2001 was a huge year.
Wikipedia was launched in January (and enabled me to write the rest of this opening paragraph), George Bush was sworn in as US President and Silvio Berlusconi as his Italian counterpart, loads of cows were offed in the UK because of foot-and-mouth, Russia and China signed their “Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation” and the war on terrorism started. A nice light introduction to this post.
Over in Serie A, something big was happening.
Having recently been in the shadow of their big-spending cross-town rivals, AS Roma were nurturing two prodigious young talents in midfield and attack. Following the success of luring a mercurial Japanese playmaker the previous season they also decided to go big in the transfer market and took their South American scout’s advice and bagged the Argentine centre-half who had just won Boca the title.
They already had the world’s best right-back and a little aeroplane up front, and when a long-haired Argentine half-striker half-lion moved from Florence to the capital he brought with him goals, and he brought the title.
Unfortunately you can’t own the lion-man unless you prise him from Clapped Out FC’s squad for Weimar Republic wheelbarrows of money, but you can now spend big (and you’ll probably need to) to add his title-winning team mates to your squad:
Name Age Nat Prs St Tk Ps Sh Sm Ag KAb TAb PAb SAb
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F_Antonioli 28 ita RC 21 4 4 4 83 33 300 300 300 300
W_Samuel 27 arg RC 3 25 11 4 65 41 300 100 300 300
Cafu 24 bra R 3 21 16 7 69 22 300 500 300 300
V_Candela 29 fra LC 3 20 13 5 72 23 300 400 700 300
H_Nakata 26 jap LC 4 9 22 15 68 33 300 300 300 800
Emerson 27 bra C 3 13 20 8 75 31 300 600 300 300
D_DeRossi 15 ita C 3 16 18 4 71 48 300 300 700 300
F_Totti 20 ita C 2 5 10 22 63 33 300 300 300 700
V_Montella 26 ita LC 3 3 8 19 65 22 300 300 300 100
How it works
Any manager who wishes to bid on a player needs to email me their bid, in secret, before 7.30pm GMT on Monday 14th March. The manager who has made the highest bid on a player after the deadline has passed gets them.
Managers are allowed to make one bid on one player. This means that you’ve emailed it you can’t change it. You might want to wait until a day or two before the deadline in case you come into money.
Managers are also only allowed to buy one auction player per season, so if you already bought a player in the live auction this season unfortunately you can’t take part in this blind auction…
…however, a manager is allowed to make one extra bid for every £100m worth of player they’ve sold this season.
For example: If you have sold £400m worth of players this season you have the chance to buy your standard one player and an additional four players at an auction, so five total. If you’ve already got one player from the live auction earlier in the season then you’ve got four chances left, so you can make four bids here. Capiche?
Good luck!
