I am beyond elated. When I first started blogging, my goals were simple: break transfer rumors, injury reports, starting elevens, and try to bring a little of ESPN-guys-yelling-in-suits to the blogosphere. Since that fateful afternoon several years ago when I started this endeavor, I have won countless awards. This year, despite stiff competition from the ultimately disqualified fakefutfanatico and fakerfutfanatico, I won all five awards – best blog, best iPhone app, best Android app, best eBook, and best awardie! It’s a glorious time to be the proprietor of a blog with “futfanatico” in the URL.

However, none of these awards would have been possible without a very special person.

No, not the spirit of Ferenc Puskas. No, not Dr. Moschlavius Gumperteer. No, not Real Madrid’s future greatest player (once upon a time) Junito. We know who’s the key player to my success. We know who forms the foundation to this delicately balanced house of cards. Now, normally this is the part in the boring and recycled award acceptance speech where relatives are thanked with too little detail. Not here, though. Rather, I will start at the very beginning in too much detail. No, not my birth. Rather, my conception. Based on some educated guesses, I imagine this happening. First, I thank my dad and mom for having a few drinks and maybe going dancing. Then, when they get home, I thank my dad for [FIVE PARAGRAPHS OF NC-17 GRAPHIC DETAILS OMITTED BY EDITOR]. So thanks mom and dad. You sweaty and filthy bastions of original sin, you.

But I also owe it all to you. You, as in the person reading this post. Thanks for reading. Thanks for commenting. Blogs are fun because of you. Except for you, Liverpool troll dick whose comments I automatically send to the spam folder. You are the exception. Everybody else, thanks.

For those of you who foolishly boycotted the elections and want a proper piece of soccer writing, I penned a little something something at the excellent Classical. My post attempted to make sense of Mourinho and Guardiola’s odd press conferences. Check it out here.

You no longer need an eBook reader to enjoy Elliott’s “An Illustrated Guide to Soccer & Spanish.” A DRM-free, ePub version is available at Goodreads. Check it out here. A HTML version you can simply read in your browser is available at Smashwords. Check it out here.

Let’s not play games. For the last two years, this lovely site has cleaned up the competition at some very prestigious online soccer-writing awards. This year, the awards scene has multiplied exponentially. Categories and nominations have expanded, so don’t let your guard down – please be sure to vote and I will of course begin preparing an earnest and heartfelt thank you speech dedicated to my family’s pet dog Lassie who rescued me as a child from an abandoned mine by heroically overcoming a lack of opposable thumbs to scale down the two story mine while wearing an adorable dog-fitted miner hat with a light, firmly clasp my polo shirt’s non-popped collar in her jaws, and then climb over 20 feet, myself in tow.

A vote for this site is a vote for childhood, cute dogs saving cute toddlers, and a simpler time in American history when beavers were either mammals that built dams or network television protagonists, nothing more.

Please pay close attention to the categories and cast your vote accordingly.

First, the most important and prestigious: best blog.
Second, and reasonably important: best Android app.

Third, and kinda important: best iPhone app.
Fourth, and incredibly prestigious: best indie Soccer eBook.

Fifth, and novel to this year: best “Awardie”.

Did that last “awardie” confuse you? It shouldn’t. We all know the respected, popular, and high quality content websites that regularly have awards for soccer blogs. But here’s the simmering question: how good can an awards event be if the award itself has never won an award? It’s like a dentist with a mouth full of cavities or a chef who has never eaten his own soup. Also imagine how much better the Tonie’s, Golden Globe, Oscar, Emmy’s, and even ESPY’s would be if each year they had to compete against one another. The chance to clasp and flaunt an “awardie” would lead them to trim down productions and actually fork out cash for a funny host. In sum, your cynicism at these other awards is deserved and your excitement at my idea is deservedly palpable. 

However, here’s the other problem: an award for soccer awards featuring those sites would probably be won by one of those sites. Thus, in the noble spirit of amateurism, we narrowed the options. My campaign manager from 2009, Daniel Ortega, recommended this. He also recommended a closed ballot, which I have done. I did not hire any of his Juventud Sandinista to threaten the foreign press or international election observers, but they are on call if the need arises. I have the utmost trust in Daniel, especially after his recent “re-election.”

So, there you have it. The polls close on December 8th, and the winners will be announced December 12th.

