When it comes to England matches, you're supposed to put club loyalties aside - Arsenal and Tottenham fans must grudgingly admit that John Terry has his uses, and Evertonians temporarily forgive Wayne Rooney his treachery. But how far does club loyalty affect your attitude to the rest of the World Cup?
"We've got 11 teams to support out there", one Arsenal-supporting friend said to me - and I saw what he meant as I cheered Freddie Ljungberg's goal for Sweden against Paraguay.
There are 16 premiership sides with representatives at the world cup, not to mention four from the SPL and quite a few from the lower divisions. Arsenal lead the way with 16 players from 11 countries - England France, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Brazil, Czech Republic, Ivory Coast, Sweden and Togo - and Chelsea have 15 from nine countries. So we decided to rank the premiership's foreign legion according to fantasy football scores: 3 for a goal, 2 for an assist, and for defenders, 1 for appearing, 3 for a cleant sheet and -1 for a goal against. The results were interesting.
Chelsea are riding high, unsurprisingly - they do have a clutch of top strikers among their foreign contingent. By the end of week one, Crespo had scored twice, with Drogba and Robben hitting the net too. But England's two clean sheets have also helped the big three, all represented in the England defence. I felt slightly guilty to be awarding Arsenal six points for Tomas Rocicky's pair of goals for the Czech republic; the new signing's seen no Arsenal action at all, whereas at least Theo Walcott's had the odd run-out for the reserves. But hey, that's the rules!
It may also be objected that, unlike 'real' fantasy football, this is blatantly unfair - some teams are fielding 15 or 16 players, while others - Everton, Reading, Dundee United - have just the one. It's true that Aston Villa (3 players, 14 points) are punching above their weight, courtesy of Ecuador defender Ulises de la Cruz and Sweden's Olof Mellberg. But there's no doubt that the big teams with lots of expensive internationals are comfortably ensconced at the top of this league. Then again, is that so different from the premiership?
I'd love to see how it looked for former players. Viduka, Kewell, Ferdinand, Robinson - Leeds United would almost be in contention.
Posted by: George Wainwright | Friday, 16 June 2006 at 07:19 PM