Without making this article an edition of dictionary corner, this is your state definition of schadenfreude: Satisfaction or pleasure believed in another’s hardship, derived by the German Schaden (harm) and freude (joy). Nowhere is this emotion more clear than in Fantasy Football!

There’s not anything more satisfying than watching a game title that traditionally you would never value, with players not really in your team, just from the hope that the hapless defender your friend has in his lineup might enable in a dozen or score a personal goal. Perhaps his striker will only play five pointless moments at the conclusion of the game, and perhaps even hit the jack pot with a primary half card it’s a minus points bonanza!

Ofcourse the flip side of this also baanpolball holds true from Fantasy Football – rampant jealousy in your buddy’s uncanny capacity to modify his Captain to the no-hope player who suddenly strikes a hatrick or their choice to play five star defenders most whom keep sterile sheets. Unexpectedly the point-scoring requires a backseat to feelings of grief and revenge – in true British sporting convention. It isn’t the losing I despise, it’s the other chap winning that really gets on my goat!

Needless to say as the summer season progresses as well as your team gradually slips down the club, the strong emotions which plagued every waking minute give way to apathy, depression and a gloomy sense of inevitability. The team starts to take a back seat, Friday nights and Saturday mornings aren’t spent poring over the latest numbers, however alternatively visiting friends and maybe even taking your lady breakfast in bed. In short, life simply doesn’t seem worth living.

Eventually the thing which prevents you away from swinging at the end of a chain is your hope that maybe your Nemesis that has won the last five titles could slide up, make a mistake, even forget their Captain has been suspended. You then become obsessed with the packs of one’s own personal team (every single member which you now despise and blame for the pain in the world) but rather you descend in to a nightmarish, voyeuristic Fantasy Football Schadenfreude world.

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