It has been over a year since I either experienced the first-ever cyberhaunting or fell victim to an elaborate hoax by my readers. Or my younger brother. Or both. While open to interpretation, the fact is as follows: Ferenc Puskas contacted me via a Ouija board to ask for, ahem, a favor. Pandemonium ensued. Thus, I tread softly when mentioning the name of he-wh0-shall-only-sparingly-be-fully-named. I only half watched the latest Harry Potter film, but I caught the drift about horicruxes and resurrections and, well, I prefer to refer to the spiritual entity that haunted my house, PC, twitter, and wikipedia as “Pusky.” And I only invoke his presence in cases of crisis.

In fact, I’ve been avoiding Pusky for sometime. During the World Cup, I saw him haunting gchat, but immediately rendered myself invisible. Still, despite the awkwardness – how do you say “hola” after a year of silence to a dead Hungarian footballer that feasts on goat’s blood -  Grant Wahl’s self-nomination for FIFA president was a momentous occasion. I had to do something. FIFA has reached a crises point. And I needed otherworldly guidance.

But I wasn’t about to run to Pusky for help with my tail between my legs. Not at first. So, I bought a few tarot cards, some scented candles, and the Book of Thoth. My plan was to channel positive spiritual energy Mr. Wahl’s way and illuminate some lingering questions about his candidacy. Or so I thought.

A few nights ago, I sat cross legged in my living room and, at the stroke of midnight, lit a  few candles, opened the ancient text, placed it in front of me, pulled out my tarot cards, and began to read the cards. Or, rather, the cards read themselves to me.

Positive spiritual energy works in mysterious ways. The last time I contacted the spirits via Pusky, my weapon of choice was the Ouija board. Cloistered in a prairie mansion during the harsh winter, the slow and steady movement of the board reflected my heartbeat. However, now that I’ve relocated to a South Texas rancho and the warmth of spring beckons, seeping in through the windows, I decided on tarot cards.

Why tarot cards? Less suspense. Less build-up. You flip the card, you read the card, bam-bam-bam. Sorta. Maybe. Not really. The cards always give a superficial & immediate response, which I like. But they can still present a puzzle of interpretation, perplexing to the untrained eye. My questions about FIFA and Wahl pushed me in these paradoxical directions.

First and foremost, on a practical level, could one man make a difference on such a large structural problem? I have my own bias – as long as the World Cup gets free labor, like NCAA athletics, the bung culture will persist. Why drink responsibly when you’re driving another person’s expensive car? But the Olympics run the same show, and they have improved since Salt Lake.

Second, on a personal level, how can Grant Wahl cross the line from journalist to being a “player” in the field of his journalism? I experienced the same dilemma when I got haunted by Pusky and the handful of times that I exchanged emails with Jimmy Conrad. I tried to minimize and ignore both experiences, obviously not wanting to compromise my readers’ faith in my integrity and objectivity. But how can Mr. Wahl run a serious nomination campaign and keep writing for SI?

Second, have we seen this film before? Is this the making of another “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”? Will Grant become the FIFA equivalent of a freshmen House Republican, passing bills that everybody knows will die in Senate subcommittees? On the other hand, a journalist would value the most important thing lacking in FIFA: transparency.

With these thoughts buzzing through my head, I sucked in the sweet scent of the candles. I inhaled, held my breath, and then slowly exhaled. In uncertain times, we must look beyond our modern values and biases in order to scour the past for clues to our future. I shuffled the deck, laid out three rows of seven cards, and pulled out the first card. And my hand trembled.

The Fool? Really? But was I a fool for doubting the power of Grant Wahl to get a nomination, win the election, and change FIFA’s ways? Or was Grant Wahl a fool for believing he could make a difference? The Fool is perhaps the most powerful and perplexing of the tarot cards, either a very good or a very bad sign. But which? Perhaps the next card would provide me with more guidance.

And the next card was….the Ace of Spades! Surely this was a good sign? Right? I read and re-read my little tarot guide book, but found no conclusive answer. However, several people had told me to trust my own heart and intuition in reading cards, not relying on the written word. I felt the Ace of Spaces was good, but did my poker playing biases blind me? Perhaps the Ace, singular, represented Mr. Wahl’s lonely fight for justice. Was the Spade his penetrating knife of transparency?

So, like, two cards, and no clear answer. I flipped over another card, but was similarly flabbergasted. The Two of Hearts? WTF? Frustrated, I flipped another card – The Seven of Clubs? Poker again infiltrated my thoughts – seven/two off suit sucks. It is statistically the worst hand. Perhaps FIFA had reached an all new low with Sepp Blatter’s lgbt remarks and the bribe-laden selection process last year? Or Grant Wahl would get dealt an impossible hand to win?

