Fantasy league is here! By popular request. You know about my fantasy league fanaticism. I always start fantasy leagues with lots of enthusiasm. And then it slowly dies down over the next few weeks. There can always be a new beginning for anything and everything. Look at Malouda. Okay then, I have set up a fantasy football league. There are million sites that offer fantasy football. I chose the most authentic, reliable, stable of all sites. That’s the mother of all football sites. Yup, it is in the official website of the premier league – www.premierleague.com – it as doesn’t get better than that. To put things in perspective, there are about 900,000 players that play in the fantasy league in the official website of the premier league. Enough said.

By the way, I don’t get any money or browniefantasyrules points for starting the league in this particular website. I chose this only because, as I said, this is the most authentic, reliable and stable of all sites when it comes to premier league football. Plus, the scoring system of the fantasy league in this site is just brilliant. It does look at a lot of details that other fantasy leagues won’t. I’m guessing that this is possible for premierleague.com because they have a tie-up with OptaStats who give them all sorts of stats for all the players within hours after the match has ended. Just look at the scoring rules here. There are many more rules than the ones in the box here. For instance, if your player gets a red card, you get -3 and also will be punished if your team conceded after your player got a red card.  That’s wicked, isn’t it?

There is also a fantasy stats page which keeps updating the various statistics of all players on a continuous basis so that they help in your ongoing team selection and re0rganisation. And there is this pundit page, if you need one, where there are interesting commentary of upcoming matchdays. If you get lost or need help, there is an elaborate help page too. And for people like me and Zaneeb, we can also manage our team on the mobile on wap.fantasy.premierleague.com!

And now, typically, the name of our league is BlueChampions League. The code to join this league is 897502-183475. And the team to beat is, ‘BlueChampions’. You guessed it, the ‘BlueChampions’ team is owned and managed by me. And that’s why it is the team to beat :-) Here is the BlueChampions team. A team that used up the budget of 100m pounds. I have three Chelsea players there. I’ve got Anelka and Drogba as the strikers because I have a lot of faith in our two-striker formation and I’m sure these two gentlemen will rake in goals and assists. I wanted to get Lampard somehow but he is way too expensive and would have made the rest of the team weaker. Anyway, here it is. Please do comment.

BlueChampionsTeam

I think this is a very good team. I’ve got a good keeper. I’ve got a very dependable back four. The midfield is made up of players who are very key in the midfield of their respective teams. And then comes the deadly duo of Anelka and Drogba.

Even in the subs, I have Crouch who I think would be a star with Spurs. I almost signed up Darren Bent because I think he would shine in Sunderland but I went with the Robot. Given is a good first team keeper and I have him in the subs. Delap always plays for his team as long as he is fit because he is a big weapon for his team. Shawcross is a blind guess, I must admit. He is doing good for Stoke anyways. So,that’s the BlueChampions team. Team to beat? Nah, I’m prepared to see my team in the bottom half within a few weeks to be honest :-)

What I plan to do is to write in the blog about the updates on the fantasy league. If I don’t do it, please take the responsibility of reminding me. What normally happens is that some of the real football situations get so serious that it becomes silly to write something lighter at that moment. But we’ll have a fantasy league update that runs separately within the blog. In terms of administrating the fantasy league or writing in the blog about the fantasy league updates, I might take the help from one or some of you if things get little too heavy. Hope you won’t mind it.

When you do sign-up for the fantasy league on the premier league site, what you also get is an entry into the football prediction game – I Know The Score. This bit is very neat. All it takes is to fill it in with your prediction and you get your scores after the matches are over. This builds on every week and then if you scored the maximum points at the end of the season, you get to replace Mark Lawrenson in BBC as the official predictor (of course you know it’s a lie).

Let’s be serious. There are prizes to be won. They are indeed juicy!

1st Prize – The overall winner of Fantasy Premier League 2009/10 will win a VIP trip for two to a Barclays Premier League match (the identity of which is determined by The Premier League) featuring a team of the successful player’s choice. The Winner’s Prize includes travel, two nights’ hotel accommodation, two match tickets, pre-match meal and £250 spending money.

Monthly Prize – This season the person who finishes top of the monthly leaderboard will be declared Manager of the Month and will win a digital camera, an mp3 player, and a Premier League club replica kit of the Winner’s choice.

More than the prize, fantasy leagues are all about the fun, that little banter, that one-upmanship and such. So, sign up already. The vital info/links are here. The name of the mini-league: BlueChampions League. The joiners’ code: 897502-183475. Here is the SIGN-UP page for Fantasy Premier League & here is the RULES page of this fantasy league.

The biggest challenge for me and you, is to keep this fantasy league going. To be able to sustain this and enjoy while we do it. As a concept, fantasy league is certainly fun. If not anything, it keeps you fully aware of who’s hot and who’s not in the premier league. Let’s go with the flow!