So you’re not a football fan, it still should not matter. Sports fan or not, everyone can enjoy fantasy sports. Fantasy Premier League is a game where you assemble an imaginary team composed of real life players and score points based on their actual performance. It’s not the kind of game where you need to sit in front of a TV screen holding a plastic controller. It’s not even time consuming if you don’t want it to be.
What you may need to do is just a little research on who the players are and which ones could offer the most value. It is not extensive research needed too, you can take a casual approach and still find entertainment value. There is a large global community and a relatively big local one too which should make for good comradery.
Here is how you play Fantasy Premier League:
You take on the role of a team manager. You start with $100m and select your team using that amount. The players’ costs range from $4m to $13m, with previous performances of the players determining that cost. You have to select a team of 15. As you have noticed, $100m for 15 players gives an average cost per player of less than $7m whilst some players cost as high as $13. That’s where the fun begins. You can’t simply buy the best players.
The team also needs to be balanced i.e 2 goalkeepers, 5 defenders, 5 midfielders and 3 strikers. You can’t just pack your team with strikers and call it a day. You also cannot simply buy players from just one team as the limit is 3 players from one club.
As mentioned above the goal is to score as many points as possible. Real life performances of the players are looked at to award points. For example a goalkeeper will score points for not conceding a goal and a striker will score points for, uh, scoring goals.
The real fun then comes from various other stuff like Chips where you can choose an all out attack with just 2 defenders or choose to triple your captain’s points for example. The choice of captain and vice captain is important and you can that every week. There are a lot of other strategies you can apply but you can also ignore most of this other stuff and still score well.
There are prizes for the best performers in the Fantasy Premier League from T-shirts to a 7 days, all expenses paid trip to the U.K. Football fan or not who wouldn’t want that. The 7 day trip goes to the global leader which means it is hard to win so don’t go in expecting to clinch it. There are weekly, monthly and season prizes on offer. You probably won’t ever win any though so don’t be too expectant. This is not because of discrimination but because of fierce competition.
You can also join other leagues (or groups) where there may be prizes too including cash money. There are various Zimbabwean leagues where there are prizes for manager of the week up to manager of the season. These you could win. You will be surprised when you see just how many Zimbos are playing Fantasy Premier League. At the very least it makes for good conversation and light-hearted ribbing with friends. You can create your own league with just your buddies too and go crazy.
As you can see, you don’t need to play like a pro or even like the sport to enjoy this wonderful game. You can get started by creating an account here and let the fun begin. Who knows you could be headed to the U.K come end of season (not likely) or at least get to laugh at your football loving friend after you beat him. If you already play can you share your experience so others can see what they are missing.
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