I picked up the tarot cards and placed them back into the deck. This backdoor spiritual stuff was simply not working. I had to resort to the next best thing – gchat. Gchat with Pusky. I would enter the haunted cyberbelly of the beast. I let the candles burn out, closed and put away the Book of Thoth, and set the card decj on a shelf and out of reach from little hands. I slept restlessly that night, anticipating the next day’s task.

All day, I checked and re-rechecked and re-checked my gchat. Generally, the same characters appear. I suspect most of them have gchat on their phones, but could the others really be gchatting all that time? Regardless, Thursday evening, my spiritual prey signed on.

I waited a few seconds, just to be sure. Sometimes people only sign into gchat to check their email, and then they immediately sign out. On a few occasions, I’ve sent them a nice hello, but end up with egg on my face as the dreaded-gray-outline-window appears. I waited a few minutes, my heart rattling my chest. Pusky was logged on. Pusky stayed logged on. With a click of a mouse and the typing of a keyboard, I sent a saludito. And waited.

A year is a long time. So much had changed since our last encounter – my residence, my job, the site re-design. I also had no clue about Pusky’s whereabouts – for all I know, he could be back in his native Hungary, haunting an old mansion converted into a bed-and-breakfast. I assumed he had gone to South Africa due to the soccer and abundance of goat’s blood. I typed in an awkward introductory greeting that shan’t be repeated on these pages, but Pusky responded! And I went straight to the point….

Oh that sardonic Pusky! I read a lighthearted feeling into the remark, imagining him on his blackberry or iphone, laughing while reading my question. However, I was blinded by my own optimism. I asked another pointed and direct question – did Pusky support Grant Wahl? And Pusky….

He dodged the questions. He kinda….kinda blew me off. And I understand – as an apparition that may be potentially burning off sins ala Hamlet’s father, he has stuff to do. He has goat’s blood to drink. But did you see the “…..” line? Pusky paused. Pusky thought. Most importantly, Pusky did not say no. Nor did he kiss the rump of Sepp Blatter.

And that is a form of support, albeit indirect. If Sepp Blatter can push FIFA to create a special award in honor of Pusky, and Pusky doesn’t support him, then it’s a sign of the times. The backscratching, the favors, the quid pro quo – even a dead Hungarian footballer apparition can see fact from fiction.

Pusky did kinda hurt my feelings – you’d think five minutes of his time wouldn’t kill the guy. But what he revealed helped to illuminate the tarot cards a little bit. In summation, I’m hoping the jokes on Blatter, and Wahl’s Ace of Spades cuts through the FIFA 7-2 offsuit like a hot knife through butter….

Irony is a dish best served ironically. Last year, EPL Talk banned Unprofessional Foul for posting the script to the EPL Talk awards on Unprofessional Foul’s own website (among other allegations). We are humbled that UF nominated us for “best blog that deserves more traffic”, although that runs at odds with our nomination on another site for “best niche blog that would lose its small-town feel if stampeded by too many feet.” Regardless, below is the voting apparatus, delightfully embedded for your fraudulent convenience. Vote early. Vote often. And Vote irregularly. I’ve already won this year’s most prestigious award, so why not play close to the edge?

So, Sepp didi very little to qualm fears that FIFA is a corrupt “money buys anything” organization. The recent selection of Russia & Qatar, despite FIFA reports giving them both low marks for stadium preparations, hints at a bit of the old “briefcases exchanged in parking lots at night.”

But fear not, because another election exemplified the virtues of integrity, transparency, and greatness. You actually partook in this election. And the winner may (or may not) surprise you.

I, of course, refer to the soccer blogosphere’s most prestigious award: “the best soccer blog of the year with futfanatico in the URL.” Last year’s election was a disaster due to secret ballots and Nicaraguan campaign managers. In fact, we saw the lingering spirit of distrust permeate this year’s elections, as voting decreased by well over 90%. I also believe that heavy snowfall in the UK contributed to a reduced voter turnout – I’m sure some folks who wanted to vote were unable to visit the local library and use the internet connection. Like, let’s say 3,000 people or so.

Regardless of the inclement weather, a clear victor emerged.

I was shocked. Last year, “www” really made a strong showing, narrowly losing to pitchinvasion. However, they say that politics and elections come in waves and cycles. I guess some sort of rebellious and cantankerous tea party activists rocked the boat by pushing “http”. Is it a stab at the somewhat superfluous “www” in an era of government and private sector belt-tightening? Perchance.

