AF Diary #11

 

FOOTBALL MANAGER

 

Increasingly, I’m aware, this is basically just a Football Manager column and I apologise for that but it’s so goddamn addictive. Last time I was having some trouble with PSG. So, how have I rectified that?

 

1. I’ve abandoned gegenpress. I don’t tend to mention tactics because, like everyone else, I just play gegenpress and that tends to be successful.
2. I’m embracing the natural talents of the squad.
3. I’ve gone vertical tiki-taka and dropped both wingers, even though one of them is my leading scorer.
4. I signed a 38 year old Sergej Milinkovic-Savic because the first ten yards are in your head. If my pitch was only ten yards long we’d be brilliant.

 

 

With the competition on between Jimmy Football and Brian Hates-Liverpool, as to which one of them will continue this challenge solo after the World Cup, some weird shit is happening. I found myself pushing for Football’s PSG to succeed in the league cup, which I don’t give a fuck about and lo and behold they make it to the final. Meanwhile BHL could feel somewhat aggrieved by being knocked out of the German Cup early after sending the kids out against SpVgg Greuther Furth.

 

How’s the Champion’s League going then?

Not brilliant to be honest. PSG’s shithouse tactic got a 1-0 win in Madrid but they decided to collapse late on at home. Fairly accurate depiction of PSG in Europe in all fairness Sports Interactive. Bayern meanwhile were doing fine and on course to overturn a 3-0 deficit against Southampton when £101M AMC Claudio Scaroni went off injured and left us in the creative lurch. Let’s face it, it’s not gone according to plan here.

 

If you missed last time you’ll have missed that I’m removing one of the two beloved manager’s after the World Cup but it will be success based. The one with the fewest Hall of Fame points will drop out. At present these are the scores:

 

Jimmy Football 1096

Brian Hates-Liverpool 1022

 

The big decider could be the World Cup itself if either of them can win that but another one could have been the Champion’s League and that’s gone. We enter into trophy season now, early April, and PSG strike first by picking up the Coupe de la Ligue BKT. This is a trophy I’d already knocked off the Trophy Collector list with Montpellier but it helps Jimmy along to more points.

 

Jimmy Football 1158

Brian Hates-Liverpool 1022

 

Naturally, because they win it EVERY FUCKING YEAR, Bayern strolled to the title winning it with three games to spare. That’s every German trophy knocked off my list so that’s Germany completed. I’m sad that Bayern didn’t do better in Europe but losing earlier allowed me to not have to put up with Man City wrecking my shit in the semis again. How does that alter the HOF standings?

 

Brian Hates-Liverpool 1161

Jimmy Football 1158

 

Argh! So close. If Jimmy’s PSG can wrap up the French League and Cup double he’ll have a big advantage going into the World Cup. It could be the end of line for Brian if he doesn’t win the World Cup with Argentina. He couldn’t, could he?

 

As for PSG, I’ve been told it’s “cheating” to manage them. Two things; 1. I’m winning trophies here and moving on so who cares and 2. They are the most stressful team I’ve ever managed. What should have been an easy game against Bordeaux in the Cup semi finished 5-3.

Wrapped the league up with a few games to go though. That horrible November long forgotten. PSG shithousery forgotten too. They’ve played expansive football towards the end of the season and won the title comfortably. Which is good news for Jimmy in the HOF challenge.

 

Jimmy Football 1282

Brian Hates-Liverpool 1161

 

Increasingly it looks like Brian is going to have to flat-out win the World Cup to stick around. Having added a, comfortable, Coupe de France (4-0 vs. Toulouse) Jimmy moves even further ahead with 1369. I wonder how many points you get for a World Cup win? (I think it’s 200 points, which is terrible news for BHL).

 

With France and Germany completed, to add to Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands, the world is my oyster. I’m excited to see where this footballing journey takes me next. I’ll be back next time with the World Cup 2034 and the club decision, plus the departure of one of the two managers.

 

 

NERVE

Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, the duo behind 2010’s Catfish, give us another glance at modern technology and the potential abuse of it. In Nerve (2016) a high school girl, with hang-ups about herself, joins an online dare-based game called Nerve. The idea is that you rise up the ranks by completing publicly filmed ‘dares’.

 

The girl is played by Emma Roberts, in a fish-out-water attempt. She’s supposed to be awkward and teenagery but it doesn’t quite click. She soon runs into another player, the confident Ian (Dave Franco) and they help each other out, driven onward by their fans or “watchers”. It’s a great premise but the initial concept wears out a little quickly and they change gears and get all ‘conspiracy theory’ driven towards the third act, which is messy.

 

In support we’ve got Machine Gun Kelly as the bad guy and Juliette Lewis as Emma Roberts’ mom. She’s pretty great with limited material. Emily Meade is also decent at Emma’s best friend who draws her out of her shell and gets her to sign up for Nerve. It’s a decent film with a cool concept but I can see why it slipped right by me in 2016. Worth a look ***

OCEAN’S EIGHT

I recently rewatched the George Clooney version of Ocean’s Eleven and was startled at how slick, cool, stylish and well written the whole thing was. In particular the snappy dialogue that peppered every single scene. It made every character memorable. It was always going to be hard to live up to that.

 

Ocean’s Eight has a decent run at it that’s for sure; bringing together a cool gang of thieves for a big old, dramatic heist. It’s certainly a superior film to the two Ocean’s sequels (12 and 13) but it can’t live up to Ocean’s Eleven. The script tries to with the bulk of the character’s being cool and not losing that cool and the plot twists around like Ocean’s Eleven but the dialogue is where it falls short.

 

If Ocean’s Eight had been made as a stand-alone film with no connections to Ocean’s Eleven it probably would have been better off and avoided obvious comparisons. But they want to pay tribute to their source material so Shaobo Qin and Elliot Gould both appear. In trying to deliberately be up to the Ocean’s standard they forget to enjoy themselves. Aside from a few scenes the film doesn’t really relax and let you in. Gary Ross does fine behind the camera but he’s merely paying tribute to Soderbergh rather than trying to one-up the director. ***

 

A YEAR ON UNTAPPD

My Untappd anniversary came up this week. It’s been a year of beers in the Furious household. Here are my #numbers:

 

804 check-ins.

 

735 beers.

 

3.09 average rating.

 

40 items currently on my wish list.

 

20 beers currently in my fridge.

 

1165 badges unlocked.

 

2 Five Star rated beers. 003 Project Pinda Patrons Society Exclusive from Northern Monk and Patrons Project 17.03 Pete’s Dark Past, also from Northern Monk.

 

3 Quarter star ratings. For Coors Light, Shipyard Low Tide (Alcohol Free) and Veltins Malz, a truly awful liquid Maltesers thing Mike Kilby accidentally ordered in a bowling alley thinking it was an actual proper beer.

 

166 check in’s at home since the lock down started.

 

50 check in’s at Tryp Centro Oberhausen. I’m top of the leaderboard.

 

430 Great British Beers drunk!

 

100 different IPA’s consumed!

 

396 different breweries sampled!

 

14 Brewdog beers drunk! My top tapped brewhouse.

 

64 German beers quaffed! My second most frequent country after England.

 

38 friends on the Untappd App! I’m @ArnFurious on there, but can also be found under my shoot name.

 

Join me for beer consumption over the next 365 days in Untappd Year Two.