Settling the GOAT Debate

We as humans have always enjoyed watching sports as a spectacle, every ancient civilisation has had some record of having people play sports and others watching it. The Olympic games are over several millennia old.

Despite what the title of the article suggests, I am not here to settle the endless Messi vs Ronaldo, Warne vs Muralitharan or Serena Williams vs Steffi Graf debate. I am talking of a discussion where the stakes are arguably much higher.

We all would have played games with our family as children and teenagers. After all, that is what holidays were meant for. Considering our love to watch people play sport, imagine if these family games were to be televised with an active fan following. I had been wondering if such a spectacle would have been possible, little did I know that watching a random vox pop in Piazza Navona in Rome would provide a solution to this need. Here was a random journalist asking kids who their favourite footballer was an one of them answered that theirs was a certain “Mr. Greedy”. Till I opened the comments, I thought that it was just a ridiculous remark from a kid till I saw that several comments praised him as the “OG fan”. Reading more on this name led me to none other than Zeeshan Sports League – where a few teenagers and Biggie, all part of the same extended family, play games.

We have Hasnain, Daniel, Cute Boy Ali, Sallu, Biggie, JD, Kaku, Assad Ronaldo, Azam, Little Biggie and then the big 4 – Omar, Cool Boy, Muzammil and Mr. Greedy; all competing for the ultimate prize at the end of each game – a burger, a candy or a plate of biryani.

In case you have not followed the characters of Zeeshan sports league, reading any further in this article would seem like gibberish and I strongly recommend you to follow the pages of Mr. Greedy and Zeeshan Sports League in TikTok and Instagram.

This is going to focus on the ongoing “greatest of all time” (hereafter referred to as GOAT) debate between Mr. Greedy and Muzammil, the two most prominent faces of Zeeshan Sports League, with distinct personalities of their own. People on the side of Muzammil praise his calm demeanour, altruism and being a player who plays by the books. On the other side, we have Mr. Greedy, who was known as Asef before his popularity, is known for his passion and the never say die attitude, to win at all costs.

Mr. Greedy (Asef) on the left and Muzammil on the right

I think the fandom unanimously agrees that these two are the best players of the league while it could be argued that they are credibly challenged by Omar and Cool Boy (both of the challengers happen to be siblings). The division within the fandom is merely over the GOAT debate. Mr. Greedy clearly has the larger fan baase and one could argue that Zeeshan Sports League is where it is today, thanks to him. It is clearly seen to the extent that Zeeshan developed a stack smash game for iOS and Android, and named it after Mr. Greedy. On the other side, Muzammil has his own fan following, including celebrity fans, the most notable being the British economist Gary Stevenson (with many often surprised as to why a man who talks about wealth taxes all the time is suddenly commenting on a Muzammil video).

There are several claims that Muzammil is ahead on a head-to-head basis, but I am sceptical about these claims for two reasons. Firstly, there is no reliable measure off statistics, and despite the existence of pages within the fandom, none of them are officially recognised by either Zeeshan or any representative of the league. The second, and more importantly, Zeeshan Sports League is a multidisciplinary league which involves strategic games, physically demanding games such as a boxing much or purely luck-based games where you have to pick the right-coloured ball from a jar while being blindfolded. Even if we were to take the head-to-head statistics as genuine, I think we can all agree that a win on a skill-based game should be more valuable than a win on a luck-based game.

It is to be noted that Muzammil tends to struggle in sports where some of the non-Big 4 kids have a natural physical advantage. For instance, Little Biggie has a natural advantage in boxing or tug of war and Muzammil is often handily beaten by him, whereas Mr. Greedy genuinely challenges Little Biggie (and other players who have natural advantage in other disciplines) and often wins against them. Mr. Greedy has proved time and again that he is an all-rounder and his abilities on field remind me of his compatriot known for his all-round ability, Imran Khan.

I would not get into the debate on whether Muzammil wins more luck-based games but in this kind of a league, performance backed by passion is what is most valuable, and what brings in the viewership. That passion is undoubtedly shown by Mr. Greedy and as of today, given his multi-dimensional ability and how he creates a spectacle for all the viewers involved, it certainly adds weight to his claim. Barring the subjective factors, even on an objective metric, Mr. Greedy won the Player of the Year award for the last two years, clearly showing that he is consistent throughout.

These factors mean that as of now, Mr. Greedy is certainly the GOAT given the current circumstances but one cannot rule out a change in the future. Does it mean that Mr. Greedy is flawless? Certainly not, he still needs a character and a redemption arc. One could display passion and aggression while still playing by the rules and not trying to actively sabotage the others and receiving temporary bans from Zeeshan. While that is the first area of improvement, as a next step, if he shares the food that he wins, he can certainly move towards being the GOAT with no haters, something he truly deserves in the long run.

For now, commiserations Muzammil and thanks for being the rival that the GOAT deserves. And Mr. Greedy, best wishes to become the greatest sportsperson that Pakistan has ever produced.

Long Live Zeeshan Sports League !

Have a nice day,
Anirudh