The Goal Post's Fundamentals of Fantasy 5 - Dream Teams

After the first day of albeit relatively uneventful World Cup Football, it's time for another Fundamentals of Fantasy update. I want to revisit my earlier post on scoring, in light of today's performance. We need look no further for our insights than today's fantasy "dream team," the formation of players that would have scored you the most points on the day:



This chart reveals and clarifies many things, but lets start with the basics:

Five of the players on this dream team are Uruguayans (arguably the worst team on the day; France played poorly, but they still had more chances than Uruguay). South Africa and Mexico, the teams that arguably had the best (and most confidence-inspiring) outings today have only 3 players between them on the Dream Team (though this is partially because both of those teams actually scored goals).

All the points are fairly low for attackers (not surprising for a day as goal-less as today), and there is a clear gradient from the Goalkeeper on down. It should come as no surprise that Goalkeepers and defenders score a bunch of points when their teams kick a shutout. France and Uruguay make up all but one of the six defensive players on the dream team, squeezing in around Mexico's Rafael Marquez and the rare goal he brings to the table. What is surprising is that the highest-scoring forward on the day was France's Sidney Govou, with 5 points from a)playing, and b)a few passes into the area.

Make sure you're sitting down for this next one. Someone in the world of FIFA fantasy football scored 59 points in today's lackluster openers. In case you haven't tallied it, the dream team scored 87. It just goes to show that boring games do not strictly prevent fantasy points. However, this will certainly be one of the lowest scoring dream teams of the Cup.

I can't imagine that many more dream teams will look like this one, with a Goalkeeper-tipped points pyramid, and stocked with the worst-performing teams of the day (if not players, Uruguay's Nestor Muslera, for instance, had an excellent,if somewhat calm, game in Goal). This was an odd and somewhat anticlimactic day. Most of the players took a lot of time to get used to the blindingly bright limelight in this tournament. It's certainly not as enjoyable to watch a fizzle. Hopefully the next groups are up for more of a spark.

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The Witching Hour: 6PM EST

For all you Fantasy Fanatics out there - The official FIFA fantasy game allows substitutions in between game days within a round. If you haven't already made this essential to your strategy you better jump on it!

The substitution window opens at midnight South African time and only stays open a few hours, with subs locked during actual times that games are going on. [EDITOR'S NOTE: To clarify, the substitution window closes 15 minutes prior to the first kickoff of each day.]

midnight in the land of football is 6PM Eastern so that's when you want to remember to go sub out any players who just performed below expectations.

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Fundamentals of Fantasy 4 - Budgets, and the Wisdom of Waiting

The opening match of the World Cup is now less than 24 hours away. In the past 72 hours, like many of you, I have been obsessively remaking, reforming, and fiddling with my fantasy squad. Last-minute injuries pop up, speculation abounds in the blogosphere’s rumor-mills, and every minute shift in the terrain can shake the foundations of a fantasy team. All too soon, the free-selection period will be over (until the round of 16), and the obsessive team-changing will evolve into obsessive team-checking. Before that happens, and before it’s too late, I wanted to offer my brief thoughts on a different strategy for your team selection and budget:

Rather than trying to squeeze as many high-priced star out of your budget as possible, it may be a worthwhile strategy to keep some savings going into the first matchday (June 11-16). After all, every player is bound to change in value. Even experienced veterans may not play as consistently as their records would predict, and I guarantee that some players who are now tiny blips on the radar will outshine the glitzy stars. The best solution could be to keep some spare change (in addition to the prospects on your bench), and buy players in the first round that quickly show themselves to be worthy of your best suspicions. This tactic would allow you to jump onto any rapidly emerging bandwagons, and is as worthwhile for the fun that will entail, as for the fantasy points it will garner.

A note of caution: You would need to save, not only for purchasing power, but to afford the 3-credit transfer fees you would pay after your first, free, transfer. I wouldn’t recommend planning for more than 2 transfers in the first match-day, though, because a 3-credit deficit is one that will take a lot of prospecting to make up for (since player values change once a day, by 0.1 credits).

Basically, the question of saving room in the budget for first-round transfers comes down to a question of how secure you are, or want to be, in your selections. Do you want to be locked in before the tournament starts? Or do you want to have the opportunity to buy players (and teams) that immediately distinguish themselves as points-scorers in their first games.

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Fundamentals of Fantasy 3 - Scoring

After a thorough review of FIFA's fantasy scoring rules, I've compiled a forecast of each position's point-scoring potential. The breakdowns will be found in the comments, but here are the executive summaries:

Goalkeepers:
A standard range of 2 to 12, with extreme performances of 0 to 13.
Average Potential: 7 points.

