Euro 2012 Fantasy Player Pool - Day 10 Roundup

From the moment the balls were drawn in Warsaw last winter, they called it the Group of Death. And when it came to the action on the pitch, they couldn't have been more correct - even the mighty Germans could never be assured of advancing until they scored in the 260th of the 270 minutes the Group Stage contains.

But gambling doesn't always imitate life, and for fantasy purposes, Group B will likely end up as the liveliest of all.

Even with two from the group of Denmark, Holland, Germany and Portugal always destined to go home early, fantasy owners didn't shy away. In fact, almost two-thirds of us chose a player from Group B as captain.

Thanks in part to all those armbands, players in this Group combined to score more than 500 fantasy points each of their three Matchdays. So far no other group has gone over 450 on a day even once. But it wasn't just the double point bonus that fueled the fantasy fiesta - these guys just kept scoring goals. 

All three of these strikers scored braces in Euro 2012. Only one was dumb enough to spend $125K on his.

From Gomez to Bendtner and eventually even to CR9(7), you wouldn't be far off thinking it was "Group B for 'Brace'" in Euro 2012. Makes me think there should be a bonus fantasy point or two for scoring twice in a match ... yet another scoring system tweak to consider for the future.

Nicky Boots might have to pay up for his Paddy Power Pants, but it's doubtful Kyle M. will mind the celebration.  Kyle picked up major points on the field through his brilliant choice of Dane.  Bendtner ended up not only as the highest scoring player from his country (doubling the tally of "breakout star candidate" Christian Eriksen), but also as the 2nd highest scoring striker so far in both Group B and the tournament itself.  Incredible!

The goals were nice but this touch and turn was SICK

Ronaldo's discovery of his shooting boots on Matchday 3 bodes well for the 20 of us that have him, though it's worth noting that you could've gotten similar production so far out of either Nani or even Pepe, so it's up to Cristiano to put some distance between himself and his teammates in the Knockout round, in order to justify being such a popular selection.  One interesting quirk is that even though a big percentage of us chose Senor Smug for our lineups, not one single person made him captain. Our faith only went so far, apparently.

Holland's historically bad performance in Euro 2012 wasn't quite as terrible from a fantasy standpoint, but it wasn't anywhere approaching "good," either. The lack of Dutch defenders in our pool meant that their tendency to leak goals never hurt anyone, but they never came close to matching the goal-scoring heights of the previous two tournies. In the end, no one really stood out on their side at all, and it really made no difference if you selected Wesley, Robin, or Robben, as all three totaled twelve points for the tourney. 

Dan H. of course will be glad to have finally gotten SOME contribution from Rafael van der Vaart in Match 3 though...will it be too little too late for Dan, just like it was for Raf. Van der Vaart has always seemed like a guy who plays with a big chip on his shoulder. I'm more than certain he was unhappy with his general benchwarmer status in the first two group games, and you could  tell it was true by the way he unleashed that cracker of a goal.  Also, if you think this side note was just a shameless excuse to post a pinup pic of Sophie VdV, well, you're exactly right!

Germany continued to be the source of dozens upon dozens of fantasy points, as well as one inscrutable mystery:  With options like Ozil, Muller, Schweiny, Gomez, or even Lahm, why in the name of Franz Beckenbauer would Rob M. choose Marco Reus as his Deutschman? 

More to the point: who the hell is Marco Reus???  In fact, I dare y'all to pick him out of the following photo:

You don't get fantasy points for pre-match stretching, Rob!

When it was all said and done on Day 10, our Top 2, Andrew L. and Mike S., separated themselves a bit more from the chasers, Dan P. jumped back into the Top 5, and your friendly neighborhood pool administrator was among a group of players who rode their highest scoring days so far to nice little moves up the Leaderboard.

If you didn't choose your captain from Group B, you probably chose him from Spain.  That means plenty of chances for people to make big moves again today as Group C wraps up. It's not too late to give up, as long as you have the right combination of players going forward. We've finally sorted out the Group of Death, but the uncertainty about who our eventual champion will be lives on.