My Visit to the FPL Shrink

FPL is just generally not very good for my constitution. I recognized this unfortunate reality during the international break when all of a sudden my heart stopped pounding, the nausea became bearable, the pain in my chest subsided, and the urge to yell, scream, break things, and cancel important appointments disappeared. In that moment, (and what a fucking GREAT moment it was) I experienced a sense of unusual calmness and clarity wherein I realized that I needed to take massive action very quickly for my own good. I needed help; and I needed it fast. To help me cope, I sat down for a quick visit with an FPL psychologist.

“Hello Walt, I’m Dr. Efpeeyell, what brings you to see me today?”

“I think I’ve got a problem, doc. I can’t relax.”

“I see. This is a complaint I hear often from my patients. Please elaborate and tell me about it.”

“Oh yeah; okay. Well, I’m an FPL freak and it’s been a fucking nightmare. I can’t do anything right. Every move I make backfires in my fucking face… and these are GOOD MOVES with GOOD PLAYERS; I just can’t get a fucking thing to go my way. It happens week after week after mother fucking week like a whirlpool sucking me in and dragging me down into a bottomless pit. Just when I think I’ve finally got my shit together and have fielded a sweet-ass team that should help me start climbing out of the cellar, top class athletes playing against inferior teams either stub their toe, pull a hammy, are benched inexplicably, or get a hernia and sit out. If not physically injured, they just mentally don’t show up and run around like a bunch of fucking idiots, deflecting balls off the crossbar from almost INSIDE the goal (I’m talking to you, Victor Moses), and it drives me up a fucking WALL! I get so nauseous and take it so personally that it’s driving a wedge between me and my sanity. I can’t hold anything in…. I scream obscenities at no one in particular, I call my cat names that I wouldn’t even use to describe Piers Morgan, I get inconsolable to the point of lashing out at the people who try to make me feel better, and I make an absolute fool out of myself in front of my friends.”

“I see. Well, people sometimes embellish or blow out of proportion the true extent of the real pain that circumstances like these actually have on their lives. Especially when they feel as if the mechanisms driving and creating their pain are outside of their control. Although your pain certainly appears real, especially given your animated and agitated disposition, let’s dig a little deeper.”

“Okay (deep breath)… you’re right.  Thanks Doc. Please, ask away.”

“Where does your team play its games?”

“Huh…what do you mean?”

“I assume you’re some sort of volunteer coach for a recreational soccer league. I know there are many good leagues in town. Where do you guys play your games?”

“Uh, this is no recreational soccer league, Doc. This is Fantasy Premier League.  An internet game. And I’m not a volunteer coach; I’m a MANAGER.”

“I see. So these players you are so upset with are not real.”

“Fuck yeah they’re real; they’re just not physically playing here in town and I’m not physically with them. They play for some of the best football (sorry, soccer) teams in the world.  But not here; they’re in England. I pick certain players from different teams and then they play their league games during the weekend and I earn points based on how they perform.  4 points for a goal, 3 points for an assist, 4 points for a clean sheet….you know, points. REAL points.”

“Let me get this straight. This game that upsets you so much is played by soccer players in another country and is part of a fantasy game wherein you gain points based on how you guess they’ll perform?”

“Yes, that’s right. And I suck at it.”

“I’m confused, Walt.  It sounds to me as if you are saying that you are getting upset to a point that I would consider extreme by a fantasy game that’s completely made up and has absolutely no connection to reality whatsoever. Quite frankly, I’m concerned about the adverse affects this stress could have on your health.  I fail to see how a simple game such as this could cause so much disappointment and stress such as you have described. This game that is bothering you so much is based completely on contrived scenarios that are not real.”

“Doc, you don’t understand. There is SKILL involved. You have to really know the players and their strengths and weaknesses. You have to be able to understand the competition that they are up against each week, anticipate how they are going to perform. You have to understand the subtle nuances of the game and factor in player values that may be above or below “market value” at any given time, determine the timing of your transfers properly, capitalize on oversights made by your minileague opponents, and captain just the right player to maximize the benefit of having your captain score double points each week. Plus, there are injuries to worry about, additional midweek fixtures for those still involved in European and League Cup competitions, etc.  It’s quite complicated actually.”

“Hmmm. Okay, but it still is an imaginary game with made up rules and a fabricated scoring system.  Besides, like in any sport, anything can happen. Sports are almost impossible to predict.”

“EXACTLY…that’s part of the beauty of it.”

“Well if it’s so beautiful and you understand that it’s subject to so much uncertainty, then why do you get so disappointed when the things that you can’t predict actually happen the way that you failed to predict that they would, which would certainly be the case more often than not and honestly should be completely expected?”

“Because I fucking suck at it, that’s why. How do you like that? I used to be pretty fucking decent at it,  I had a great season last year, then I studied my ass off all fucking summer and did research, kept up with all of the news while everyone else went on their fucking summer holidays and took a break. Not me; I was fucking STUDYING. Reading up, reviewing stats, conducting experiments, trying to learn about the promoted sides that were about to join the league. I invested more fucking time over the summer than a lot of people, all geared towards having a great start and capitalizing on everything I learned last year. And it’s all gone to shit. Now do you see why I’m so fucking upset; this season has started out as a NIGHTMARE.”

“Hmmmm…okay, I think I understand better now. You spent an entire summer engrossed in a made up game of fantasy, requiring decisions and choices being made with regards to unpredictable events, during a time when the sport that the entire make-believe game is based on wasn’t even being played!?! Perhaps that’s the crazy part right there.”