Defenders:
A standard range of -3 to 12, with extreme performances of -10 to 20.
Average Potential: 5 points.

Midfielders:
A standard range of 0 to 10-12, with extreme performances of -2 to 15-19.
Average Potential: 7 points.

Strikers:
A standard range of 0 to 13-15, with extreme performances of -4 to 17-21.
Average Potential: 8 points.

Of course, these estimates are just that. The attacking and defending bonuses are wild cards (1 point for every ball delivered into the penalty area, and 1 point for every recovered ball), and the World Cup always delivers situations that defy prediction. Also, the average potential points should be used more as a value metric than a realistic average performance for any given player.

That being said, I think that keepers and strikers are definitely your most valuable players, and important selections for scoring fantasy points. The penalty for giving up goals is minimal (1/2 point), and even the loss of the 6 points for a clean sheet could be made up for by lots of saves and penalty saves. I'd pick good keepers that will either face little pressure, because their team has good defense and is well-seeded, or will face outrageous pressure due to a strong opposition and weak defense. A good example of the former would be Italy's Gianluigi Buffon, while good examples of the latter would be the USA's Tim Howard (who will surely face a lot of shots against England, and is one of the most accomplished keepers in the world) or Brazil's Julio Cesar (who, if he isn't injured, will probably make a lot of saves for Brazil against the offensively-oriented Ivory Coast and Portugal).

Strikers are your big guns. If they fire repeatedly with goals and assists, they will do much for your team page, but if they are silent on the field, they'll be silent in your internet browser, as they have relatively few ways to earn points. I would pick strikers with a good goal-scoring pedigree, especially when playing for their country; having a playmaker who is not a finisher will not help your fantasy team very much. Also, since strikers are not penalized for their own defense's performance, you need not concern yourself too much with whether the team your striker is on will win, only that the striker will score goals. The Netherlands' Robin van Persie is a good example of this. Whether or not you be prolific in the penalty area, and van Persie should father many a goal.

When choosing defenders, the estimates show that you have to be defensive. Defenders can cost you a lot of points. Their team could have a bad game, or they could have a bad game, or both, and all can lead to negative points for your fantasy team. At the same time, defenders could also score as many points as most strikers. I'd try to select defenders on well-seeded teams with strong defenses, and avoid hotheads who foul, card, and give up penalties. By these terms, Fabio Cannavaro is the epitome of the ideal selection, and indeed he is on my fantasy team.

Midfielders are basically strikers with less potential for offensive points, and more potential for defensive points. Many midfielders will be less likely to score goals than their striking counterparts, but they may be more involved in setting up plays, which could lead to more attacking bonuses. Also, since midfielders are the first line of defense against deep play-making, those that succeed in stifling the counter-attack will probably rack up defending bonuses. Midfielders will also receive 1 point for a clean sheet, and so they will benefit from a strong defense. I'd select midfielders from well-seeded teams that have productive offenses and tight defenses. The first part of that statement pretty-much excludes Italy. Not that an Italian (or similar) midfielder would lose you points, but they probably won't gain you as much as, say, a German midfielder, whose team has a much higher probability of scoring 3+ goals in a game. In fact, Germany pretty much fits the bill for perfect midfield selections with their experienced and cutthroat defense, led by Phillip Lahm, and a hotshot competition between two young keepers trying to burnish Oliver Kahn's legacy. You will find that I have two German midfielders, Bastian Schweinsteiger, and Mesut Ozil, on my team.

Make your picks, and leave your comments.

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The Goal Post's Fundamentals of Fantasy 2 - Substitutions [Updated]

[Editor's Note: This post originally contained some outrageously erroneous information, for which we can assure you one of our senior editors was summarily shot. Please enjoy the corrected post below. Basically the original post mistakenly asserted that FIFA's fantasy apparatus would automatically play the highest-scoring players on your team via the auto-sub option. This is, of course, utter nonsense... flights of fancy, if you will. The official fantasy rules have just been given a face-lift (as of 6/7/10) so here's The Goal Post's official take.]

The rules regarding substitutions are somewhat confusing as written by FIFA, so I'll attempt to clarify this important facet of the fantasy game's strategy.

Automatic substitutions basically occur only when one of your starting 11 players does not play at all. As far as I can tell, this rule is in case you get drunk one night and forgot to swap out a player who just got injured in training. The rules warn you that if you make active substitutions through the matchday (for instance, the first match day is June 11 to June 16, or the opening round of games for each team), no automatic substitutions will be made. Now that we've finally sorted that out (my apologies for the original misleading post), lets get into why one would want to make substitutions through the matchday. The rules say this on the subject:

An unlimited number of substitutions can be made but only eleven players with one captain can score points each round.

