Anyone for a fantasy football (soccer) league?

[Matt]

The new season starts next Saturday and I'm in the habit of playing this:

http://fantasy.premierleague.com/

(the free version, the other is (A) not free and (B) a bit too much effort.)

If enough people are interested I'll set up an IWL league. Let's call 'enough people' ten or more.

Again, if there's enough interest, I'll provide links and overview for those who are less used to playing a game like this.

Alternatively, if someone else is really keen on setting the league up, I'll be delighted to join that instead.

[Raza]

I'm in.

[Matt]

I'm in.

Cool, get yourself signed up and start thinking about a team and lets see if we get a few more takers.

To give you a hand, there's some very helpful discussion here:

http://www.fiso.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=18

and some outstanding resources here:

http://www.fantasyfootballscout.co.uk/

But I wouldn't recommend joining unless you really are a complete data wonk

There are some good articles here as well:

http://fantasyfootballfirst.co.uk/

It's really quite important to have a rounded team. There may well be one or two players who will be essential, but my experience is that the difference between a good team and a great team is in the selection of the least valuable players. The reason for this is in a critical game mechanic: if a player is popular and bought by many, his price will go up and if unpopular and sold will go down. As a result, a well managed team will rapidly gain value and that will make it much much easier to field a strong team later in the season. As a rough guideline, I expect to have gained about ten percent by Christmas. If you do your research well you can have a team that jumps in value on day one as people rush to pick up players they hadn't considered.

Two bits of advice. The best, akin to 'buy the seller' on ebay is: 'form is temporary, class is permanent'. The second is to remember that in some of the stronger sides (Man City I'm looking at you) a fantastic player might get half the game time of a similar player at a less well favoured club. A good example of putting the two rules together is Harry Kane. If he stays at Tottenham, he'll play almost all the games and almost certainly reproduce his year long demonstration of class from last year. If he moves to Manchester United, he'll most likely play about half the games and score brilliantly when he does...

[Raza]

Thanks Matt.

You'll remember though, I was in the FPL league at the other place for the last two years.

[shameless]

great idea Matt - have never played fantasy football but hopefully as a serious technophobe it might not be too complicated ["But I wouldn't recommend joining unless you really are a complete data wonk "] i'm in of course !

[OTGabe]

I'm in. I am in a serious ($$$) American football fantasy league and I've played BPL fantasy casually over the years. Being in a league with IWL friends would make it more fun and give more motivation to stay on top of it.

[93EXCivic]

I will play.


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[Matt]

great idea Matt - have never played fantasy football but hopefully as a serious technophobe it might not be too complicated ["But I wouldn't recommend joining unless you really are a complete data wonk "] i'm in of course !

I had a colleague a few years back who selected her team solely on the basis of who she felt moved most attractively on the field and would have to ask us to decode what she had seen on the telly the next day: 'The one in the blue top who kept trying to run up the sides, not the one who kept falling over, the other one with the lovely hair... She came third that year!


only six more...

[Matt]

Thanks Matt.

You'll remember though, I was in the FPL league at the other place for the last two years.

Sadly my apparent senility is in full force. I only vaguely remember that there is another place.

[T Bone]

Not me thanks. We've got the Lions... (never a dentist around when you need one!).