Long ago back in Gameweek 12, there stood 24 teams with dreams of reaching the final. Just two now remain as we prepare for the grand finale of the Fantasy Chili Bowl.
Road to the Final
The first finalists are the Indianapolis House of Pancakes (IHOP).
After winning a very competitive Conference D they took a number two seeding into the play-offs, and saw off San Diego Casuals in the quarter-finals.
Both teams ended this nip and tuck last eight contest on 441 points when Firmino picked up a very late yellow card in the last match of the week, but it was the Pancakes’ captain Pirlo’s Pen outscoring the Casuals’ lowest FPL id’ed Jigger and Pony (as San Diego’s captain Tets McGee benched himself) that decided the contest on a tiebreak.
The semi-final was a slightly more comfortable affair as they defeated the Waikiki Beach Raiders 330-316. PKW was the star for the victors, accumulating an impressive 71 points. This was the second time Indianapolis defeated the Raiders in the competition, having defeated them also in the Group stage.
The success of Indianapolis shows that you don’t necessarily have to have a captain with FFS tournament experience to succeed. “I had never participated in a community competition before, but I thought I’d throw myself in at the deep end and captain a side” explained skipper Pirlo’s Pen.
“When recruiting my team members I made sure to compile a team that had ranging experiences, and it has worked swimmingly.
“Everyone has got on incredibly well and from the get-go we were on the exact same page. The range in styles of the way we play the game really helped, and allowed us to bounce ideas off each other,” he continued.
IHOP teammate – and fellow FFS tournament rookie – Morph, has learned a lot from his fellow team members, and the tournament has even changed the way he approaches playing FPL.
“I’m more willing to take hits now. Previously, I’d never pre-plan to take one ordinarily, but now I’ve been taking them in non-Chili Bowl GWs to prepare my team for the tournament, and it’s worked out pretty well for me personally,” he smiled.
AA33 was full of praise for his captain. “He’s a gem!” he said. “I found it very difficult looking for a team here at the beginning as I wasn’t well known on FFS. Fortunately Pirlo picked me and I am very thankful for that. He is a great human being. He never relishes benching the two players and he always sympathises with those he ends up choosing.”
Facing off against Indianapolis will be the Cleveland Steamers, who are ably led by FFS regular BabyB.
Despite the oddity of being the lowest overall FPL point scorers in Conference B during the group stage, Cleveland won the conference thanks to four wins from their five matches, which qualified them for the quarter finals as fourth seeds.
In the last eight, the Steamers were the overall top scorers as they amassed 501 points in a 6-point win against rivals Washington DC Presidents. This was followed up by another impressive victory in the semi finals as they beat the number 3 seeds – San Francisco Bulls Deep – by 17 points. It could have been a different story however as the match was in the balance with Eden Hazard’s performance on the Sunday pivotal to the outcome.
“We feared the worst” explained Cleveland’s Sean. “It was very tight, and San Francisco had a 4 x Hazard differential. Only when he was subbed and his blank was confirmed did we realise all was not lost” he recalled.
RH7 has been the star of the play-offs for the Steamers so far, top scoring in both matches for his team with totals of 110 and 62 points. It could have been a much different story however as he was tempted to rage quit his FPL team shortly before the play-offs began. “I had terrible luck since October and was on the brink of just giving up, but BabyB and the lads persuaded me to carry on, and I wanted to remain loyal to the cause as well,” he explained.
“Since I had nothing to lose and convinced myself I could still help out, I played my wildcard ahead of the quarter finals. I picked my team purely based on that one gameweek only, and scored 110 pts with a Gameweek rank of 4,000. This convinced me to carry on, and I have continued to do well since,” he beamed.
The Steamers have been a well-oiled machine throughout the competition.
“Our communication has been done via a Facebook group. This allowed such things as everyone’s teams to be shared, a poll for planned hits, and an easy way to bounce transfer ideas of each other” said captain BabyB.
“All of the team members have been excellent, and what I like with our squad is we all have quite different teams and all are willing to take a few punts. This meant we always had a few differentials each week,” he added.
Final Preview
So who will win?
Indianapolis’ Riot is aware of the calibre of the Cleveland team. “I know most of the Cleveland guys quite well, and I’m not surprised at all they are in the final” he said, adding, “we deserve to be here too though, and we’ll take a good swing at winning the thing too.”
Pancakes captain Pirlo’s Pen admits that he hasn’t done much homework on Cleveland leading up to the final.
“Throughout the tournament, we have not paid a huge amount of attention to our opposition. We feel the key is to just play the team you think will gain the most points. There will be no tactical changes for the final, why change a winning formula?” said Pirlo confidently.
Cleveland player Bazzalona similarly admits he has limited knowledge of his opponents. “If I’m honest I’ve been concentrating that much on the Steamers that I haven’t looked too much at the other teams, but obviously the Pancakes must be a good team to get this far!” he stated.
Bazzalona’s captain BabyB has been keeping an eye on his fellow finalists however, and sees Cleveland as the outsiders in the Texas Chili Bowl showpiece. “Indianapolis are one of the highest scoring teams, and will be tough to beat. But, we are happy to be the underdog in the final,” the skipper said.
So who is your money on? Two worthy finalists, and let the best team lift the Texas Chili Bowl trophy.
Follow the action
Please see this spreadsheet for details of all the squads (with links to each players FPL history) and fixtures.
The FCB Differentials spreadsheet allows teams to identify which players will be key in this week’s scoring. The instructions for using it are:
1. First, make a personal copy using the ‘File’ menu options (this will enable you to edit the cells)
2. Enter the GW no. in the blue-coloured cell on top.
3. Enter the FPL IDs of your six team members and the six IDs of the opponents’.
4. The sheet picks up the live FPL points of the players on each refresh, and the total for the team is displayed in green.
The FCB Next Gameweek scouting spreadsheet will allow teams to pull in the previous week’s FPL teams for all eight of the opposing teams players to allow scouting of the squads. The instructions for using this spreadsheet are as above except the FPL points are no longer valid.
And finally…
Thank you to all of you that have participated in this competition – it has been played in great spirit, and it has been a pleasure for the FCB committee to run. In case the competition runs again next season (either by us or someone else), please feel free to leave us any feedback or suggestions for improvement.
This can either be done in the comments section in this article, or if you prefer to do this anonymously by email, please send this to fantasychilibowl@gmail.com.
On behalf of the FCB committee (Jarvish, BabyB, Ziro, Adam West and Cheese)