Here are some reasons you may choose to make substitutions:

* One of your players goes off injured after a few minutes
* Your captain wasn't selected to play in the round.
* You are a gambler and decide that one of your substitutes will score more points than someone who already played in the round

The first two examples are fairly straightforward and self-explanatory, but the last one tickles me. IF I am a gambler? IF?!? I am playing fantasy football for the World Cup exactly for the gambling aspect (see my related post on "Prospecting"). So yes, I will be gambling, and of course I will know if one my starting 11 is in poor form, just begging for one of my prospects to relieve him from the bench. Getting past myself, however, this is a departure from the substitution rules in 2006. Basically, it appears that you may now substitute a player who has already played for someone who hasn't. This creates a surprisingly powerful option for managers: If you aren't sure about one of your players' points potential (whether due to their form, fitness, coach, or because when you selected them it was the first time you'd seen their name in print), and their team will be playing on the early side of the match day (i.e. in Group A rather than Group H), put them into your starting 11. At best, your dark horse player scores big, and you celebrate into the wee hours of the morning. At worst, they lose you points, but you can substitute them for a more known quantity on the bench (who has yet to play).


As with prospecting, this is a new feature of the fantasy game in 2010 that adds nuance to the strategy of team selection. A common tactic in 2006 was to wrangle one's limited budget in the pursuit of 11 heavy-hitting (and expensive) stars to score points, and 12 bottom-of-the-barrel nobodies to round out the 23-man roster. After all, if the 11 you select to play are the only people who can score points, what does it really matter how good they are? If someone gets injured you can always transfer them before the next matchday.

But now things are more complicated. While it's still probably a good idea to make some sacrifices to secure a few incredibly talented players, the points games is also much more open to muddling in the middle. Obviously you would expect your highly-priced stars to usually outscore the mid-range, but the fact remains that you are now afforded limited double-dipping, as you can now try players on for size in the first games of a match-day, and so it would be folly to limit the chance of serendipity to only your starting 11.

Evidence shows, however, that this new wisdom hasn't exactly taken hold. When you look at the the top 30 most popular player selections, the old strategy is laughably prominent:
The 4th most selected goalkeeper, and the 25th most selected player overall at the time of this posting, is James Bannatyne, the 3rd-string Goalkeeper for New Zealand. Wait, go back and reread that last sentence. It seems truly absurd until you see Bannatyne's price tag: 1 credit. He's also not alone. New Zealand's momentously-named Thomas Jefferson Smith is also popular, with 8% of managers selecting him, as the 25th-most-picked defender, along with Honduras' Oscar Garcia. Midfielder Jeremy Brockie, from New Zealand, is in the same position, and they all are priced at 1 credit. In fact, by far the majority of managers investing in New Zealand players appear to have the same idea: save money on a throwaway slot-filler.

New Zealand doesn't have the monopoly on bottom-of-the-barrel-scrapings, of course. Sandwiched between Spain's Fernando Torres and Holland's Arjen Robben as the 8th-most picked forward is Honduras' intriguingly-named George Welcome. I'm not saying his name isn't compelling (like South Africa's theatrical midfield duo: Surprise Moriri and N. Macbeth-Mao Sibaya), but I think his popularity has more to do with his price-tag. Also, six times as many people hold one of North Korea's two back-up goalkeepers (both priced at 1 credcit) as hold their starting goalkeeper, Myung Guk Ri (2 credits).For the record, and for my money, the starting keeper is a good investment at 2 credits. If the North Koreans can be said to have any strategy for winning, it is to strive against defeat with an all-hands-to-the-box human entrenchment in front of goal. With his whole team thusly entrenched around him, I think Guk has some space to shine.

If you do decide to fill out your roster with a few cheap players (I'll admit that I do have a 1-credit New Zealender in my midfield), I'd advise selecting ones that are already popular. A player's price fluctuations are partially dictated by the percentage of teams that own them, so while a 1-credit player won't lose you much money, the popular one's might make you money.

Of course, some of this will change after the group stages, as the matchdays get shorter and you have less time to try out players and substitute. Here's a few things to remember about substitution rules before you get too excited:

* If you remove a player who has scored points for your team, these points will be lost. The player cannot be brought back into your team until the next round.
* It is not possible to make substitutions after matches on the last day of the round.
* If a substitution or captain change is made then no automatic substitutions will take place on your team that round.

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