Friday Football Segment 27 Oct 2017

Well here we are. Hello, bon soir, bouno sera, yassoo, hola, or as the sound round these parts, watcha.

You’ve happened to stumble across the weekly ramblings of Friday Football Segment (or FFS) for short. This acronym shouldn’t be confused with any other acronym you may be aware of, such as UEFA’s FFP for example.

If you’re reading this, then you’ve made it through the first week of New World Order. All of the pre-season friendlies are now a distant memory, and the real competitive action has kicked.

Over the coming weeks this segment will be looking at the game world in general, in a light-hearted and irreverent (irrelevant) way, to maybe put a smile on your face, and highlight that at the end of the day, it’s only a game.

I shall endeavour to mention as many teams as I can over the next few weeks so that nobody feels left out. Fenerbahce, Zamalek, Boca Juniors, Legia Warsaw, both Barcelonas, AIK and Malmo, that’s eight of you out the way already.

So, where do we start? After match day two, we are still none the wiser as to the teams to look out for. It was anticipated before the season that the divisions were going to be tight and competitive, and that’s proving the case with only 14 of the 100 clubs maintaining a 100% record. The only thing that can be said with any degree of certainty is that it looks a long season for Ajax!

There’s plenty of match analysis to read via the blogs within the NWO web page, or there’s the opportunity to read the match comments for all games through Soccer Manager if that floats your boat. However, to sum most of it up, either “we was robbed”, or “inspired tactical substitutions” can be applied to most matches, the former for a loss and the latter for a win.

While I take my proverbial hat off to the likes of Hertha Berlin and Liverpool for starting the season with the maximum points, and in fairness you can only beat who you play, a truer picture of the stronger teams in each division can only be garnered after half a dozen matches or so.

One thing that did catch my eye from the first week of matches was the somewhat disappointing attendance figures for the top two divisions. It seems that, as in real life, glamour sells. It had some managers regretting the splurge on players of their £50 million kitty when wages were hitting them in the accounts department. Maybe they’ll be in Division 5 sooner rather than later as bankruptcy kicks in and demotion with transfer embargoes is enforced.

There’s also been plenty of talk about the squad cap that’s to be enforced before the start of the second season. All of these transfers that went through prior to the season could result in a glut of sales at the end of the season. A 30 man squad doesn't go far, and it will be interesting to see how managers go about shaping their squads. One thing that I did note is the lack by some teams to use substitutes in matches, which struck me as odd considering we are talking about 100 of the most experienced and competitive managers in Soccer Manager, but hey, that’s part of the game. If I knew the winning formula I’d be using it myself.

On a statistical note, there have been 251 goals scored in the 100 matches so far, and while it’s well known that Brian Deane scored the first goal of the new Premier League era, who scored the first goal in New World Order? That won’t win you any pub quizzes, but the first manager to PM me the correct answer will win 1000 Soccer Manager credits. Get looking through those first 50 matches!

Well that’s me done for this week. A win and a loss for my team Everton so far, but as mentioned earlier, it’s only a game, nobody has died, and life goes on. It’s all a bit of fun, I just have to remember to restock on alcohol for writing next week’s FFS! Have a great week kids.