Magnus Carlsen has long since won everything there is to win. But the chess world champion has higher goals. To achieve this, he even dares a power struggle with the traditionalists.

On a Saturday evening in December, Magnus Carlsen went to bed with a grin on his face. He was enchanted by what had happened a few hours earlier at the football stadium on Anfield Road in Liverpool.

How Sadio Mané passed the ball through the penalty area, how Divock Origi hit it with his instep, how Mohamed Salah steered it into the goal with his heel. In England, the goal, although very pretty, was no big deal. In Norway, however, one man was so happy about it that he still grinned even in bed. That evening in December, Magnus Carlsen, the world’s best chess player, was also the world’s best Premier League manager.

Now, eight months later, Carlsen is ranked eleventh in the final ranking of managers, according to the website of “Fantasy Premier League”. More than seven million people played there this football season: They signed up before the first day of the game, were allowed to spend 100 million virtual pounds on 15 professionals from the English premier league, and if their players managed to get good action on real grass, points were awarded on the Internet. When Salah hit the goal in December with a hoe, Carlsen was suddenly first, ahead of seven million others, hard to believe.