Regardless, I can assure you that Qatar and Russia never stood a chance. In fact, the initial Futfanatico Site Reports immediately disqualified them for 1) Failing to be a soccer related blog and 2) Not having “futfanatico” in the url. And I assure you – those rules are set in stone.

So, while I didn’t prepare an acceptance speech, I would like to thank my mom for having given birth to me. I’d also like to thank my dad for having impregnated my mom. And I’d like to thank my grandmother for having given birth to my mom, who then gave birth to me around 28 years later. Without those wonderful people, none of the great things I do would have been possible.

Ahem. Gentlemen, ladies, transgendered individuals, and mammals of all colors and stripes, please pay attention and lift your glasses of champagne. The end of the year fast approaches and the awards for soccer bloggers proliferate. Naturally, I have quit my day job based on the success of this highly profitable soccer link directory, errr, website. I spend all day on my couch, waiting to sign the green certified receipt for my invitation to the Emmy’s. I’ve already written my acceptance speech, and it goes a little something like this….

Despite the cut-throat nature of the soccer blogosphere, where we constantly compete to out-scoop one another with gigantic shovels, shady agents that receive bribes for tips, and the occasional email from an angry & drunken player, a sense of community pervades. How do I know this? Because I can feel it. I have felt this tingling sensation. And it tingles. Not in the way your foot goes from-cramped-to-less-cramped when you get up from your desk at your tedious day job. No, this tingling is special. Community special.

Everyone talks about “monetization” and cry that their blog does not generate enough PPC. But for those of us old enough to remember PCP and whom are no longer institutionalized, the joy of writing and the love of the game carry us through the day. And the readership. Your comments, emails, and tweets make me smile, think, and occasionally cringe at the limits of my own mental capacities and prejudices. Your intellectual synergy makes me tingle, and not in the sense of a tetanus shot. But enough tingling.

Last year, we attempted a very special soccer blog award. The name of this prestigious trophy of trophies? The best soccer blog that had “Futfanatico” in the URL. However, a shady Central American campaign manager undid all our good work. A lack of transparency undercut our modest dreams. We swallowed a bitter pill ala the Democratic party in the US this past midterm election. But unlike Barackstar, we have learned.

Yes. That’s right. The award is back. I am proud to announce that Futfanatico has been nominated (for the second year in a row!) as “Best Soccer Blog with Futfanatico in the URL.” And our new campaign manager = guaranteed success. Karl Rove, the man selected for the job, only picks a winner and enters battles he cannot lose. He chose us. And we feel special. He has promised to do absolutely nothing but write op-eds for the WSJ and find creative statistics to show why we won. Postfacto reasoning. God Bless.

Of course, several wonderful blogs and articles deserve an honorable mention. For various reasons, these sites were disqualified but produced the funniest articles of the soccer blog year.

The first, FistedAway, caused much bemusement with an article on the Dutch World Cup team. While Cruyff guided Holland to a clockwork version of the Beautiful game in the late seventies, Nick accurately named the current version as “Total Bastard Football.”

The second article, by Run of Play, focused on the curious case of foreign finances in English football. Brian provoked deep thought and even deeper belly laughs by asking the simple question – when is a billionaire really a billionaire?

The third article, by Studs Up, is more comic than blog post. However, their social commentary on the often creepy nature of Spurs fans, coupled with the emergence of Gareth Bale, hit the nail on the head. Is Gareth Great? Yes. Worth stalking? Not quite.

Sadly, as anybody can see, these great sites were disqualified for failure to have “Futfanatico” in the URL. Tsk tsk. A foolish oversight given the availability of futfanatico.net. Brian also attempted an insurrectionist write-in campaign last year and is disqualified. However, despite these shortcomings, they still deserve an honorable round of applause. [Pause] Now, onto the election err award voting!

Ready your pen, sharpen your mind, and make a brave decision. The ballot is littered with several good choices and the polls shall stay open until the end of November. However, at midnight on the last day of November, polling stations will close at exactly 12:01am. The computer operated doors shall start to drop down at 11:58pm, gradually descending and closing off all the oxygen supply until the room is quarantined. Don’t procrastinate!

We then will take a week or so to count absentee ballots, and, assuming no litigation against the ballot commission, shall issue a clear victor. That winner of winners, in addition to the status symbol benefits, will win an all expenses paid trip to Managua, Nicaragua in early January. Lodging will be provided by my suegra and expect hefty servings of gallo pinto and tajadas!

