Welcome back to the Football Masters Series. Some would call it fortunate timing that we’re holding the Spanish Open in the very week that our hosts became World Cup champions. Was it the excitement of hosting the Euro Super League that propelled them on? We’re far too humble to take the credit..
A lot less humble, though, were the strides made in the league in this second/middle/penultimate week of our opening tournament. Because my God – it was way more than fashionably late to the party for two of our performers.
First up, those Guardiola’s Giants. Our last team to predict, but that wasn’t enough to stop them becoming bona-fide hall of famers, with the highest one-week total on record. Almost a perfect five results out of five – only denied that by Swindon conceding two in their stonker of a game against Wrexham (stonking enough to see Gary Lineker and Rob McElhenney trading ‘blimeys’ online. Crazy times). Savvy enough to pick out a West Ham win against Chelsea, a Villa horsing at Everton.
And savvy enough to hit the front of the table with one week left – DebLasso and the gang fading badly with the lowest score of the round. In fact the main challenger at the top, the David R, were only a solitary goal off taking that hall of fame spot themselves after Ange Postecoglou’s boys only served up a clearly-disappointing 2-0 win over Man Utd. Unforgivable.
Not only is the title race is very much alive and well, it was the second of our latecomers that shook up the top of the table. In this case the returning White Caribbean A-stars – not even predicting last week, but storming the table with a fine 11 points and fourth spot in the standings. With ten points between the best and worst guesses this week, and ten points betwen top and bottom of the overall table… well, clearly it’s still all to play for. And it’s early days, but with every position further up next week’s final table getting you crucial World Ranking Points – you never know, a tournament this close could make the difference for World Number 1 and qualifying for our end of season final.
So, only one week left in your quest for Spanish Open glory. Will you divide that table more than national opinion on the World Cup winning coach? Will you blow it worse than Micah Richards at the theatre of dreams? Will anyone notice how few Spanish games there are in this final round?
We’ll find out soon enough – good luck, one and all!