“Fuck you, Doc. This is serious. I have developed severe anxiety around this game that you so nonchalantly and dismissively ridicule. I take it very seriously, as do many others.”

“My apologies. I do understand that the stress and anxiety is real.  I can see it all over your face.”

“Hell fuckin’ yeah you can. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, Doc. Don’t get me started on you and the people who come to talk to you about phony, made-up problems; you and your “psyche” and your “neuroses” and your “character disorders” and what not. Talk about fucked up! ‘Cuckoo…cuckoo!’ (waves finger in circular motion around ear) Don’t get me started. I’m here to deal with some real shit, Mr. Feelgood. If you’ve ever used your imaginary wildcard to bring in Pablo Hernandez two days before the game and then hear that he pulled his hamstring during pre-game warmups, or watched someone in your mini-league get a shitload of points from a bench player who only came in because his selected player missed out due to being “rested”, you would know what the fuck I’m talking about. You would understand the disappointment of watching a perennially high scoring midfielder go up against a shitty defense and have an absolute shitter while a promoted side’s defender from your rival’s squad scores a goal away to a league leader and gets a clean sheet out of the fucking blue. Better yet,  you’d understand how the pain piles up as similar things happen week and week after mother fucking week, to the point where you want to rip the hair out of your fucking head clump by clump and put your fist through a fucking wall. You’d understand the zombie-like stare of watching the league tables update and find yourself desperately and painfully below hundreds of thousands of squads selected by people’s infant children and pets, or squads like that of my friend who I talked into creating a team in July and who hasn’t logged back in since.  He has people on his team who were sent out on loan for Christ’s sake. If I were to write down a list of all of his players on a piece of paper and then sit down to watch a game with him, he wouldn’t be able to point any of them out on the tv screen, let alone pronounce their name correctly. Yet there he is, 400,000 spots above me in the overall ranking. So glad I could help pick your team for ya, you douchebag!!”

“Okay Walt, settle down. You’re going places you don’t need to go. I see what you mean now about screaming obscenities and lashing out at the people who are trying to make you feel better. This poor guy you’re yelling at isn’t even here.”

“Whatever.”

“Close your eyes for 30 seconds and take some deep breaths and we’ll resume.”

“Okay…..ready.”

“Okay, good. So it’s Friday afternoon and tomorrow another gameweek begins in your make believe game. Sounds like a good opportunity to start climbing back up this imaginary ladder you keep talking about. Are you looking forward to it?”

“Actually Doc, I’m scared. I used to LOVE Fridays and get so excited about the gameweek coming up the following day. I’d feel a rush of adrenaline, act goofy and giddy, joke around, and then look at my team for an hour late Friday evening before going to bed, imagining all of the awesome possibilities of goals being scored, clean sheets getting raked in, collecting points as easily as picking leaves up off the ground during the Fall.  Then this new season started and it’s literally been one nightmare after another. The first few were not too bad. Bad weeks happen; that’s just part of it. You just bounce back the following week and approach things with the same optimism and hope that you’re accustomed to. The bad weeks here and there are just blips so the first few were manageable; expected even. But instead of being followed by bounce-backs they kept continuing. I remember thinking, ‘Well, last week was shit, but luckily there’s no possible way I can get red arrows again; the chances of it are almost nil.’ Then I’d have another shitter with a team that looked GREAT on paper before the fixtures started. It got to the point where it was almost comical that my luck could be so bad. It’s happened so often and in so many ways that I never expected that I I’m now just shellshocked. Instead of Friday being a day of excited anxiousness, it is starting to signal the end of the absence of pain. Instead of being excited, I’m scared to death of what’s gonna happen next. I feel like I’m about to enter a haunted house where invisible, unanticipated monsters are waiting around every corner to scare me and rip out another part of my soul. My friends tell me to stay the course, to “go with my gut”, but honestly Doc, my gut’s what’s got me here in the first fucking place. Of course you go with your gut. That’s what you always do and what I’ve always done. But look where it’s got me. The things that I’ve thought would happen haven’t happened, and the things I never thought would happen HAVE happened. Hell, I’m surprised that when I turn the steering wheel to the right that my car doesn’t turn to the left at this point, ya know what I mean? Hah…I just made a funny. But FUCK…..FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!! How can I be so stupid so often for so long? I’m normally a rational guy but this is really fucking with my head.”

“Wow. Well, I can certainly understand why the international break was a good time for you to calm down and get that little brief spell of clarity that you so desperately needed. I gotta tell you Walt, this fixation you have on a made up game is just plain ridiculous. These players don’t know you, have never met you, don’t owe you anything, and certainly are doing their very best every week, regardless of what you’ve predicted or how many “points” you spent to get them in your team. My suggestion is to do what you can to separate your strategy, predictions and decisions from the actual events that occur and the actual points that are gained or lost. Try not to compare yourself to others, but just enjoy the sport that you love, don’t put so much emphasis or value on how your “fantasy” team is performing, and certainly, above all else, please don’t let your relative success or failure in a make believe game of predicting the future determine your feeling of self-worth or happiness. Just have fun.”

“Yeah Doc, I guess you’re right.”

“Good. I’m glad we’ve dealt with this fictional, arbitrary game of yours and that that’s settled. I think you’ll make excellent progress if you just relax and enjoy it for what it is. Now tell me about these friends of yours that you embarrass yourself in front of when things haven’t gone your way in FPL.”

“Well Doc, I’ve never really met any of them. As a matter of fact, I don’t even know most of their real names.”

“Walt, you’re fucked. Get the hell out of my office.”