So exciting! Who will win? Vote here….

The truth of the matter is, I am humbled to be nominated by myself for my own fabricated award for the second year in a row, and promise to be graceful in victory or humble in defeat.

The last time we held an election at Futfanatico, it was an unmitigated disaster. The premise was simple enough – a “blog of the year” award for all soccer blogs with “futfanatico” in the URL. However, a wisecracking tweeter and a Central American dictator-for-campaign manager conspired to blow things to smithereens. And, of course, I did not win.

Still, Junito’s national team selection has one distinct advantage – I am not a candidate, as I am a human being, not a nation state. Thus, I reasoned, no evil can come of this. I was wrong. The expected and the unexpected merged into a vortex so profound, so deep and convoluted, that if you wiped your pink finger on the surface’s rim, you’d be elbow-deep in abyss in the blink of an eye.

Allow me to explain.

As you may recall, Junito is a brilliant goalscorer, handsome playboy, and future champion. Thus, his success at the World Cup is a surety. However, his national team is a question mark. Junito lays claim to three different nationalities: Mexico, the US, and Nicaragua. Rather than place the burden of this huge decision on a still developing three year old, like any responsible father I polled a group of strangers on the internet so that they would decide for us. You were one of those strangers. And you voted.

I then painstakingly counted each and every ballot, even the handwritten ballots that were mailed from as far away as Guam. I also tried to get a read from Junito on his personal preferences. The other day, he alleged that he took a taxi to Mexico, obtained a magical stone, and then gifted said magical stone to his mother. Only upon further investigation did I realize that no such taxi ride took place, and Junito’s claims to the stone remain unproven. He has alleged that the stone turns into a huge giant that is larger than any dinosaur, but thus far no eye witnesses have corroborated said transformations.

Still, I read between the lines and interpreted his creative musings as an affection for his Aztec roots. BUT, he still prefers gallo pinto, the traditional Nicaragua dish, to any combination of hot cheese-hot tortilla-ground beef-jalapenos. He also dislikes hamburgers and french fries, so the US is out of the question. Although, to be honest, he does enjoy the caja feliz toys.

Could Junito play for three different national teams like Real Madrid all-time great Alfredo Di Stefano? Unlikely. I anticipate him getting capped before his older sister’s quinceanera, which means no U15 or U17 shenanigans. Nope. Junito will burst onto the scene like Michael Owen, but with the lasting power of Paolo Maldini.

While Mexico loves players that skirt the nationality lines, I have one big problem with Junito following in my chicano footsteps: the word “raza.” Nobody has every satisfactorily defined this term for me. I hear it all the time as in “hoy hay un juego en la tarde, pura raza“, and I think – if I said the term “pure race” in English and had a shaved head, I would probably be talking about a minutemen meeting or something. Shudder.

More importantly, the contours of the raza have not been sufficiently elucidated. Is my Nicaraguan wife a member of la raza? Or is la raza just a synonym for Mexican? Repeated emails to the Real Academia have not been answered.

Still, I cast but one vote in this election and let the majority speak. And speak they did. Drum roll please….The winner of the Junito’s-future-national team-election is…..

Pitchinvasion.Again. Yes. You read it correctly. Pitchinvasion? Pitchinvasion. Again. Check out the results:

I know what you’re thinking because I had the same thought – isn’t Pitchinvasion a website, not a nation state? But our analysis can’t be so shallow – in the 21st century, as technology blurs the lines between nation-states and non-state actors, isn’t it entirely possible that Tom Dunmore will rule a big chunk of the universe? After all, he has a soccer blogger trophy case to make Ryan Giggs blush.

Plus, Pitchinvasion has a scarf. And the line between a scarf and a flag is a very fine one, one that is begging to be crossed.

So, there you have it, I try to run a fair & square election in the hopes my readers can guide my toddler son’s future professional career, but Tom Dunmore’s excellent Pitchinvasion gobbles up the votes like a meth using cookie monster. At least unlike the UK, there was a clear majority. And don’t worry, no legal wrangling on my part. I know how twisted anything resembling an election or award can become when it involves the soccer blogosphere.

As if colluding with my campaign manager to steal an election was not bad enough, Tom Dunmore of the wonderful Pitchinvasion has taken things a step further. My friends ratted me out to his Sandinista friends, and I’m currently locked in a cellar on a 20 acre hacienda in the outskirts of Bluefields, Nicaragua…Oh, and I’m writing for my life.

