Well there was a time when I was much younger. A time when I had lots of time at hand. And lots of this was filled with fantasy games organized by some Belgian newspapers.

There were several fantasy games, but all were about football or cycling. The 2 major Belgian newspapers both had several fantasy games running for football, cycling and even cyclocross. Enough to fill the year! In the beginning one even had to send the teams you did want to subscribe via real postal mail. Results were only printed in the newspaper.
But with the evolution of the internet and online banking, this got easier and more accessible!

Vivid fan or addicted? Judge yourself!

I did play in almost all the fantasy games. It was my hobby. The give away a cliffhanger, I did break even. More or less. Maybe a slight loss or a small profit!

All were approach in more or less the same way! My season did start a month before the football competition would begin. With reading all articles, following the transfer market and analyzing the results of the past season and already played friendly games.
Up next was creating excel sheet to create some draft teams. There was Megascore and Gouden (Golden) 11. Both had different rules, so 2 excel sheets had to be created.
Also calculation were made how much points were needed to win a round or get a decent result in the overall ranking.
After the player lists did became available, the fun part began. First ranking the teams from good to bad, trying to estimate the number of clean sheets a team would have at the end of the season. Searching for the one would take the set pieces and corners, discovering the defenders which normally do score 4 to 8 goals per season and so on! Eliminating the ones with lots of yellow or red cards!

And then the puzzling could start. Mostly I did create 20 different teams or so. Trying to spread my risks. But due to the fact that for each team had to be paid, I did start scratching teams until 10 were left.
After that I didn’t look at the teams for a few days, analyzing friendly games and following the transfer news. After a few days, mostly one or 2 days before the teams had to be mailed, I did go over all the teams, made some changes and did mail them or press the submit button.
Each match was more or less followed, points were updated in my excel sheets and then I had to wait until Tuesday when the results were printed in the newspaper!
Well I loved those days!

Cycling is in Belgium and cycling on the road but also cycling in the field! So around the end of September the preparations did start for the cyclocross fantasy games!

Around January my preparation did start for the spring classic cycling season. Reading all the presentation of the cycling teams. Trying to find upcoming talents based on their results in the races which were important and so on. Updating the excel sheet with the results of the last 5 season and so on!
Also here multiple draft were made and downsizes until I did reach an acceptable number of teams. Mostly only 5 for the general classification. But I also made teams special for the rounds. So 2 or 3 special teams for the tour of Franders, Parijs-Roubaix, Milan-San Remo and so on. Most of the times 1 or 2 per race. So this did keep my busy until, the end of April.
In the beginning of May, the preparation did start for the Tour the France fantasy game.
After which I could start again with the upcoming football season.

I did the above for a year of 5. But then the kids came. Time got more scarce and the interest did decrease. So I did say goodbye to the fantasy games.
I did win decent prizes and probably did turn break even! My best weekend was in a cycling fantasy games. There were 2 races that weekend. On Friday evening I decided to create 2 teams for the Saturday race! When the result of the race where in, I knew I would have a big chance on a top 5 result. Getting more and more nervous when time passes by, refreshing the fantasy webpage minute after minute!
Around 22:00 the results were in and I did win the round and became 8 or 9th with the other team. The prize was a Ridley bike! Nothing for me. So the wife asked what the second prize was, which was a one week holiday to Greece for 2 persons. So, she was a little bit disappointed, so I told her that I would create two teams for the Sunday race and that I would try to get the second place.
And to me surprise I did. Sold the bike for €1200 and we had a great holiday in Greece!

But now with the oldest son being 11 years old and the most important thing in his life, according to him, being football. It was time to introduce him into the world of Fantasy games!
Not yet trying to learn him (all) the tricks, but to see if he likes it or not! Both of us made two teams for the Gouden 11 trying to see who would be able to create the best team. Also lots of stories likes the one above were told, which really did surprise him.
Well he has the advantage of having more in depth knowledge of the Jupiler Pro League but I do have the experience of creating such fantasy teams. I did share some tips with him, but didn’t told him everything (yet)! This time without all the preparation but just for fun!

The rules are pretty simple. Max 2 players of the same team, a max budget of 250 mil, defenders and goalies do earn points for clean sheets, every players does earn points if the teams wins or draws and they did play at least 60 minutes. And of course points can be earned for assists and scoring goals.

So the first round is over now and the results are in.

Phew my first win over him. But I was lucky, he made the beginners mistake of selecting an injured players with his “Too strong this team” team. Otherwise the first round would have been for him.

And you?

Do you play fantasy games? If so, only free fantasy games or also paid fantasy games?
Would like to hear!

Cheers,
Peter