The Kid and The Tiger are celebrating Colombia’s win over Brazil at the Copa América, but one of the tournament’s biggest stories has happened away from the pitch.
With cards flying, Clint Dempsey making headlines in America and Arturo Vidal’s Ferrari crash dominating the football news, the pair discover that the summer silly season is already in full swing.
A Wild Deuce
The Kid and The Tiger begin by looking back at Colombia’s victory over Brazil.
The result itself should provide enough material for conversation, but the match descended into the kind of confrontation that can make fantasy football managers nervous.
Cards were being shown freely and tempers were beginning to take over.
The Kid jokes that the referee appeared to be handing them out like confetti.
Clint Dempsey Joins the Headlines
The conversation then moves north to another extraordinary incident in American football.
Clint Dempsey had attracted attention after taking a referee’s notebook and tearing it up during a Seattle Sounders match.
The incident resulted in Dempsey being sent off during a chaotic US Open Cup match in which Seattle finished with only seven players.
For The Kid, there is an obvious fantasy football consequence.
Whatever entertainment such incidents provide, cards and suspensions have a habit of ruining perfectly good fantasy scorecards.
Then Comes the Ferrari
The Tiger points out that the Copa América victory itself has already been overshadowed by another enormous headline.
Arturo Vidal had crashed his Ferrari while away from Chile’s Copa América camp.
The Juventus midfielder escaped serious injury, but photographs of the damaged car quickly travelled around the football world.
Suddenly the tournament was sharing newspaper space with one very expensive Prancing Horse.
The Next Carlos Valderrama?
The comic then makes an abrupt turn from supercars to hairstyles.
The Kid notices the colourful collection of players around the tournament and decides one particular piece of headgear looks suspiciously familiar.
With his own unmistakable Carlos Valderrama-inspired appearance, The Kid is naturally qualified to comment.
Apparently somebody else is applying for the job.
When Football News Gets Silly
This is precisely the territory Storybook was created to explore.
One moment supporters are discussing an important international football match.
The next they are talking about a referee’s notebook, disciplinary chaos, an expensive Ferrari and somebody’s hairstyle.
The football calendar may have entered the summer months, but the stories certainly have not stopped.
Fantasy Football Complications
The Kid rarely manages to watch football without considering the fantasy implications.
Goals and assists are welcome.
Red cards, suspensions and players becoming unavailable are rather less helpful.
A referee producing cards “like confetti” therefore represents considerably more than entertainment when your fantasy players are involved.
The Football Inspiration Behind the Comic
This Storybook episode drew on several real football stories from June 2015.
Colombia defeated Brazil during the Copa América, with the match ending amid considerable tension and disciplinary controversy.
In the United States, Clint Dempsey made headlines after tearing up referee Daniel Radford’s notebook during Seattle Sounders’ extraordinary US Open Cup defeat to Portland Timbers.
Meanwhile, Chile midfielder Arturo Vidal crashed his Ferrari during the Copa América tournament, creating one of the biggest off-field stories of the competition.
Storybook combined those unrelated incidents into a single conversation between The Kid and The Tiger.
Characters Featured
The Kid
The Kid begins by discussing Colombia’s Copa América victory but inevitably views the disciplinary chaos through the eyes of a fantasy football manager.
He also remains extremely alert to any footballer displaying a hairstyle that might challenge his own Carlos Valderrama-inspired look.
The Tiger
The Tiger shares The Kid’s amusement at the tournament headlines and introduces the Ferrari story that has overshadowed events on the pitch.
Arturo Vidal
The Chile midfielder provides the “wild Deuce” element of the strip after his Ferrari crash became one of the defining off-field stories of the 2015 Copa América.
Clint Dempsey
The United States international appears through the newspaper headline after his remarkable confrontation with a referee during Seattle Sounders’ US Open Cup match.
Behind the Gag
The strip throws together three pieces of football news that had very little in common.
There are referees giving cards out like confetti.
There is Clint Dempsey destroying a referee’s notebook.
There is Arturo Vidal and a badly damaged Ferrari.
And while everyone else is discussing football controversy, The Kid is still capable of becoming distracted by somebody who might be challenging him for the Carlos Valderrama hairstyle crown.
Looking Back
Originally published in 2015, A Wild Deuce and Prancing Horses captured the way football stories could move rapidly between serious competition, disciplinary controversy and extraordinary off-field headlines.
It also provided an appropriate beginning to Chapter 4, where the transfer window and football’s traditional silly season were about to provide Storybook with even more material.
The next episode turns to another familiar part of the summer football calendar: convincing a player that the grass really might be greener somewhere else.
