Saturday, March 8, 2008

Keegan we have a problem

In France we get to watch live Premier league games on a Saturday afternoon at 3pm (uk time). I decided to watch Liverpool/Newcastle yesterday, primarily because I support Liverpool, and secondly Kevin Keegan is really car crash tv at the minute with his rabbit in the headlights look as his team usually sinks without a trace by half-time.


As that first deflected shot somehow ended up in the Newcastle goal, closely followed by a nice second, I knew Keegan was sunk, he knew it himself though he was still going to be forced to endure another 45mins from the sidelines.


As I smiled at poor old Kev I started to wonder what his life is like when he goes home, how does he manged to sleep after a game like that, when which they had played ok until the first goal and then folded. I also started to think about my first week with FC Kennington in the FML beta so far my team had played really well and won much more than it had lost, even though I did not really have a 'star player' in my team is football management really as torturous as Keegan makes it look?


As the 3rd Liverpool goal went in, and my Federation game window grew closer I decided it was time to stop watching and start my federation matches, you know show Kev how things are done. I should point out that confident football manager player are not usually words I would use to describe myself, I prefer to manage a small unnoticed team and toil away for many thankless years trying to give the team a bit of glory. So as I logged into the game knowing that according to the FML ranking system I was now the second best team in my qualification group, I was starting to believe my own hype, and thought lets give these kids a lesson in football management.


What happened next I can only describe as the curse of the Keegan.


I started off with a game against a team which was doing pretty poorly so I though I should be good enough to win (I wasn't!). In the second game I was playing an early high flyer so I did not know what to expect, as it turns out he had signed a star player (Wagner Love) who gave me a torid time and I slumped to my second defeat. I was starting to get quite deflated (more Avram Grant like than Jose Mourinho), I decided to play the guy with Wagner Love in his team again (just to get it out of the way) but somehow conspired to beat his team quite convincingly Love had a poor game and it seems under those conditions his team were a lesser force. With my fourth match against a guy living up to his team name (he had just beaten the top team who then stopped with all the banter and disappeared offline, Oh dear!) I managed to win a tight game and felt we were closely matched.


At this point I should of logged off and cut my loses for another day my team was doing ok, but my lone striker Gomis was not playing great, I should have just left the fed matches alone or played a few friendlies to see if I could sort my team out. Alas like the gambler chasing his losses I wanted to play just one more game to try and get the 1 more victory so I could claim my night was a success. Up next was a team called Toxteth Tigers, I had never played this team but their rank and run of recent results suggested I should have the upper hand. The first game starts and I go 1-0 up, playing well making chances I felt I was right to have that one more game... come full time I have lost 2-1 having 18 shots on goal to Toxteth's 3! I could not believe I had lost I was totally shocked. To deal with occasions like this on fml you can set your online status to do not disturb which means other managers cannot challenge you. This gives you time to regain your composure and perspective chill for a minute, decide that your losing streak is not going to end tonight. I on the other hand did not do this as I sat there stunned Toxteth sent my a challenge to play our second match, I could not resist the temptation to right a footballing wrong!


However by this time I was not thinking straight the panic had set in I started to make strange choices in both tactics and player selection, I was starting to feel very much like Keegan at this point. Had I walked away I would have known the way I was making choices would only lead to defeat and I really regret playing that last game last night. I lost 1-0 and played very very poorly. I now felt completely deflated (again) and the chances of my qualifying for the Premier league of my federation have probably died out.


So as I stood there last night doing the washing up replaying the games I played and the bad choices I had made I had the distinct feeling that the fml honeymoon period was over and that I would be in for a difficult federation season this was probably very much how Keegan was feeling at the same time too though I bet his hands were dry.



I should lastly point out that all the fed games were played against really great guys we had some good banter and it was all very light hearted, and if any of you ever read this I do wish you all the best of luck!


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