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Shanghai Shenhua’s second goal v Juventus - check it out in HD!

On Saturday night we went to the enormous Shanghai Stadium to watch the Fiat Cup - a three-way (don’t) football tournament between Juventus and Parma (of Italy) and Shanghai Shenhua - our local heroes!

The setup was three 45 minute matches, in a round-robin style. I think the organizers expected Shanghai to get a drubbing in the first two fixtures, which would set up a Parma v Juve final….but in fact Shanghai pulled off a huge upset by beating Juve in the second game (and they were robbed blind in the first game because they should have had a penalty right at the end to draw it…i’m talking STONEWALL here).

It was a pretty fun experience, made even better by Niu Nai’s appearance:

…as well as the other twenty people we met for the first time on the night. Parma won overall, beating Juve on penalties after their game was 3-3 after 45 minutes! Surely the highest scoring half in Italian football history….

More videos of Juve being humbled here:
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlCQPpejw88
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYKSNW82iBE

I have been playing fantasy sports for around 10 years, starting with the Daily Telegraph’s Fantasy Football League (back when Badiel and Skinner had jobs)…through many football European and World Cups…to right now, where I am currently (relatively) active in two - premierleague.com’s fantasy football and SportingNews.com’s fantasy basketball.

One thing I had never experienced, prior to yesterday, was cheating in a league. Well, cheating may be a little harsh…perhaps ‘cynical rule bending with the sole aim to guarantee an unfair advantage over your opponents’. I won’t go into the details, but it made me wonder…is there such a thing as ‘Fantasy League Etiquette?’. And if it does exist, what does it consist of?

Looking online, the vast majority of informal rules and advice for perspective fantasy managers was regarding ‘Fantasy Drafts’ - or meetings between managers (in certain types of league) where managers select players for their teams by auction (using fantasy currency) and each player can only go to one team. I have never been involved in such a draft, but I can imagine the disputes which could arise:

Manager 1: I bid $1m
Manager 2: I bid $1.01m
Manager 1: You don’t want him! You’re just trying to get me to spend more!
Manager 2: No way man, I’ve been tracking him for 4 years!

And so on. Another tactic of some managers seems to be to prey on those who have less knowledge of the sport than them (read: who actually leave nfl.com, nba.com and mlb.com for 10mins per day to take a walk outside). They will attempt unlikely trades in the hope of getting an extremely valuable player for one of their duds:

Manager 1: I’ll trade you my Shaquille O’Neal for your Lebron James
Manager 2: Erm…I’m not sure…Lebron is pretty good isn’t he?
Manager 1: Errrr no! Shaq’s got 4 championship rings! Lebron’s only been there once and he choked!
Manager 2: Ok if you say so….

So we can see that some nefarious individuals will always try to get one over on their opponents. But a draft system is not the only system of fantasy leagues, so are there any rules which span multiple formats?

Jeff Valois, at Fantasy Football Café has clearly thought this one through, and offers one bit of etiquette which I had not really considered - the responsibility of a manager to check on their team:

4. If you’re going to join a league, check your team at least periodically.

It kills a league, especially a small one, when owners lose interest and stop maintaining their teams. A full league is whittled down to three or four teams and it feels like you’re playing solitaire rather than fantasy football. It gives a huge advantage to anyone playing that team because lineups aren’t shuffled to reflect bye weeks or personnel changes. Especially approaching the playoffs, a team’s schedule strength is important. If a team on the bubble plays a non-maintained team in the last week or two of the regular season, it could make all the difference in the league.

It almost goes without saying, but keeping a league active, even if you’re not competitive any more, makes it more fun for everyone (and of course, there are always ‘mini-battles’ to win (like beating your housemates) when the ‘big prize’ has been lost).

So we have a nice league with active players…and a nice atmosphere of friendly rivalry. Friendly rivalry?!?! Give me a break. It’s trash talk time! But doesn’t talking smack about your buddies go against the etiquette of Fantasy Sports? Not according to Joe Levit, writing on IGN.com:

DO talk trash about your victories
What better way to create some serious fantasy rivalries than to revel in your blowout victories over the other fantasy owners? Braggadocio is almost a requirement of league play. This is FFL, not the No Fun League and you need not limit your jeering to mentioning how well your own players performed. It is sometimes more effective, and more rewarding, to point out how poorly the other owner’s guys fared.

I feel liberated…so a verbal assault is justified and can, of course, make a victory more sweet - but one point to remember is that anything you give, you will get tenfold when you lose! So far so good…but what if someone has found a way to cheat in the league? Levit continues:

Swindling in fantasy football can take on many forms. Perhaps an owner will purposely draft particular players while his partner in crime drafts other positions, with the idea that they will conduct outrageous trades to stack one team to win the championship. In another roster stacking arrangement, an owner may let another know when he is dropping players so his collaborator can quickly, and seemingly legally, add them to his lineup. Any of these attempts at petty theft obviously ruin the integrity of the league.

