Schadenfreude fantasy football

Without making this article a dictionary corner edit, here is the official definition of schadenfreude: Satisfaction or pleasure felt at the misfortune of another, derived from the German schaden (harm) and freude (joy). Nowhere is this excitement more evident than in Fantasy Football!

There’s nothing more satisfying than watching a game you’d traditionally never care about, with players who aren’t even on your own team, just hoping that the hapless defender your friend has in their lineup can let twelve in or score one. own goal. . Maybe your striker just plays a mindless five minutes late in the game, or maybe even hits the jackpot with a red card in the first half – that’s a minus points bonanza!

Of course, the flip side of this is true in Fantasy Football as well: rampant jealousy over your friend’s uncanny ability to switch their Captain to that hopeless player who suddenly scores a hatrick or their decision to play with five defenders, all which keep a clean sheet. Suddenly, scoring takes a backseat to feelings of despair and revenge, in true British sporting tradition. It’s not losing that I hate, it’s the other guy winning that really bothers me!

Of course, as the season progresses and your team gradually slides down the league table, the strong emotions that plagued every waking minute give way to apathy, depression, and a bleak sense of inevitability. The team begins to take a back seat, Friday nights and Saturday mornings not spent poring over the latest stats, but visiting friends or maybe even bringing his wife breakfast in bed. In short, life just doesn’t seem worth living.

Eventually, the only thing keeping you from swinging on the end of a rope is the hope that maybe your nemesis who has won the last five titles will slip, make a mistake, forget that their Captain has been suspended. You don’t obsess over the fortunes of your own team (every member of which you now despise and blame for all the pain in the world), but descend into a nightmarish, voyeuristic world of Fantasy Football Schadenfreude.

Until next season of course! Next season everything will be different. Next season I will be Fantasy Football Champion!