FSA Directeur Sportif: For Those Who Submitted We Salute You!

Oh hey, how’s it going? It’s been a few weeks since I posted the opening announcement welcoming you all to the 2020 FSA Directeur Sportif, a year-long fantasy game run by the Podium Cafe for our readers and fans. Since then, I’ve been mostly AWOL, dealing with a number of family things (all good stuff) followed by decompression and a ski vacation in a foreign(ish) country. Happy times.

But I haven’t been anywhere near a computer most of the time, and have not been tracking the various conversations around this year’s FSA Directeur Sportif. How’s it going? Anything come up? Any concerns or problems? Hope it’s all smooth as butter. But I suspect... otherwise.

As of today nearly 500 of you have signed up and created a team but not finished submitting it. That’s a good news/bad news thing. The good news is, some large percentage of those 500 people probably intend to submit the team and are taking in any last-minute results, which is a really good idea! Or not, because results in February aren’t the best predictors of anything, but sometimes there is some relevance there. The bad news is, these 500 people will NOT be allowed to play the game until next year if they don’t go back and finish their teams, and hit submit.

Sorry, was that too loud? Well, tough, we are at a critical juncture here. Important shit is going down here. The deadline for you to get your teams in for both the Men’s and Women’s competitions is THIS FRIDAY — midnight (Saturday) CET, or 3pm Friday west coast time, or 6pm at the Trexlertown Velodrome in Pennsylvania. If that sounds at all unclear, just turn them in on Thursday. Don’t mess around! Your next chance after Friday is Feb 1, 2021. Don’t wait!

UPDATE! We have a bonus competition! An anonymous community member has donated two sets of Molteni-themed espresso cups to be given to the “winner of the Classics Season.” The way it will work is that whoever is in the overall lead on April 28, after the conclusion of Liege-Bastogne-Liege, will be declared the winner and get the prize. There is one set each for the men’s and women’s competition, because we live in an occasionally properly functioning world where there is a women’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege. So if you haven’t already stuffed your team full of classics guys, here’s one more reason to do so.