Llew is excited about another Welsh player

This is The Shortlist, your free weekly dispatch of short-form stories from the editorial team at SCOUTED: Tom Curren, Jake Entwistle and Llew Davies.

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An update from an old friend

Tom Curren

Question: how many of you have a yellow print edition of our old magazine, featuring Bukayo Saka on the cover? Or perhaps the edition with Ryan Gravenberch? I don’t have many nice things to say about 2020, but among the few is that our magazines were illustrated by the wonderful cover artist Matthew Shipley.

Since then, Matt has been quietly working on a project of his own: Best Eleven. Matt and I recently reconnected because, I am excited to say, he will shortly be returning to the magazine to illustrate SCOUTED50 - and we thought it’d be nice to let you all know about the project that’s consumed him for the past five years.

Independent football media, forever. Here’s our brief chat.

Tom Curren: Hey, Matt! So, what is Best Eleven, exactly?

Matthew Shipley: Hey Tom! Best Eleven is a football management board game for one to four players - at the end, the team worth the most points wins. The game wouldn't be what it is without the incredible artwork of nine talented artists, which includes nods to players past and present.

TC: How do you play this thing?

MS: Each player starts the game with a manager board that has an assigned formation they will work to fill over seven rounds. Each round, players choose a free agent card from their hand to put up for auction and then bid for the cards behind their privacy screen. Players need to bid carefully, as the winning bid is paid to the player that put the card up for auction, and can give them more resources or strengthen their team.

The game also includes tactical cards that reward you for certain squad synergies, signing bonuses that can be activated when cards are added to your team for special actions, and set collections that gives you more points for building a team with more pace, strength, intelligence or skill.

TC: Why a board game, and why now?

MS: My wife and I have always enjoyed board games, but during the pandemic our collection grew as we were at home and needed fun things to do together. We played a lot, including a game called Wingspan. My wife loved Wingspan because she is a ‘birder’ and loves the bird theme - but I loved it too, because it’s just a good game. This experience made me want to design a game with a theme that I love, but that was also just a good game that anyone could enjoy. Best Eleven is that game. Best Eleven is on Kickstarter now because, after 4+ years of development, it's ready to share - and I'd be happy for it to be on people's tables.

TC: It’s beautiful. The project is a collaboration between nine football artists. Could you say a little about them, and why you decided to collaborate?

MS: Initially I had planned to do all the art myself, but quickly realised I wouldn't have the time. Obviously I wasn't going to use AI art [based - ed] so I used the opportunity to work with friends and artists I admire.

There is a really cool football art community where I've built up some relationships and I was thrilled to convince some really talented people to work with me. The game includes art from Dan Leydon, Dan Evans, Cuemanche, Alexandra Francis, Chester Holme, Victor Bizar Gomez, David Flores, Conner Gillette, and myself (Matthew Shipley). Backing Best Eleven on Kickstarter will hopefully allow me to work on more projects like this with more artists in the future!

Ed: Best Eleven has already reached its funding target, but there’s still a bunch of time to back the project if you’re interested. Go grab yourself a copy - or just back it to support cool independent football stuff. Viva indie, forever.

A Cymru centre-back for your shortlists

Llew Davies

Cardiff City’s relegation to League One has been a blessing in disguise.

Since the heady days of competing in the Premier League, most notably under Neil Warnock, the club had gradually sunk to the bottom of the Championship pile. That gradual sink was more like a violent thrash towards the end, with the club chopping and changing players and coaches in a desperate attempt to keep their heads above water. The club have had no less than eight full-time managers in the past four seasons.

Their relegation has mandated a reset and things couldn’t be rosier. Brian Barry-Murphy, former Manchester City U-21 head coach, has returned to the EFL as head coach, and he has overseen a strong start to the season with Cardiff top of the table after six games, winning all but one. The starting XI in their season opener featured five academy graduates and combined for an average age of 20.4 years old.

One of many home-grown prospects to benefit from the reset is 18-year-old Dylan Lawlor. He has more skin in it than most, having joined his hometown club at the age of seven. His journey through the academy was as textbook as it gets and he has been a standout at international level too, his main feat being a key starter in the Cymru side that made history by qualifying for the UEFA U-17 European Championship in 2023. So far this season, he's started every game in League One.

Lawlor is a centre-back—and he looks like one. He’s tall and strapping with rounded shoulders and long limbs. He’s neither freakishly large nor incredibly athletic, but he certainly has the physical basis to play at a high level with his more than decent abilities to cover ground, battle in contact and challenge in the air. If I could assemble a centre-back from scratch, it would look similar to Lawlor.

He definitely has plenty of margin to improve in the way he reads and reacts to certain defensive situations, but what I really like about him is his ability to wrap passes through lines. It’s not something that is immediately obvious, but you’ll notice it if you watch him long enough. He likes to angle one way, drawing opponents over, then zap a pass the other way, fizzing it in with speed, taking a couple of defenders out of the game, getting a teammate on the front foot.

The 18-year-old is a work in progress, no doubt—but that progress kicked up a gear just last night when he, in the senior Cymru squad for the very first time, started against Kazakhstan in a vital World Cup qualifier in Astana. Thrown in at the deep end some 3,600 miles from home, he was named Seren y Gem (Star of the Match) and played his part in a crucial 1-0 win. "[I was] beyond impressed. What a player," said Craig Bellamy

Not a bad way to start your senior career.

The Shortlist has been a little…shorter than usual recently. We’re swamped with work on SCOUTED50, analysis pieces, newsletters, and a bunch of improvements to our website. September is crazy, man.

But once S50 is out into the world for another year, Jake will return with a weekly HEATWATCH - and we’ll start dropping some updates from our database, too.

Until then.

Tom, Jake and Llew

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