Fantasy: What is Pablo Escobar’s contribution to the world sport?

All of us know with the story of famous drug dealer Pablo Escobar. The Colombian was passionate about football and, thanks to that passion, he ended up being the inventor of the Fantasy game, which is widely played nowadays.

In the 70s of the last century Escobar and his friends picked their ‘Dream Team’ before the start of every season, and decided who is the winner based on their player’s real performances. There are some stories that Escobar beat all his picks cruelly, if they unfortunately showed a poor performance.The overwhelming majority of the nowadays players wish they were able to do so. In the80s, American journalist Daniel Okrent tried to develop this idea and organized events in one of the cafes of New York, when the guests picked their ‘Dream Team’ for upcoming Baseball matches.

This idea went further and now you do not need to visit New York for playing Fantasy at all. Your willingness to play and internet access is enough for that. There is an official Fantasy game for every authorized international leagues: NHL, NBA, MLB, NFL and so on. Well, American sports are not popular among us, for our time zone, however, after Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s transfer, the Fantasy Premier League’s popularity started growing among the Armenian football fans. 

Then, you just have to register and create a team consisting of 15 players. After every game there is an option to make a free transfer (additional transfer may cost you 4 points), which can be saved, so you will be able to make 2 free transfers next week. One of the most vital things in the game is your captaincy pick. If in the real game armband is given to the most experienced one or to the one with leader’s characteristics, then in FPL armband is given to the ones who offer an immense threat to the adversary. As an instance, managers this season are used to lean on Mo Salah and Harry Kane. 

The winners get prizes from tiny accessories until VIP reception for a random PL game chosen by the manager. There are weekly prizes for the top 10 managers with the highest points and also monthly prizes for top 20 managers with the highest quantity of points. It is a way easy to claim this prizes rather than struggling for months for the sake of the FPL crown.

 In 12/13 season, our countryman Abel Yuzpashyan realized the dream of millions of FPL manager thanks to the hat trick of Gareth Bale, namely to travel to Britain and watch the match of your favorite team. Experienced Abel gives a piece of advice that you have to be calm, ignore your favorite team and Henrikh Mkhitaryan as well.

It is tough to play FPL, yet on the other hand it is interesting and in some cases it can easily turn into an obsession. The game is played by everyone without any limitation, but it is worthy to mention that it is popular among teenagers and young adults. Mostly, it is all about luck, however, measured picks and decisions are able to give you an enormous advantage. Nevertheless, there are some tricks you will notice when you play the game for an undisclosed time. Just remember you have to read all the rules carefully and, if something is unclear, then social networking blogs are there for you, and will provide some useful advice for the beginners and the experienced players.

Fantasy Premier League cooperates with some companies, who honor the winners with their products. EA Sports, Tag Heuer, Carling, Nike, Cadbury, to name just a few.

Fantasy gives an opportunity to compete with your friends in your own private leagues. There are almost 6 million FPL players in the world and their number is increasingly growing every day. We can surely say the same thing for Armenian FPL community, where we can see 1,500 people, and we should tell that a few people heard of this game only two years ago.

 So, if you lack motivation to watch football, it is time to try yourself in this field, and maybe you will be the one who is going to conquer the FPL world.

David Khachatryan

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