The integrity of the league. This seems, through all of the articles I have read, to be the underpinning principle of Fantasy Sports. Winning is fun, but winning unfairly? We all know that feeling. Back to Jeff Valois at Fantasy Football Café to sum up:

5. Fantasy football is about having fun. Keep it that way.
Everybody wants to win their league’s cash prize and/or trophy, snag the draft pick who ends up being the fantasy MVP, pick up the stud free agent who went untouched for four weeks, and make all the right moves to dominate the competition. Please try to keep in mind that your livelihood doesn’t, or at least we hope it doesn’t, depend on winning at fantasy football, so don’t make it seem that way. Play the game and enjoy the season.
(And if you’re banking on your winner’s check coming in the mail to make your mortgage payment, you’ve got way more problems than any list can help you with).

So play nice, or be prepared, as Thomas Moore once said, “Those who plot the destruction of others often perish in the attempt.“

After watching ESPN’s College Gameday preview show for the 2007/08 basketball season, three freshmen players were highlighted as potential superstars. The three players have all been given their own labels - the new Kobe, the new D-Wade….even the new Jordan. Let’s see what all the fuss is about…
 

Derrick Rose

Stats
Height: 6′4″
College: Memphis
Position: Guard
Comparison: Jason Kidd

Rose’s highlight videos have him doing a wide range of dunks, but his true value is in his lightning speed and foresight, able to dish in seemingly impossible situations. He’s a true playmaker, who also has the ability and fearlessness to drive to the basket at will. His perimeter shooting, once seen as his weak-spot, has been a strength in his opening pair of matches for Memphis - shooting 58% and carrying his new team to the semi-finals of the 2K Sports College Hoops Classic (to be played on the 15th November).
 

OJ Mayo

Stats
Height: 6′5″
College: Univeristy of South California (USC)
Position: Guard
Comparison: Kobe Bryant

The hoops hype machine has been working overtime for Mayo, largely due to issues off the court. In January, after being ejected from a high-school game he allegedly assaulted one of the officials, earning himself a two game suspension. This ban was overturned after video evidence seemed to suggest the referee overreacted to what little contact there was between them.More controversy followed in March, when Mayo was ticketed by police for posession of marijuana. This charge was dropped when a (very rich in the future?) friend claimed responsibility for the weed, which had been found in a car that Mayo was riding in.On the court, Mayo is a monster. He has speed, great hands, size, vision and inside strength.
 

Kevin Love

Stats
Height: 6′10″
College: UCLA
Position: Center
Comparison: Dirk Nowitzki

Kevin Love makes the job of headline writers easy. Not just because of his name (marketability: A+), but because of the raw materials that he puts to good use every time he steps onto the floor. He’s a big (270lbs) centre with an eye for inch perfect, court-length outlet passes and a soft touch from the 3-point line. He is known as an NBA historian, and has grown up with some serious pedigree (his father, a former NBA player, had him watch videos of the Showtime Lakers as a child). His biggest weakness was seen to be that he was, at times, slightly sluggish, however he has cut down for the start of his college career and is now a danger both inside and out.Love was awarded High School Athlete of the Year in his final year, and he has started his college life the same way - with 22 points (two shy of a freshman record) and 13 boards (breaking the previous record of 12) in his first game for UCLA.

Last night was an average night for picks (my early Manchester City Asian Handicap bet was premature and ended in a push), however by kickoff the odds on City winning were as high as 1.81…more than enough to entice me in. They won (eventually), and my stack looks a little more swole now (that sounds disgusting).On to tonight’s festivities, and it looks like Europe will once again throw up some super betting potential.

Chelsea, top of Champions League Group B, face Schalke 04, knowing that a victory could see them safely through to the next round. Chelsea easily beat them two weeks ago at home, and are on a great run of form (they have won their last seven games, including two in the Champions League). Schalke, on the other hand, lost their last game to the Bundesliga’s bottom club, and are sweating on the status of two of their star players, and have a further five out definitely.

With all of this stacked up, why are Chelsea so far out at 2.14?

The main reason seems to be their defence, which has two noticeable gaps (Terry and Cole) and also Ferreira on the sidelines, and so punters seem to be being a little cautious about how Chelsea will approach this match. Is that enough to justify this price? I don’t think so. The back four that kept a clean sheet at Wigan at the weekend should be reunited, and with Schalke needing to press forward to take the three points, there should be ample space for Joe Cole, Lampard, Drogba and (even) Shevchenko to exploit.

My pick:
Schalke 04 v Chelsea - Chelsea (to win) @ 2.14

After backing Phoenix against the Lakers earlier in the (brief) NBA season, I was fooled again into thinking that Kobe wouldn’t show up to work with the right attitude. He did, and the Jazz felt it.

With that disappointment fresh in my mind, tonight is a night for going back to basics.Manchester City host Sunderland this evening, with the 6-0 drubbing by the newly rejunivated Chelsea galacticos still fresh in their minds.

Sven’s men want nothing more than to erase this blip in form from the minds of the football public, and what better way than to reassert their authority at home to a Sunderland team who have failed to win in 9 of their last 10 outings?

City will also be boosted by the return of Martin Petrov (the Fantasy Football enthusiast’s favourite pick), which should see them extend their home record to a perfect 7-0-0.

How to play tonight’s match? Try this bet:

Asian handicap, Manchester City -1.0 @ 2.22. This means…

If Man City win by 2 or more - £6.10
If Man City win by 1 - £0
If Man City do not win - -£5.00