World Cup Twatball

[IM Jack Rudd]

An inverted Fantasy Football game, set up by a friend of mine from another site. The aim is to pick players who will score own goals, concede penalties, get sent off et cetera.

Twatball

[Kevin Williamson]

Out of curiosity/boredom I wondered if it was possible to pick a team of players with the same (or similar) names to strong chess players.

I managed to do it, sticking to a 4-4-2 formation, although some of the connections are quite tenuous.

GK Andersen (Denmark) Ulf Andersson
DF King (England) Danny King
DF Van der Wiel (Holland) John Van der Wiel
DF Bornstein (USA) David Bronstein
DF Torres (Paraguay) Carlos Torre
MF Milner-Barry (Both England) Sir Stuart Milner-Barry
MF Poulsen (Denmark) Louis Paulsen
MF Thomas (Honduras) Sir George Thomas
FW Larsen (Denmark) Bent Larsen
FW Parker (South Africa) Jonathan Parker

A real pity that Armenia didn’t qualify as they have a goalkeeper called G.Kasparov

[IM Jack Rudd]

You could claim Torres as a plural, on the grounds that there have been two notable chess players called Torre.

[John Saunders]

One glaring omission from the chess/football team:

MF Shunsuke Nakamura (Japan)

[John Saunders]

... or indeed MF Kengo Nakamura (Japan).

So Japan has two Nakas (sorry, should have resisted but couldn't).

[Geoff Chandler]

The coach for the Chess Team could be an ex-footbal player.

Simen Agdestein, from Norway. who is a GM and a retired International Footbal player.

The team needs a nickname.