The premise

- There are 736 players registered for the World Cup (23 per team, with 32 teams)
- There are more than 736 members on this board

The idea

The top 736 posters on these forums (sorted by post count, not quality, and disqualifying those who have been banned) are each assigned a player to 'adopt'. Will you get Rooney? Or will you get Pak Nam-Chol? How will your adopted player fare at the world cup? Will he struggle to get game time, or will he get the golden boot?

This competition is similar to how groups of people throw in $5 to pick a horse for the Melbourne Cup out of a hat, with a winner takes all mentality. The only difference, is that there is no $5 (just pride) and no hat (just an excel spreadsheet).

I have compiled a list of the top 736 posters, with everyone who has 75 or more posts to their name, and assigned them a player at random [see below to find out who you snagged].

The aim

To win one of the following official FIFA awards:
Golden Ball - Awarded to the best overall player
Golden Boot/Shoe - Awarded to the top scorer
Yashin Award - Awarded to the best Goal Keeper
Best Young Player - Awarded to the best Under-21 player
FIFA Fair Play Award - Awarded to the team with the best disciplinary record
Most Entertaining Team Award - Awarded to the team that produce the most entertaining matches
All-Star Squad - Awarded to the best 23 players of the tournament

The aim is to also watch from the sidelines as your adopted player excites or greatly disappoints you. Who knows, you may be the only person in the world paying ANY attention to your player, so watch him as if he is your son, and hope for success.

The list

Spreadsheet - Listed by User-Names in alphabetic order (Please note that it is a huge image, due to there being 736 players, and so it may take a while to load. If you have any difficulties, feel free to ask for help in this thread and I'll try to sort it out for you).

For those interested to see which other forum members you are teamed up with: Player list - Sorted by squad

Final Comments

So all you have to do is check the above image, find your name, find your player, and watch on vicariously like a father as your new son competes in the World Cup.

If your player is out injured, then feel free to adopt his replacement. If he has not been replaced, then you'll have to take the disappointment on the chin, just as your player did.


HAVE FUN!

Edited by Bill Murray: 9/6/2010 10:40:48 PM

Edited by Bill Murray: 9/6/2010 10:44:34 PM

Edited by Bill Murray: 10/6/2010 10:15:56 PM

Holy shit. You have too much time on your hand! Haha... but thanks for getting me... *looks at list*... Matias Fernandez. :lol: Now to research about him.

I feel sorry for the 3rd choice keepers on the list. :p

wouldn't load for me...can you tell who I've got...cheers

Way too much time on you hands.
I got Fernando Muslera of Uruguay

Juan Manuel Mata of Spain. :-k

Plays for Valencia, seems to have a decent goal scoring record. Hopefully he gets a bit of a run for Spain. [-o<

Gonzalo Jara- Chile

Joffa - you're Gonzalo Jara from Chile.

woah this sounds awesome, if i get an algerian player that will be really scary, i've already drawn the team twice already in world cup draws :lol:

What a fucking effort. Pity I got a shit player. :lol:

Thanks buddha69 and RedsUnited - cheers

Great idea Bill Murray - this sounds like fun

Although Angel di Maria is a great player, not sure davidtorres will be too happy with that pick for him. :p

can't wait until afro comes in here (if afro comes in here) and sees he's got surprise moriri :lol:

I got Sergio Aguero.

hurry up and load to 'G' you stupid thing...

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Sorry Joffa.

Thanks buddha69 and RedsUnited for sorting him out in the meantime.

As for me having too much time... it only took an hour :lol:. I felt a great need to procrastinate on something.

Edited by Bill Murray: 9/6/2010 10:44:58 PM

Lucky

WHO THE FUCK IS MISO BREC(KO!!!!????

and was the bracket between between the c and the k meant to be there or was it just a typo?

Thanks mate. Interesting to see who people got. Who did you get?

Might go buy Mata on Fifa 10 now.

Edited by ducky42: 9/6/2010 10:45:06 PM

oh what the hell?? girtXc has Xavi! :O And melbournefanatic got Messi!

I'm envious...

and not SURPRISE! moriri, surprise is his actual first name :lol:

I know :lol:. better prompt Afro to have a look at this

Awesome thread, btw :D Gives me something else to watch out for during the world cup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mi%C5%A1o_Bre%C4%8Dko

Those odd typos are because excel didn't like me copying in characters with inflections and such. If you aren't sure who they are (due to an odd typo or for some other reason), you should be able to work backwards by looking at the country they play for.

As for me, I got Mesut Ozil (Germany). I can't say I'm unhappy about that! Although I'll feel bad hoping he plays well during the Germany vs Australia match. I'm going to have a ridiculous conflict of interests.

:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

Thats a good draw for you. I'm curious as to how you sorted the player out to each forumite?

well this hasn't changed the way i feel about the slovenian national team at all, in fact if i got someone like surprise moriri i'd actually have a soft spot for the guy :lol:

I copied all the squads from Wikipedia, and just gave each player a number from 1 to 736 (Sth Africans were 1 to 23, Mexico was 24 to 46, etc.)

Then I copied out the top 736 members from the forums, and posted them into a spreadsheet. Next to each member I generated a random number, and I then sorted everyone by their random number.

Once everyone was all jumbled up, I just counted down the list from 1 to 736, and assigned each member their corresponding player, and voila!