ESPN columnist Bill Simmons wrote a now famous article a couple of years ago entitled “Choosing My EPL Team.” At the time, it caused quite a stir. Many Brits were shocked and surprised to learn that there were people out there picking a Premier League team for the first time. But, for many people newly introduced to the sport and league, how else was someone supposed to choose a team?
Now, thanks to the website Hunch.com, they have a widget that helps you pick your team. Answer the series of questions below to find out which team you’re best suited for.
What major football/soccer club should I support? – make thousands more decisions on Hunch.com
Me? I answered all of the questions truthfully and expected to be told that I should support my favorite team, Swansea City. But the bloody widget picked Arsenal for me.
Which team did it pick for you and did you agree or disagree with the result? Click the comments link below and share your thoughts.
Thanks to Kent Nevitt for the story tip.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Funnily enough, I ended up with Man United, when I’m actually a Man City fan!
People who are new to the sport need to start watching football, and follow at least one football show a week, or follow skysports/BBC online. The drama/story behind the sport should be just as important when you make a life-long commitment.
This hunch dot com business is a disgrace! It’s a pathetic gimmick and a joke for ANY subject matter let alone the sacred one at hand!
I’m a united fan since the age of 10 and it suggested ARSEnal :/
that’s not even the worst, it’s the questions … It looked like they were put together by a person who hasn’t the slightest clue about football.
As a joke it’s fine, but of anyone takes this seriously I’d have to question their intelligence :/
On the other hand – do people need good reason to support their club? Most of us support teams simply by happenstance – region we live, team our parents followed, the first one we saw on tv as kids, the one friends got us into, etc. For most sports fans (of any sport), supporting one’s team is not a matter of rational choice. That’s why we refuse to change teams come hell or high water! (Keep in mind, the rational thing to do would be to change teams so that we always support the best team, but that’s against the ethos of being a fan.)
Something like this is clearly a diversion – and at best meant for people who are not currently fans. I don’t think there is the presumption that established fans will change their teams. But if someone is new and they need to pick a a team? Well, I think pretty much any reason at all is fine (including hunch.com). After all, the reason is not important – sticking with the team is.
It looks like they don’t really know too much about the sport – but I’ve been a Man United fan for years and that’s what it gave me. Although when answering the silly questions I did try to figure out what answer would be what club.
Deciding what club to support is a lifelong commitment and you can’t really make that without watching them play.
See I think what Amanda said is dead wrong. I don’t think you should decide what club to support after watching them play. By then you know if the team is good, the players, and anything said about them in match commentary including their position in the standings. When I became a fan of the game, I had never seen an EPL match.
I picked a team with nearly no knowledge of who teams were. Except for not picking ManU because they are my vision of the Yankees, I had no clue what the big 4 was, knew relegation existed but didn’t know the teams in danger of it, and had little to no idea of history. I think picking a team is important if you want to follow the game, but doing so after watching the games means you are going to pick the favorites.
Simmons’ system was a lot better. The person choosing an EPL team for the first time is one who is basically new to the sport. They are not going to know (or be able to discern) what style of game they like to watch. They are going to choose a team based on the factors that Simmons laid out, almost all of which are aesthetic, not technical: history/tradition of the team, winning records (for most people, they have to pick a team that is neither the Yankees or the Royals, meaning, not dominant nor completely hopeless), coolness of the kits, attractiveness of the city the team plays in, etc. Those are more important to the new fan than whether the team plays an attacking style.
I got drawn in after the last WC.
I ruled out only two clubs to start – Man. U. and Chelsea. Both seemed to me to be too similar to the teams that I had learned to despise as a Philly sports fan and UNC alum (Yankees/Braves/Cowboys/Duke).
I read and Youtubed everything about the other clubs that I could get my hands on and watched the ‘06-07 season (other than Man. U. and Chelsea matches) as a neutral.
By January my list was down to 6: Liverpool (history, every game seemingly a nailbiter), Arsenal (style of play), Everton (scrappy, seemingly overperforming small budget club), Villa (ditto), Wigan (ditto, only cubed), and Fulhamerica! (obvious reasons)
I made my (well-documented) choice at the end of the year, but retain a soft spot for the others as well as for the two seemingly biggest underdog clubs, Hull and Burnley.
All that said, the widget gave me Man. U.
Wrong. Denied.
Kevin,
I don’t think you are wrong, excatly, but not entirely right either. See, true fan passion is often hard to generate (it is for me). You can pick a team and decide to follow them, but for some reason, the spark never develops and maybe you keep following, but by rote, not by genuine interest. It happened to me with teams from EPL and the Brazilian league (where I currently live). I picked a team, and then for one reason or another, didn’t develop true affection for that team, and eventually gravited to another team. The way it happened in the EPL was, I picked Blackburn, decided to follow them, etc. My first year, they showed them on my cable system like 4 times (and I had to miss two of those). So right off, I couldn’t really get into them because I only saw them twice. But I was able to watch Newcastle a few more times and for some reason started developing a greater interest in them and in the end I came to accept that I was a fan of Newcastle and not Blackburn. In the Brazilian leakgue I had chosen Cruzeiro. I liked their jersey, I liked their name, and even though Belo Horizonte is nothing to write home about, one of my favorite places in the world is one hour away, the little town of Ouro Preto, so I knew I had to pick a team from BH. One time I was in BH for business on the weekend of the Classico Mineiro, Cruzeiro-Atletico Mineiro. I found a bar to watch the game and the place was packed with Cruzeiro fans. Well, Cruzeiro won something like 6-0, it was one of the worst defeats in Atletico’s history and the Cruzeiro fans at the bar were overjoyed, arrogant, bombastic (as they had every right to be). I felt bad for Atletico. So naturally, I switched sides on the spot. It was like love at first sigh. I guess I can’t help myself, I fall for the hardcases. The next day I stopped by the team store and bought a jersey and have since bought another and follow the team with a passion. In a few other leagues picking a team beforehand has worked and those teams have stuck (Racing Club in Argentina, Atletico Madrid in La Liga). But my point is, sometimes picking a team beforehand works and sometimes it doesn’t and you have to be open to switching sides, particularly if its early in your league-following career.
Arsenal
Barça
Liverpool
My adventure in English football began early 2003 when i heard about Championship Manager on some TV show on addicting video games. I obtained myself a copy of CM4 soon after and once i sorted out the general idea behind it I searched for a club in the Third Division that had a fancy stadium and player to speed up the climb to the top. That club of course was Hull City. City became, through CM, my club. Of course, besides looking at BBC sports for lower league scores, my interested couldn’t find much to grasp on to and I kept my eye on Chelsea who I could watch on TV. Then they got the boring boring money and i became impartial to the Prem. Until last summer when the playoff results made me smile uncontrollably for a week. Now i can watch my team and had a good few months being able to brag. Hopefully next season won’t end with me sitting on the floor, rocking, pulling my hair, and reducing myself to listening intently to the crowd in the stadium for a collective groan.
Which UK Premiership Team Should I Support? <– better quiz. Mostly due to the fact that it only deals with the EPL teams
But for the other quiz I got Arsenal.
Nope. Rejected.