Against the odds, Chennaiyin overcame Bengaluru in a five-goal thriller which sees them crowned kings of the ISL for a second time. Steve is dealing with the match report on what was an exhilarating game, I’m here to close off the prediction league. As you’ll recall, with Chris being twenty points in front, we changed it up a little bit and made it so a mouthwatering forty-one points were on offer in the final round.
Points Were Available Everywhere You Looked
Points were available for pretty much everything you could imagine, first goalscorer, correct score, attendance and we even went as far as getting the starting line-up right. We’ll run through who picked up what points and then we’ll take one final look at the league table to see who is crowned champion and who picks up the wooden spoon award.
So, we’ll start with the respective starting eleven of each side; in this part, 0.5 players were available for each player you correctly selected. Remember, Chris forfeited his turn in this round so it’ll only be Mark, Steve and I that you’re looking at when it comes to points scored. The maximum anyone can score in this round is eleven as 0.5 x 22 = 11. Quick maths, eh?
JF – 10.5 (had Harmanjot instead of Lenny) | MS – 10 (Bose & Mihelic instead of Haokip & Bikramjit) | SB – 10 (Bose & Dovale instead of Haokip & Lenny).
As discussed after the predictions were made, Mark and Steve didn’t do their due diligence which in turn meant they missed that Bose was actually suspended for the final. It was only getting his replacement wrong which cost me a full house, never mind, you live and learn.
We each selected a first goalscorer as well, five points were on offer in this section and only Mark obliged as he correctly selected Sunil Chhetri. We also picked what minute we thought the opening goal would be scored, however, nobody selected the 9th minute. Steve got the closest as he picked minute seventeen, but, there are no points for being the closest. Not in this round anyway.
In this round, there is. Attendance. The rules stipulate you have to be within fifty either way of the correct attendance to get ten points. Officially, the attendance was 25,753, let’s take a look at who if anybody got those points.
JF: -2,078 | MS: -506 | SB: +2,122. I had a right good laugh when I saw Steve’s prediction of the attendance because he went beyond the actual capacity of the stadium. As the story goes, we were both as bad as each other on that one and I knew what I was working with. Pish. Mark didn’t do too badly in fairness to him, again though, no prizes for being close to the target.
Bread & Butter Ends Up Tasting Sour
Lastly, the game itself. This is the bread and butter of the prediction league; five points for a correct score OR one point for the correct result. To make the humiliation process faster, I’ll just tell you that no-one had Chennaiyin to beat Bengaluru and we’ll leave it at that, so no points were scored. For what it’s worth, despite not entering, Chris did say not too long before kick-off that Chennaiyin would win and right he was.
That was the end of that. Out of the possible forty-one points on offer, this is what we scored: JF: 10.5, MS: 14.5, SB: 10. Not the best of returns, I’ll be honest. All we need to now is add those figures to the table and see who has won what, although, the fact that Chris was twenty points clear before this round started should give you some indication who has won. Without further ado, here are the final standings for this year’s prediction league…
Name |
Points |
Correct Scores |
Chris Darwen (C) |
57 |
6 |
Mark Smith |
48.5 |
2 |
Jake Flock |
47.5 |
4 |
Stephen Beavon |
41 |
3 |
Along the way in this prediction league, I may have come across as somewhat of a bad loser and to be fair, that’s because I am. Forgetting that, you can only really say well done to Chris as he started slowly, nevertheless, when he took top spot from me, he never looked back and he’s a deserved winner of the inaugural prediction league trophy.
It’ll Be Back With A Bang
Steve ends with the wooden spoon after a terrible end to the league, though, mine wasn’t much better. Mark has pulled all kinds of Houdini-style magic as he’s somehow ended up with the silver medal which is amazing when you consider that he hadn’t even hit the twenty point mark as late as round eight.
It remains to be seen whether or not a new prediction league will take place for the Super Cup, one thing is for sure though, it will definitely be back for the fifth ISL season. Either way, it will be back and it’ll be back with a bang.
Until the next time. Sayonara.
