Euro 2012 Fantasy Player Pool - Day 2 Roundup

Which of these guys would you guess is the full-blooded German?

Day 2 of the Fantasy Pool was headlined by two stars ... one of them Kind Of German and the other one Very German.  Gomez's header was the only goal scored by anyone active in the player pool, and Neuer's 3 saves nosed him ahead of a large group of back liners who joined him in picking up Clean Sheet points.



To no one's surprise, Germany racked up a ton of fantasy points (2nd most of any team so far) and distributed them fairly efficiently amongst the players in our pool.  Philipp Lahm is looking like a sneaky-brilliant choice as Captain, though there's still plenty of time for one of the three big German midfielders to emerge.  Marco Reus, however? Well he's just happy someone picked him for the pool at all, I'm thinking.  You're on his Christmas card list, Rob M.!


I can't believe I got suckered into thinking Portugal was somehow suddenly underrated in this tournament.  I didn't get to see the match (either match, actually), but it looks like they came out and did what they always do in my experience: get ultra-conservative as a team and fail to perform to the level of their individual talents.  An ultra-boring day from Os Navegadores, fantasy-wise. 

About two thirds of us loaded up on Danish defenders, most of the rest hoped for a breakout from Premier League hater Christian Eriksen, and one poor misguided soul selected Nicky Boots. I'll defer to RVP on that one.

But no one figured on little Michael Krohn-Dehli being the one to bag the goal in the first major tourney upset. It was a nice piece of work, too, slicing through the defenders then slotting it home with the left.  I wouldn't be surprised to see him score again before it's all said and done.



The distribution of Dutch players in the pool (11 Attacking MIDS, 18 FWDS, 0 DEF) makes it obvious that no one's too thrilled to see them take 28 shots but never score.  Anyone with RVP in the Captain slot, and there are plenty of y'all, might be a little nervous after that performance. I'm not too thrilled with my choice of Sneijder, myself!

Today Group C gets into action, with one Matchup for the Ages and one Under-the-Radar Potential Firecracker.  

Spain vs. Italy gives us the last two World Cup winners, the defending Euros champion, and a dozen Fantasy players mixing it up.  Balotelli may be the most intriguing Fantasy selection out there.  I don't think anyone that has him on their squad is that happy about it, it just kinda ended up that way, but it could turn out to be amazing.  Maybe that's just wishful thinking on my part.

"What am I to be doing, with everybody being wanting of Luka?"

Ireland vs. Croatia features the most over-used player in the pool, Luka Modric, who narrowly edged out CR9 with 21/29 uses compared to 20/29.  That means it's a great chance for those who *don't* have him to make up points if he sucks...or fall impossibly further behind if he kicks ass. Should be interesting.

On the Irish side of things, I don't think any of us is expecting much.  I seriously doubt anyone from this team would be selected in a Fantasy game that didn't come with the "one per country" gimmick like ours. Just try not to do too much damage out there, fellas.


Thanks to Brian E. for catching my mistake on the Karagounis scoring yesterday, appreciate y'all's continued double checking of your scores as I definitely don't want any human error to screw up the pool.

The big movers on Day 2 were Brian C., Steve J. and Tyson G.; Ryan W. remains in the lead but really we won't know where everyone stands til a full round of Matchday 1's have been played.  We'll be halfway closer to that point by the time of the next update. Enjoy the games today!