors.
An hour before the opening whistle the official line-ups arrived and the matter became official, Grillish not on the roster. Leicester won the game 2-1 when after the game Leicester coach Brendan Rodgers admitted that he had heard a rumor that Grilish was unfit. Dean Smith Boiled with rage and shouted “Investigate the leaks” from inside the club. Even Pep Guardiola spoke out when he said he did not know the fantasy game specifically but that he saw it as unethical.
And the problem may be different at all. Coaches hold a pre-match campaign and yet more and more coaches are scattering fog around the qualifications of players who may or may not have been in doubt for the upcoming game. Sometimes it feels like apart from Marcelo Bailesa who has reached the point where he actually counts his 11th game against West Ham last December Lottie who often gives accurate information about the fitness of his players in the journey before the game, all the other coaches donate as little information as possible. Very prominent in this matter is Nono Aspirito Santo, The Wolves coach, who before each game says the same phrase: “We have some issues with some of the players.”
I downloaded satellite operating software
Everything from this laptop I have had for years
What coaches like Dean Smith have a hard time understanding is that it is unrealistic in the current era to hide the injury of a key player, certainly without the cooperation of every little factor in the club, from the photographer and media team to Kitman, the costume manager. In the end every club has a few people who are (ITK (in the know in secret). Someone knows someone who works at the club and things come out. From huge transfers that are denied by all parties (and finally executed) to a surprising bench of one of the team stars.
Every football fan, whether he plays fantasy or not, has a way to get reliable information (who is more who is less) from a day or two to the game and up to a quarter of an hour to publish the teams, just depends on what accounts he follows and how fast he knows how to do 1 + 1. Which makes coaches’ attempts to hide injury information a little pathetic at best and simply archaic at worst. And keep in mind, this is not a huge surprise that is hard to prepare for. It’s not Pep’s roulette that you never know who will go up in a given game and not even a player who came back earlier than usual when the opponent is not ready for it. This is a leading player suffering from an injury, when in any case the opponent will receive this news about an hour and a bit to open and will be able to make the necessary adjustments. And most importantly, despite the recent attacks on the Twitter account of that Norwegian who is no longer really anonymous, rumors began to circulate after information that actually came from an official Aston Villa media account.
Meanwhile Henning has already announced that he will not stop activating the Twitter account, but at the request of staff members from various clubs he has agreed to hide the names of the staff members only when he changes their names and positions with generic adjectives such as “1/2/3 grade staff member”. The Premier League players will probably not stop playing fantasy, in part because the league wants them to continue to do so. Coaches will surely require their players to be less transparent in the transfers they make in their fantasy teams (a week after the fiasco with teammate Grillish Matt Target returned him to his team when the whole world knows Grillish is injured) and whoever has not volunteered too much information will probably not change his ways in the foreseeable future.
And if you were wondering which team exactly is the ninja fan? So this is Aston Villa.
Quietly Quietly.
