Five games.
Normally far too early to draw conclusions about a football season.
Fortunately, TGL has never been burdened by that kind of restraint.
The first international break of Season 14 arrives with SOOnami and The Pathetic Crew leading the competition with four wins from five, while Cobra Kais, defending champions Boxheads and a suddenly resurgent Xeko Psols AFC sit just behind them.
Strega FC appear to have rebuilt half their football club in the space of a fortnight.
The highly fancied Hey Bullets are inexplicably near the bottom.
And Psari FC have started the season in precisely the manner two TGL pundits warned everyone they would.
Five rounds in, there is already plenty to discuss.
SOOnami: The Soo is still chasing that fourth star
Three stars sit above the SOOnami badge.
Everyone knows what The Soo wants next.
No club has ever won four TGL championships and, after several years of chasing that elusive fourth star, SOOnami have once again started a season looking capable of getting it.
Four wins from five puts The Soo’s side top of the table heading into the break, their only defeat coming against Xeko Psols.
But the results tell only half the story.
The other half is happening at the front door.
Players are coming and going at SOOnami at an extraordinary rate. The side that appeared in Gameweek 3 already looks markedly different from the one that entered Gameweek 5. Established names have disappeared, replacements have arrived and combinations have been changed and changed again.
The Soo appears determined to use every remaining day of the open transfer period to improve his squad.
With the window slamming shut on 30 September and remaining closed until 31 December, SOOnami players would be advised not to purchase any non-refundable Christmas accommodation just yet.
Nobody is safe.
So far, however, the madness is working.
SOOnami sit top.
And the fourth star remains the obsession.
The Pathetic Crew: still no idea who is actually in charge
The great problem with The Pathetic Crew continues to be that they aren’t particularly pathetic.
Four victories from five has them level with SOOnami and firmly established among the early championship contenders.
Their only defeat came against Boxheads.
Since then, they’ve simply resumed winning.
Presiding over all of this is the mysterious IPL legend believed to be running the club, although TGL has never been entirely successful in establishing precisely who he is.
Perhaps that’s the secret.
No press conferences.
No interviews.
No scandals.
No known identity.
Four wins.
There are considerably worse management models operating in this league.
Cobra Kais: Kreese discovers that mercy wasn’t the problem
John Kreese began the season in appropriately ruthless fashion.
Three games.
Three victories.
No mercy.
Cobra Kais looked like they might simply bully their way through Season 14.
Then came The Pathetic Crew.
Then came SOOnami.
Two consecutive defeats have dragged Cobra back into the chasing pack and provided Kreese with the first genuine test of his season.
There is no crisis here. Three wins from five remains a strong opening.
But after the invincibility of the opening weeks, Cobra Kais suddenly look human.
Kreese is unlikely to appreciate the description.
Boxheads: Zlatan inherits the champions — and the bill
There are difficult jobs in football.
Then there is taking over the reigning TGL champions after the previous manager wins the title and apparently runs off with the money.
Welcome, Zlatan.
Zoran’s disappearance following last season’s championship left Boxheads requiring new leadership, and nobody can accuse the club of replacing understatement with understatement.
Zlatan arrived.
So did expectations.
And so did Bradley Barcola, at considerable expense.
Five games later, the champions sit 3–2 and the obvious question is beginning to be asked:
Where are the Barcola dividends?
There have been glimpses. There has been individual production. But there has not yet been the transformation one might expect from one of the league’s major investments.
Boxheads have already lost twice and needed to grind their way past struggling Psari in their most recent outing.
Nobody is calling the Barcola deal a failure.
Yet.
But when you pay premium money, people eventually expect premium results.
Especially when the previous manager has apparently taken the championship money with him.
Xekols: winning games while Shlapper is… somewhere
Three weeks into the season, Xeko Psols AFC were 1–2.
There wasn’t much to see.
Then Shlapper Tee’s side defeated previously unbeaten SOOnami.
One week later they somehow snatched the Pericles Plate from Rubber Souls at the death.
Suddenly Xekols are 3–2.
Exactly how much credit belongs to Shlapper remains difficult to establish because, as usual, nobody seems entirely certain where he is.
The official Xekols manager continues to maintain the sort of international schedule normally associated with minor royalty, appearing intermittently between Bollywood commitments and whatever else he insists constitutes legitimate club business.
And yet…
Xekols keep winning.
Two consecutive victories.
SOOnami beaten.
The Pericles Plate secured.
And there have now been reports around Xekols of a mysterious figure wearing an H.S.H. hoodie.
We have no further information.
Warrenopoulos apparently does.
That is his problem.
Strega: Gennarino reaches for the axe
Three games into Season 14, Strega FC were finished.
At least, that was the verdict.
Three matches.
Three defeats.
And a squad producing very little evidence that things were about to improve.
