Look, we know it's only been a couple of days but we're already starting to get withdrawals symptoms from sport. The lack of football, rugby, GAA, and others is starting to grate on us, and while we can fill some of that void with a bit of sumo wrestling, we need to get our football hit.
Just give us something.
Leyton Orient have now answered that call. We saw clubs come up with creative ways to cover some competitive action over the weekend, be it through Football Manager or a friendly game of connect four. However, this is something on a much larger scale.
The League Two club announced on Twitter that they would set up a 64-team FIFA 20 tournament, asking other teams to join in on the fun.
🤷♂️ Sure, connect four is cool but we’ve got a better idea!
We need 63 other teams to enter a knock-out FIFA 20 tournament.
To enter, all we need is the club to RT this tweet.
We will host a live draw this Tuesday…
🙏 for an away day to @ManCity #UltimateQuaranTeam #LOFC pic.twitter.com/7aycsrn48r— Leyton Orient (@leytonorientfc) March 15, 2020
The demand was so great that the event would be extended to 128 teams, including some very big names. The likes of Manchester City and Wolves have signed up, as well as Irish teams such as Dundalk and Finn Harps.
Teams will play one-off knockout games, with the draw taking place tomorrow. Every club will be represented by anyone from a first team player to a supporter, and must use their own team in the game.
It sounds like a lot of fun.
Speaking to The Sun, Luke Lambourne, media manager at Leyton Orient, said:
We ran with a Football Manager thing on Saturday which went down really well, and wanted to keep it going.
We saw the whole Connect Four thing over the weekend, and although it was fun at first, we thought it could be improved.
After the media team spoke about it in house, we went for it, and the reaction has been superb.
Myself and Dan Walker (media assistant) are both fans of FIFA, hence why the idea came about. We’ll be sitting out of this one though, and have someone in mind to lead the O’s to victory!
We thought 64 was achievable, but that maybe 128 would be too high to aim for. But after a short period of time we’d already hit 64 - so we extended it, and have seen clubs from all over the world get in touch. From Finns Harp to Feyenoord!
Andros Townsend has already confirmed that he wants to represent Crystal Palace, and with players not up to much at the minute, we reckon more will follow suit.
I’m in @cpfc 🙋🏽♂🦅🎮 https://t.co/o1Gd7U3sI0
— Andros Townsend (@andros_townsend) March 16, 2020
We will definitely be tuning into this.
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