FFS Manager Melee Commences

After a frantic recruitment process over the past few weeks we can now announce that the teams are set for the inaugural FFS Managerial Melee!

16 teams will battle it out for the crown in this year’s event and – as a quick reminder – our Mercurial Managers are, in egotistical order:

Lawro – The Godfather: Pardew

Boris Bodega – Alice in Wengerland

Balders – Hughes Line is it Emery?

JohnnyRev7 – When ‘Arry Met Sarri

Pras United – Neville Wears Prada

The Fantastic Mr Fox – The Big Bang Thierry

Speedyboyzzzz – Roboklopp

Professor Bear – Guardiolas of the Galaxy

LlamaZA – Dirty Zidancing

Left Arm Pie – The Hills Have Moyes

Narcos – Thor: Wagnerok

Limited & Mediocre Manager – Howe to Train Your Dragon

Le God – American Dycho

Jossy – The Silence of the Lambert

Pirlo’s Pen – Finding Nuno

AZ – Claudio With a Chance of Modballs

Full link to the squads page can be found here.

Format

The action is set to kick off in Gameweek 13 with the seeding round.

As announced in our previous article, the Group stage will be made up of 4 groups of 4 teams, who will each play each other twice in a Champions League style format. The groups will be drawn LIVE on FFS next week but first we need to seed each team…

The first team seeded in Pot 1 will be When ‘Arry Met Sarri who won the best photo competition!

The voting panel was made up of Athletico Timbo, Epic Fail, Applebonkers and Bowstring the Carp. Their votes were cast as follows with each being asked to name their top 3 photos:

Applebonkers:

1. When ‘Arry Met Sarri
2. The Hills Have Moyes
3. Dirty Zidancing

Athletico Timbo:

1. When ‘Arry Met Sarri
2. American Dycho
3. Alice in Wengerland

Bowstring the Carp:

1. When ‘Arry Met Sarri
2. Neville Wears Prada
3. The Hills Have Moyes

Epic Fail:

1. Thor: Wagnerok
2. The Hills Have Moyes
3. Alice in Wengerland

When ‘Arry Met Sarri received the top vote from 3 of our panel and are now in pole position to retain the title they won last year as Afganistanislas.

Here’s what the panel had to say about the winner and other notable entries:

Athletico Timbo wrote that the winning entry was ‘clever, funny and had a great facial expression for ‘Arry’, while noting that Alice in Wengerland (shamelessly promoting my own team here) made Wenger look ‘as mad as a box of frogs.’

Applebonkers was more philosophical in his praise, saying that ‘Harry Rednapp faking an orgasm’ was ‘absurdly brilliant’ and he took glee in the fact that ‘Sarri looks suitably uncomfortable, perhaps because he’s not allowed to smoke in Katz’s Deli!’ He went on to comment that The Hills Have Moyes entry was almost as ‘fabulous’ with ‘the blurry flames morphing into those Irn-Bru coloured Glaswegian locks being the cherry on the icing.’ Finally, Dirty Zidancing ‘had to make the podium’ owing to its ‘magnificent simplicity and execution’; surely the first time that phrase has been uttered about Zizou’s classic headbutt on Patrick Swayze!

Bowstring the Carp also loved ‘Sarri’s impatient look’ and made a special mention of The Hills Have Moyes and Neville Wears Prada as being the best of the rest.

Epic Fail was the only one of our panel not to be seduced by Redknapp and voted for Thor: Wagnerok as his favourite photo, writing ‘genius, I want to see this movie!’ not realising it was a ‘spoof without taking a closer look’ such was the seamless editing of David Wagner into Thor’s battle attire. He also made special mention for The Hills Have Moyes which ‘actually made [him] ‘lol’ for real!’

Commiserations for those who came close but none could capture the hearts of our panel quite like When ‘Arry Met Sarri.

Here is their winning photo in all its glory, complete with Junior Stanislas third-wheeling in the background:

For the 15 teams whose photoshopping skills weren’t quite enough this time, the seeding round will establish which Pot you will be drawn in. There will be no benchings with all 11 team members contributing to their team’s score this week!

The three highest scoring teams in Gameweek 13 will join When ‘Arry Met Sarri in Pot 1, the next four highest will be in Pot 2, the next four in Pot 3 and the lowest ranked four teams will be in Pot 4.

The draw will progress with all the teams in Pot 1 being drawn into different groups, then teams from Pot 2 will be drawn alongside them and subsequently Pot 3 and Pot 4 will be drawn as well.

The group structure will be:

Group A          Group B          Group C          Group D

Pot 1               Pot 1               Pot 1               Pot 1

Pot 2               Pot 2               Pot 2               Pot 2

Pot 3               Pot 3               Pot 3               Pot 3

Pot 4               Pot 4               Pot 4               Pot 4

A link to the seeding round spreadsheet can be found here.

Now the formalities are out of the way let’s take a look at some of the top ranked recruits.

The main headline over the international break has been Claudio With a Chance of Modballs, a team filled with heavy hitters of the FFS community led by Az. Obviously Ranieri’s entry into the FFS Manager Melee overshadows his return to the Premier League with Fulham and, with the likes of Mark, Joe, David, Andy, Luke and Geoff recruited, this team already looks among the favourites for eternal Fantasy glory. Other high profile recruits include Numb for Guardiolas of the Galaxy, Philman for Neville Wears Prada, Jake Donahue for top seeded When ‘Arry Met Sarri and FPLGeneral for The Hills Have Moyes.

Good luck to all teams for Gameweek 13, we’ll be posting the seedings and more information on the draw next week.

Allez Wengerland!

Toblerone52