Apparently Gennarino disagreed.
The hardened old striker from Benevento did not respond with patience, positive reinforcement or a team-building retreat.
He started changing footballers.
Lots of them.
Between the Strega side that stumbled through Gameweek 3 and the one that emerged afterwards, the turnover was enormous. The squad was reshaped across the pitch, new combinations appeared and suddenly the football changed with it.
Strega beat Rubber Souls.
Then they beat Hey Bullets.
From 0–3 to 2–3.
It is still early, and nobody should confuse two victories with a completed resurrection.
But whatever Gennarino did after the third defeat, it worked.
The old Strega disappeared.
The new Strega hasn’t lost.
Rubber Souls: Zeus loses the Plate
At 2–1, Zeus and Rubber Souls were quietly building themselves a decent start.
Two weeks later, they are 2–3 and somebody else has their trophy.
First came Strega and Gennarino’s newly reconstructed side.
Then came Xekols.
The latter will hurt considerably more.
The Greek Derby looked like it belonged to Zeus. Rubber Souls were ahead, the Pericles Plate was within touching distance and another period of Greek bragging rights appeared secured.
Then Xekols stole it.
At the death.
By what independent observers have officially measured as approximately one Greek nose-hair.
Zeus enters the international break with two consecutive defeats and, considerably more importantly, without the Pericles Plate.
He was unavailable for comment.
TGL understands he was last seen sometime after 2pm downstairs at Nikos Taverna in Mykonos, directly beneath the one-room hole he calls home.
Staff at the Swedish Bar next door have reportedly been advised to check their ouzo and local tsipouro inventories before the early hours.
The Dodgers: the Artful Dodger remains… well, the Artful Dodger
The Dodgers are 2–3.
Which somehow feels entirely appropriate for a club managed by The Artful Dodger.
They’ve won enough to remain dangerous, lost enough to remain unpredictable and already produced one of the more interesting results of the opening month by knocking off defending champions Boxheads.
There is clearly something there.
What it is, exactly, remains difficult to establish.
Which is probably precisely how the Artful Dodger likes it.
Hey Bullets: nobody saw this coming
If Psari’s poor start was predicted, Hey Bullets’ certainly wasn’t.
One win from five.
Three consecutive defeats.
Bottom of the table.
For a manager carrying genuine UK football pedigree into TGL, this was not the opening anyone expected.
And unlike some struggling sides, there have been signs that Hey Bullets aren’t actually as bad as their record suggests.
Their most recent performance would have been enough to win plenty of TGL matches.
Unfortunately, they produced it on the exact weekend Gennarino’s rebuilt Strega decided to go berserk.
There is still time.
There is still talent.
But eventually pedigree has to become points.
Hey Bullets have become the first genuine shock of Season 14.
Psari FC: Ari and Klaus warned us
And finally…
Psari FC.
There is no point dressing this up.
The Klopp is presiding over a condemned start to Season 14.
One win.
Four defeats.
The poorest attack in the competition.
A squad that has already entered a match unable even to field a complete starting XI.
And very little evidence so far that the situation is about to correct itself.
The uncomfortable part for The Klopp is that none of this has come as a surprise to the TGL studio.
Ari and Klaus warned us.
Before the season began, both pundits questioned Psari’s prospects. Neither saw a serious contender. The traditional practice of tipping Psari to lose every week was treated by some as another tired TGL joke.
Five games later, it is beginning to resemble analysis.
The Klopp can point to injuries, selections, transfers, bad luck, planetary alignment or whatever explanation is currently being prepared at Psari headquarters.
The table is less sympathetic.
One win from five.
This isn’t a bad weekend anymore.
It’s a bad start.
And for a club that entered Season 14 already carrying the doubts of the pundits, the pressure is only going one way.
Five games down. Plenty already broken.
So that’s where TGL stands as the international break begins.
The Soo is top and still hunting the fourth star while treating his playing squad as a revolving door.
The mysterious IPL legend has somehow made The Pathetic Crew decidedly un-pathetic.
John Kreese has discovered that even Cobra Kais can lose.
Zlatan has inherited the champions, Zoran’s empty safe and an expensive Barcola question.
Shlapper Tee has apparently discovered that actually attending work is optional when your team keeps winning.
Gennarino responded to three straight defeats by tearing Strega apart and starting again.
Zeus has lost twice, lost the Pericles Plate and retreated to his usual Mykonos recovery program.
The Artful Dodger remains difficult to read.
Hey Bullets have provided the season’s first genuine shock.
And The Klopp is discovering the unpleasant difference between pundits laughing at you in August and pundits being proved right in September.
Five games down.
The transfer window remains open.
Warrenopoulos is asking questions.
And somewhere, for reasons nobody has yet satisfactorily explained, somebody is wearing an H.S.H. hoodie.
Welcome to Season 14.
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