ESPN Fantasy Soccer Tips And Tricks
Four days into the Euro 08 Fantasy Challenge, and one man towers over the standings like a Colossus. That man…is Hotdog.
Humility has never been my thing, so I feel compelled to communicate a few tips and tricks that have boosted me to 69th place in all of ESPN.
- Shuffle your roster: ESPN allows you 15 transfers in the group stage. Use them!The group stage is already one-third over. The posting deadline occurs only 15 minutes before first kick of every game - this morning I added Petter Hansson of Sweden and he rewarded me with a goal and a shutout.
- Change your formation: You don’t have to play the standard 4-4-2 formation. You can switch it up and play a 3-4-3, 4-5-1, or whatever else you can think of. I find midfielders have the most value, so I generally trot out a 3-5-2.
- Play the matchups: Any attacker playing against Russia is a good bet; any defender/goalie playing against Austria is free money.
Group Analysis:
Pictured above, the hat-trick hero Villa paid huge dividends for yours truly and Sager Bombs. Several players watched with pride as Wesley Sneijder painted a Dutch masterpiece, but only Josh, Cojo, Sager, and Gavin had the foresight to select talismanic Dutch defender Gio van Bronkhorst.
Shannon’s strategy of picking only good-looking players has backfired and Cojo’s Dirty Croatians have made a huge jump over the past two days. Lars is holding steady in second place, a full 31 points off the pace. And not to toot my own horn again, but in today’s action I had goal-scorers Villa, Cesc Fabregas, and Petter Hansson, the latter being especially huge since goals from defenders are worth eight points.
June 10th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
[...] Original post here [...]
June 10th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
That guy’s tattoo looks like Kottke’s
June 11th, 2008 at 8:01 am
As I’ve said Andrew, the appearance of six packs, biceps, tattoos and underwear models on my squad is completely coincidental. It’s not my fault a lot of soccer players are hot!
For the record, I’m actually attempting a strategy beyond picking good looking guys. (And I’m getting advice from my bff co-manager, who is an actual European). I know it appears that our strategy has backfired, but all hope is not lost!!!! Just wait…
June 12th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Well I was unaware of these transfers and subsequently filled my entire team with Crotians and Dutch (the two teams that will be in the finals) to maximize the amount of games played. This would have been helpful before you built your insurmountable lead Hotdog.
June 12th, 2008 at 11:36 am
I also was unaware of the transfers allowed. They should make it so that you set your team and ride that pony all the way through.
Also, being European really doesn’t mean you know more about soccer. It just means you aren’t American.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Personally, I think that having a sextalingual, soccer-playing, multi-passport-holding, bona fide European co-manager brings me good luck. More luck than any of my non-European friends would bring me. However, I’m not implying that Europeans *automatically* know more about soccer (or languages). I’m just trying to convince Andrew that I have a strategy beyond going for looks…
June 15th, 2008 at 3:11 am
The issue with this 15 substitute policy is that it actually rewards effort. I prefer to play the recliner & beer card, and it hasn’t quite worked out yet. Winner on the other hand hasn’t shown this much effort outside of a bar in ages.