Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.
Finished the book Tales From The Secret Footballer by The Secret Footballer. The first thing that needs to be said is that I've not read the original I Am The Secret Footballer by the secret soccerista. However what this sequel seems to be is some sort of mixture between gossipy autobiography, more personal accounts and his opinions on various aspects of the game that his experiences have led him to.
Given that this is it's selling point the worst parts were the gossip. There was no tale that surprised me. Secrets but no revelations. Of course the secret that could change all of this is the one our author keeps to himself. Names. Players,clubs,managers and of course him, one detail is studiously avoided I presume at the insistence of lawyers. It makes this aspect, for the reader, unsatisfactory
But the Secret Footballer is an intelligent man. His opinions are far more deeper than you would normally expect from a sportsman and the chapter on depression is worth a read by itself. If I was to give it a mark out of ten it's that chapter that pushes it to a seven.
So the library books are now read and the earliest I can possibly change them is Monday. Which means I need to get a new book from the great unread which turns out to be......
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| Breaking Vegas - Ben Mezrich |
This is one of those books where a geek takes on the gambling house at Vegas. This time though the game isn't poker but the less sexy blackjack. Bought this book many years ago attracted as I was by it's cheapness being ex library. Didn't know about the rules of blackjack then and I still don't now. But that doesn't matter. I've found that not knowing the rules of say, poker, doesn't harm your enjoyment of the game if the writer can tell a good story. Victoria Coren being an example of this.
When I was looking through the great unread to get the next book to read I noticed a few fantasy football books (the football here being of the American variety). Realising that the Premiership season was just a week away I suddenly thought I'd give it a go. Have tried it before. Rarely with success though. Only once,in the nineties, did it go surprisingly well thanks to Alan Shearer,a few Manchester United defenders and Dennis Wise (very quickly here I'd noticed - not analysed - that every other goal Chelsea scored at that time was either by, or assisted by the minuscule saged one).
Anyway I've made no pretence of winning for this team picked from the Daily Telegraph's Fantasy Football. Wanted to go as random as possible. Originally I'd thought of going all Dice man but that didn't work out because too many players were not assured to be in the first eleven. So instead I've deliberately picked a team that consists one player from the top eleven teams from last season with two exceptions. One is West Ham because I've a superstition that picking any man from the team I follow turns their form to mush (it's happened - trust me). So in this case I've deliberately picked a player from the team that came twelfth - Swansea City. The other is that just for fun I've picked one player outside that first eleven/twelve so another higher placed team was dropped completely.
The team called of course Sopra La Luna (which means over the moon in Italian) is:
Butland - Stoke City
Bellerin - Arsenal
Lovren - Liverpool
Stones - Everton
Morgan - Leicester City
Toure - Manchester City
Sigurdsson - Swansea City
Willian - Chelsea
Tadic - Southampton
Defoe - Sunderland
Ibrahimovic - Manchester United
The missing team here is Tottenham
No player is going to be changed whatever happens unless they are for whatever reason out of the team. In these circumstances he will be replaced by a player from that same club.
As I said before this team won't win. I will however have the comfort of knowing that it will beat at least one person who picked a team through logarithms and computer programs
We shall see how well it does. I'll probably be looking at it properly every Tuesday.
Until the next time
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