Tottenham Hotspur Clone League: final standings & update

It’s done. The Tottenham Hotspur Clone League has been fully simulated after days of head-scratching, rule tweaking, and cursing at was essentially a large database of player information. Thanks to Sports Interactive Games’ Football Manager 19 (who graciously provided me a copy of their new game), we now can definitively say that we know who would win an English football league, if that league was comprised of full squads of clones made from Tottenham Hotspur players.

This information is important. We did it for science, you see.

Your Tottenham Clone League Champions: Kanerminster Harriers

In the end, it wasn’t really close. Kanerminster pulled away midway through the second half of the season and essentially cruised the rest of the way. Dembelenton Orient was the only team that really had a chance to compete, but it ended up being a bit like Manchester City’s Premier League win in 2017-18. Turns out, cloning Harry Kane is actually a pretty good idea!

Unsurprisingly, the Kanes combined to score the most goals of any club in the Clone League, firing home 108 in 38 matches. That’s a lot. Three Kane clones — Kanes 6, 11, and 2 — were in the top ten league goal scorers.

The Golden Boot race, however, was seriously interesting. There ended up being a four-way tie for top goal scorer with 16 goals, and three more had 15. The clones at the top of the list included a Kane (6), Winks (2), and Vertonghen (Prime), but the Boot went home with none other than Ben Davies 15, who got his 16 goals in only 28 appearances.

The Kanes were also right up there in the assists category — Kane 6, the same Kane that tied for the Golden Boot, also dished out a league-tying 13 assists, along with Rushden & Diermonds’ Dier 21. There were a couple of Kanes with nine assists each, which is pretty good.

And if you’re wondering how Kane-Prime — the original Harry Kane — did this season, he had 5 goals and 3 assists, and ended the campaign completely out of the matchday 18. Not great, though in fairness it appears that Kane-Prime mostly played in central defense for some reason. It appears that, at least when it comes to football, the copies surpassed the master. That, my friends, is a strong argument for nurture over nature.

With regards to goalkeepers, the Hugos completely dominated the category, though I think the game considered ANY Hugo that was playing in whatever position on the field as a keeper, so the data is slightly suspect.

Most of the teams that finished in the top six weren’t especially surprising considering the mid-season table, but Lucastle United, under replacement manager Zinedine Zidane, ended up being a nice story, vaulting from ninth place in December to Europa League qualification. Not bad for a team full of short, speedy, direct guys.

At the bottom of the table, AC Lamela bottomed out under new manager Marcelo Bielsa (and yes, the irony club firing Pochettino Prime for his mentor is not at all lost on me), and were joined in fake-relegation by Foyth Spartans and Asteras Trippier.

Overall, the final table wasn’t dramatically different from FM 19’s preseason predictions — it nailed Kanerminster winning the league, and called two of the three relegated teams. The pundits must be disappointed with the midtable finish of Jan-Buk Hyundai Motors.

Most of the coaching changes came in the first half of the season, but there was one hilarious one — late in March Hugo’s Old Boys decided to fire their Pochettino clone... only to hire Pochettino-Prime, the same Poch who was fired by AC Lamela in December! Poch for Poch! The Hugos must be so happy.

There’s no real point to continuing this save. The transfer embargo expires after the season which means clubs can start spending money, and since there isn’t relegation the results would simply get weirder after one season. In any rate, this was always intended to be a one-season experiment.

Just for fun, I went back and simulated the league a couple more times just to see if it would be any different. Kanerminster won three times, Dembelenton Orient won once, and WanyaMan City one once. Foyth Spartans, Sonderland, AC Lamela, and Asteras Trippier all hung around the bottom of the table. The lowest Kanerminster ever finished was fourth.

There will always be variants on every sim, but I feel confident that the Team of Kanes would always be up there with the best cloned players. Should human cloning ever be legalized in the near future, I feel confident in advising Tottenham Hotspur to put their money into clones of our Harry Edward Kane — he’s clearly Tottenham’s present, and is also its future.

He’s 22 of our own!

Miscellaneous notes from the save:

• While AC Lamela players dominated the yellow cards (105!!), it was Dele Alli and Serge Aurier who dominated the red cards. Dele Alli 9 led the league with 4 send-offs, while the next three players on the list were all Serge Aurier clones. WanyaMan City made the most fouls with an astounding 859 whistles, with Jan-buk Hyundai Motors “close” behind with 796. Gotta say, I’m not exactly surprised.
• AC Lamela might have finished last in the league, but they actually managed to get out of their Champions League group, behind Barcelona. (If you weren’t aware, AC Lamela was originally Tottenham Hotspur before modifications) The rest of the pre-qualified clone teams had a mixed bag: WanyaMan City actually won their group, but Rushden & Diermonds and Dele Galaxy both crashed out in the group stages. WanyaMan City actually made it to the quarterfinals before losing to eventual champions Real Madrid.
• Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dembelenton Orient were the best passers in the league, with 79% pass completion. Lucastle United were the worst in this category, with a 69% completion. However, Racing Eriksentander completed the MOST passes with 14,222, more than 3k more than Kanerminster Harriers.
• The best crossing team in the league: Asteras Trippier, naturally, with 32% completion. Worst: Darlington Sanchez, who completed a measly 7% of their crosses.