What is it?
Basically, we would have two threads. One for draft picks and one for discussion of draft picks. People who are interested would agree to pick footballers from the history of the premiership according to a predetermined order in turn until each participant has a team of eleven players. It would be up to them to decide what formation to play them in and they would be obliged to do one final post at the end where they sum up why they chose as they did and how they would envisage their lineup working together as a team.
The idea is a rip off of the American drafting system for their professional sports. Here is an example of what I am talking about.
Why?
Because it's fun!!
If you're sad like me, you like discussing and debating best of lists and arguing over which sports teams or players from the past were better. And a process like this can help you reach a better understanding of the game or open your eyes up to players or ideas that you had never heard of before. Sounds good, rules?
- You can only take players who participated in at least 50 premiership games during their career (this means that one season wonders are excluded from consideration - a player will need to be on a squad for more than one season);
- The player is assessed on the basis of how good he was during his period in the premiership only. Therefore, if you selected Edgar Davids or Youri Djorkaeff for example - you would be getting the Spurs and Bolton versions respectively - not the guys who destroyed European football at Juve and Inter during their primes;
- Selection order will be randomly decided by a draw from a hat and will go ABBAABBAABBA and so on;
- Clock expires on a drafter after 24 hrs. After that time, the next player on the list will be allowed to go and it will up to the skipped player to post a pick in the draft thread at their earliest convenience;
- When someone has completed a pick, they should pm the next in line to inform them that it is their turn;
- The Draft thread is for picks only and should be left uncluttered. There will be a separate thread for discussion of picks;
- People are obliged to go to google images and put up a photo of the player they are selecting and provide some sort of spiel as to why they are drafting them at that time;
- After each participant has selected eleven players they are obliged to put one more post in the draft thread which provides a final formation and discusses the tactics that would be ideally employed in an imaginary game;
Ok, I'm still interested
Good! Please bear in mind though that these things can go on for weeks until they are finished. It is also worth noting that other people will rate players differently to you and will sometimes make picks that you perceive as being retarded. It's more fun for everyone though if you can refrain from simply posting along the lines of "he's crap and that's a terrible pick" and instead trying to explain why you think selections are good or bad.
Finally, while it stunts discussion for the first round and a half or so, it is best not to mention undrafted players. So, if Roy Keane is selected with the first pick - try not to say "Vieira is much better in my opinion". Now, obviously one would assume that everyone up for participating in this kind of thing would be aware of how similar the two players are - but as things move beyond the obvious choices people who are less willing to put in research or don't know as much about the game as a whole shouldn't be let off the hook by others mentioning the best players available in the later rounds.
Okay, so that's the general idea. I think we would need a minimum of 6 interested posters to make it worthwhile/interesting. Any more than 6, great!
So I guess, let me know if your interested, and we'll get it started ASAP!











