Soccer Supremo - A Sports Progression Fantasy

I let my gaze drill into Wibbers, Sticky, Sam Topps, and the others.

”We are.”

***

ButteryCrumpets

A few minutes from kickoff. That stadium’s amazing! Fucking hell. Never thought I’d say this, but I envy Dylan. He’s in there somewhere.

As an aside, I do love Celtic’s kit, and I assume that’s the same font they’ve been using since they were founded.

Okay, I’m gonna summarise what we’ve been discussing. We broadly agreed that Max Best to score was mispriced and I for one placed a small, fun, amount on that. No slipping back into bad habits for me!

But then when the team sheets were announced and Best wasn’t starting, the prices went crazy and I topped up my bets. He is going to come on early, isn’t he?

We also like BTTS (both teams to score). Celtic are going to have to send bodies forward at SOME point, and Best’s teams are always great on the counter-attack.

Some ABOBers have been nibbling at William Roberts to score at any time because he has 5 goals in qualifying so far and we are pretty sure he’s on penalties. Gabriel has 6 goals but his odds aren’t very tasty so we have been avoiding him.

Meanwhile some of us have been putting small amounts on scenarios like Saltney losing on penalties, winning on penalties, Best to get a red card, that sort of thing. I’m steering clear of it, although the fact that the referee is a knob does make the red card bets more appealing. I just think Best is gonna behave himself and I think the bookies have priced the ref’s antics into their models.

And we’re off! Huge roar from the crowd, getting behind their team.

Stoop

Celtic need to score, like, right now while all these randos are on the pitch.

ButteryCrumpets

Not like that, they won’t! What a shit pass that was!

Okay, let’s see. Surely he won’t do it again...

Stoop

He’s doing it again.

ButteryCrumpets

Jesus Christ, listen to the home fans whistle! I’ve had to turn my TV down. That must be intimidating as fuck.

Saint Derfel

Guess who’s laughing his head off?

ButteryCrumpets

You?

Saint Derfel

I meant Best, but I’m not far behind. It has got to be the most pointless thing ever conceived by the human brain, but as a way of winding people up, there’s not a lot like it. Let’s just hope Saltney don’t get two injuries now, or it’s going to be one-way traffic.

ButteryCrumpets

I think that was Webb, Carlile, Bradley, and Topps who left.

Which leaves us...

Sticky

Prince - Dunston - Evergreen - Alloula

Best - Addo

Barnes - Roberts - Westwood

Gabriel

Stoop

That looks decent to me. There’s goals all over the team and apart from that second leg where the game was over, they have been quite doughty in defence.

DubaiGuy

The odds have changed urgently in the last minute. I wonder why.

***

Before I strode onto the pitch, Sam Topps gave me the captain’s armband, which meant that Triple Captain was using my Influence score as the base. I was pretty sure I had Influence 20, which meant it was currently 60.

Top, but I had to be careful. My mood was now much more likely to affect my team mates. If I started throwing tantrums, we would lose focus and discipline.

Tantrums? Not today.

I took one look around Celtic Park, the incredible arena which would be the scene for my greatest ever triumph, and then jogged towards our penalty area, where we had a goal kick.

I stood in the dead centre of the goal on the edge of the 6-yard box. ”Yes, mate,” I said to Sticky.

He rolled the ball to me and I waited to see how Celtic would deal with this. We hadn’t done this in the first leg.

Celtic’s three forwards weren’t sure what to do, and it took them a second to move. The central striker, one of three Japanese players, sprinted at me. I rolled the ball on a line two yards to the side of him, to a spot where Magnus was suddenly pressured by a midfielder. I had moved to a new angle so he simply deflected the ball back to me, and then I struck it first-time through a bunch of mannequins, onto Davey Barnes’s left peg.

And we were away on our first attack of the match.

A minute later, Celtic were building through the middle of the pitch. I set our full-backs to mark their wide forwards, set Dunners to man-mark the Japanese striker, and swapped places with Magnus Evergreen on the tactics board.

I didn’t move into the centre of defence, though, but stayed near Vincent Addo. With Magnus there, too, we had three DMs. Together, we pressed hard, and by hunting as a pack, won the ball back pretty easily.