Men's Soccer (Football) Thread Soccer • Page 390

My fantasy team heading into week 1 always feels so good compared to how I feel 2 months into the season lol

 

@phaynes12 come here sweet child and join the fun

 

Through to the play off round! Would be hilarious to get through to the groups and get relegated.

 

It feels like Christmas Eve tonight! When you're 34 and waiting for the new season to begin.

 

Decided my next FM save is progressive or left-wing clubs only run. So far, the list I’ve made has Forest Green Rovers, Bohemians, St Pauli, Bahia, Celtic, and Liverpool.

Any other suggestions are welcome, if anyone knows of any.

 

Livorno in Italy?

 

Rayo Vallecano. Bologna is the left wing capital of Italy I believe, so they could be another

Bohs is a really funny one, assuming you mean the Irish team. I live down the road from their stadium, they were always more conservative until about a decade/15 years ago. Since the area has been getting more and more gentrified they have become more left leaning and republican. Most of the clubs in Dublin are heavily working class oriented and work a lot with the wider community of the area, Bohs have just done a great job marketing themselves.

Edit: OH! Red Star FC are another.

 

Added them to the list! Looks like I have more options than I thought.

Sadly Bahia have had to come off list after discovering they were purchased by the City Football Group recently.

 

This is dumb. We got knocked out in the quarters, it’s only our second season back in it, we haven’t majorly improved the team this summer, and we last got to the semi finals in 2009 lol.

 

Striker missing two penalties in a shootout is mad.

 

brb crying

 

Also two of the worst penalties you will ever see. Goes down like he's been no scoped after the second too.

https://dubz.co/c/7af159

 

My jaw dropped at the shot that went like 30 feet over the bar lol

 

Like it matters with Real and City around! haha.

 

Ajax won

 

I wrote that before the shoot-out was over

 

Having us above City is completely insane.

 

Not sure how far down into the German pyramid FM goes but anyway: Babelsberg 03, Chemie Leipzig, Tennis Borussia Berlin, Inter Berlin, Roter Stern Leipzig, Bayern München

 

Barcelona? Probably not exactly what you’re looking for, but given the history during the Franco era and their massive support of growing the women’s game, kinda fits.

 

I changed my FPL team at least 25 times in the last month, haha. Last year, I was so sure of my team and I was right. I never left the top three. It just seemed like the hunches were much easier to guess. This season, I think there's going to be a lot of important differentials to play. I ended up with this:

GK: Flekken, Areola
DEF: Saliba, Trent, Burn, Mykolenko, Guehi
MID: Odegaard, Eze, Diogo Jota, Smith Rowe, Winks
FWD: Haaland, Solanke, Isak

My thought process was go all out with forwards, low risk defenders, budget midfield, matchup keepers.

I have no reason to stray from my goalkeeper strategy. It works for me every year. I choose two underpriced keepers and play the better matchups. I considered Raya but in the end, the £1m I'm saving by going with the budget guys is worth it. I also considered one of the £5m options (mainly Leno) but the more I considered it, I just can't spend the extra cash on a keeper. I'd rather save it for a transfer if I need.

Defense is where I did the most flip flopping. I pretty much had Saliba nailed as my main defender the whole time (and sorry but after the Gabriel disaster to start last season, I wasn't going down that road again). From there, I was between another premium option (Trent) with a reliable budget defender (Burn), or straight budget guys (some mixture of Barco, Konsa, Robinson, etc.). With Botman gone for awhile and Trent's attacking returns, I just decided to spend the money and have two premium defenders. I feel like they are low risk given the options. I did toil with Gvardiol and Porro but I really don't want the top three owned defenders. I think defender differential could make a difference. I also wanted Guehi on the bench in case he's sold.

I did a little playing around with the midfield but for the most part, it was always going to be Jota, Eze, and Smith Rowe. Their prices are insane value plays for me. As soon as Smith Rowe was sold, I knew he was in the team. For £5.5m, it's a steal in my opinion. At the £7.5m number, I played around with the idea of guys like Maddison and Gordon. In the end, I didn't want to rely on Gordon having an equally impressive season right off the bat and I wanted another piece of the Liverpool machine. Eze at £7m is a popular one and he's one of my favorite players in the Prem... but also an investment because if he's sold to City, that £7m is potentially going to be the biggest steal of the season.

I never really considered Salah or Palmer just because of the price (Palmer has a huge expectation to stand up to with that price tag even though I enjoyed having him in my team last season). Other guys I considered: Kudus, Hudson-Odoi, Szoboszlai, Kobbie... but never seriously enough to move everything around. The guy I had nailed for the bench at £5m was Oscar Bobb but sadly, that's going to have to wait.

I initially had Fullkrug instead of Solanke, but once Solanke went to Spurs, it just seemed obvious. I considered Watkins again for a hot second but at £9m, there's no way to get Haaland, Watkins, and Isak in there comfortably so he had to be sacrificed. I think Fullkrug is going to have a nice season and at that price, it could be great value. But at the end of the day, I'll pay the £0.5m extra to have Solanke who I think is much closer to a sure thing.

At no point did I ever really consider leaving Haaland out. To me, I'd much rather spend the £15m and he has a mediocre first few games than not spend it and then watch him potentially devour Chelsea and Ipswich. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if I started the season in the 50% of people who would be way behind already after two weeks. I don't want to fight uphill if I don't have to. I think the floor is just too much of a floor to even second guess it.

 

On the subject of Fantasy,

Fantasy Premier League, Official Fantasy Football Game of the Premier League

Code (if required): lnssix

Deadline is today at 18:30 GMT.

 

Siiiiiigh

Puts in Haaland

 

FPL have played a stormer mega-pricing Haaland. It makes for a perfect trade-off.

Putting the finishing touches to my team. Can't wait to hate it by Saturday evening.

 

I've gone Haaland-less... Very nervous now as I thought more would be going without him...