Much like the start of the actual season, the start of fantasy football promised unlimited success and fortune; each pick was a masterstroke, each omission a calmly-calculated maneuver. Commitment had waned in recent years, but glory was ripe for the picking, and the possibilities were endless. A silly game, sure, but most of our pride in sport is wrapped up in taking silly games way too seriously, leaving fantasy football as yet another opportunity to get emotionally invested in something that probably won't love us back.
Cut to Monday morning, when I remember that I was actually doing fantasy football, and come to find out that both of your esteemed leaders on the blog sit level on points at the bottom of the ESPN Fantasy Premier table after failing to follow through with actually submitting a team. In a world where moral victories are few and far between, I maintain that signing up and thinking I finalized a squad counts as a conquest of some sort. Reality says otherwise, and I'm left yet again left to lick the wounds created by my own apathy and self-loathing. Not Too Xabi earned a result fitting of his moniker, albeit one tainted by his selection of Fernando Torres. As we've learned, however, like reality, fantasy suffers no fools and offers no sentiment.
The Fantasy Premier League table offers a respite from shame and embarrassment, at least on my end of things, where the gamut runs from MurphyReds at the top, who doubled his pleasure on the back of captain Branislav Ivanovic's performance against Wigan, to poor The Mange on twelve points at the bottom, where the sending off of Daniel Agger conspired with the karma of selecting Patrice Evra to end week one in a shambles. Though in a fake league focused on a real league that is the best in the world--at least to people who come from the country in which that league is played and try to avoid watching things that might expose them to things happening outside of said country--truly anything can happen.
There is time, of course, and Liverpool's performance against West Brom reminded us that if our delusions ahead of the start of the season are proven false, all we need to do is simply adjust our delusions. My zero points in week one is not reflective of complete failure, and the length of the fantasy season leaves room for hope. The only challenge at this point is finding out how long that season actually lasts, and how I go about submitting my team this time.
Thanks for all who've taken part, and we'll continue to update our rankings throughout the season. Or at least until we forget about it again.