Tom, quick with a revolver, had one simple request: write about my craziest real life soccer experience. My own site is a mix of imagination and facts, but this had to be strictly facts. And thus, my experience attempting to see a “Super Classico” in Buenos Aires is available at Tom’s site. Warning – this is an eery peek into the autobiographical world of one Elliott “el elliottito” Tucker. If it does not receive 1,000 hits by midnight tonight, I fear… (pistol whip)…

VOTEN para Pitchinvasion como mejor blog de 2009, o mataremos el presumido gringo huelepedo.

Voten ya!

(pistol whip)
(pistol whip)

Voten ya!

(pistol whip)

So, I hired a campaign manager. Granted, my own “blogger of the year” award seemed a pretty open-and-shut case. The only requirement was that the blog nominees have “futfanatico” in the name, which made for a typically American two-horse race. This seemed a simple question of www VS not www. But that’s the excitement of a campaign, anything can happen.

I knew my campaign manager’s background when I hired him. He had a checkered history, but I’ve always had a soft spot for the first name “Daniel.” Plus, I also dug his “win-at-any-cost-even-if-you-impoverish-your-own-country” attitude. He was a winner. But would he make me a winner?

The initial suggestions seemed innocent enough. People could vote as often a they wanted. The results would remain hidden to users. It made sense to me, at the time, that a really big fan should be able to vote several times if they were so inclined. A single ballot seems a shackle to those with strong preferences! The second suggestion was allegedly to prevent collusion and fraud. Or so he said….

All my reservations dissipated with Daniel’s excellent handling of the third party candidate. This punk mentioned that futfanatico.org was not on the ballot. Within a matter of hours, my inbox buzzed with emails from curious journalists demanding to know more about futfanatico.org. I started to lose my calm, but Daniel sprung into action with a story and a plan. Within minutes, well placed rumor swirled that the domain name, not even parked, once belonged to the charitable branch of futfanatico. Until it was closed down due to a massive bung sting.

I gave this clown my password and the keys to the polldaddy station wagon. However, after a certain point, I went from driver to passenger. And then, this morning, I wasn’t even a passenger. I was a shocked bystander. And then…another casualty of ruthless Latin American politics meets equally cutthroat English language soccer blogging.

Prepare yourself. Here are the results…

You did not read that incorrectly. In the “futfanatico” only blogger awards, the clear victor is….Pitchinvasion. Yes, Pitchinvasion. Disappointed? Stunned? Angry? Confused? Betrayed? All of the above and then some.

Don’t get me wrong – ’tis a fine publication. And Tom is based in Chicago, Il., a city and state known for their fierce and shadowy political machines. Still, even taking into account all the fraud, the margin of victory hit me like a tsunami.

If the above graph were a pie, would you like the baby blue slice or the rest? Yes. Just keep rubbing salt in those wounds. I am sorry to all my loyal readers who taste the bitter pill of usurped enfranchisement. I really meant this election to be more than just an ego-trip, a trophy to place on the barren Futfanatico award shelf.

But there’s a saying – a good campaign manager will get you elected, a bad one may get you killed. I am just happy to be alive, wish Tom all the best, and will be hiding in the attic in an undisclosed state for a few months until the military stops searching for me. Don’t worry. Some friends are bringing me food. Et tu Dunmore? Et tu Daniel?

I knew when I created this blog a year ago that, well, it would not be an opiate for the masses. So each year, as awards are doled out and votes counted, I don’t hold my breath. No, true to form, I nominate other blogs for awards, vote for other blogs, etc. etc. Well you know what? The days of Elliott “the Silent Martyr” have ended. The time for Elliott “the Glory Hogging Troll” have arrived.

I can’t win a fair fight. I know this much. Thus, rather than nominate my blog for one of the more established awards, I have decided to create my own election with my own rules. I have decided to hide the ballot results, but will allow multiple voting. So as the holiday season approaches, the year winds down, the Chelsea transfer ban dissipates into a laughing joke, I invite you to participate in the first annual “Futfanatico is the Blog of the Year” election. It’s a runoff. Kindof.

I know the obvious question – what category of blog? Well, I do dabble in MLS. I also cover the EPL and the cream of the La Liga crop. I also do some world cup. Thus, a traditional category would not fit. I thought about “best blog to be haunted by a Hungarian footballer”, but that was rather limiting. I also did not want to invite any more ouija board sessions.

I finally settled on a limited but not overly narrow category. The polls will be closed in one week’s time, so vote early, often, and more often!

DEWZFHHPPBJP