Things got dicey on Day 8, Fantasy Footie Fans. I've never had 5 of you immediately e-mail me right after the scoring report when out until today!
The obvious reason? For the first time so far in the tournament and the pool, credit for a goal was given to one player, then the ruling was changed mid-game.
And the impact on our Leaderboard was even bigger, because it wasn't just the original goalscorer and the new one involved in the play, there was also the matter of the assist!
Sweden vs England stood out as the game of the tournament so far for many reasons, especially the end-to-end action topped off by the sickest goal we've seen all month:
It just doesn't get any better than that, eh boys? The one thing this GIF doesn't show was the way Theo speed-shrugged his way through those two defenders to get the space for that cross. Walcott is amazing and I plan to write a bit more about him later today if I get the time - suffice it to say that he suddenly looks pretty yoked for a little guy, and on that play he even seemed to have a power element to go with his wicked pace. The best could still be yet to come from young Theo.
Even before Welbeck's whirling winner, the game had been brought to life by Olof Mellberg, always pretty decent at WestHam back in the day, but a man who seemed to have achieved more in the realm of being superlatively handsome than that of top flight European football. Listed at 6'2", Mellberg is far from a munchkin, but his strategy of trying to stop Andy Carroll's opening header by not jumping at all was always destined to leave him short.
As for Carroll, I'm just surprised he's found time to turn himself into such a skilled striker, in between running Dynatox Industries and generally making Daniel Larusso's life a living hell. I disagree with most of Roy Hodgson's lineup choices but starting Carroll was a smart choice, and the Brit beat the Sorta-Swede in the battle for Ultimate Ponytail Supremacy.
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| Two of these men want to win Euro 2012, the other will settle for destroying a father-less teenager's life |
But after England's opener left Mellberg culpable, he set himself to proving that you never send a ponytail to do a beard's job. Olof started bombing forward immediately after halftime to tremendous effect, converting two quick headers and giving rise to the "here we go again" nightmare scenario that most Englishmen were refusing to admit had them terrified.
Then two shocking things happened: England actually nutted up and fought their way back into winning position, and Mellberg's first strike was changed to a Glen Johnson Own Goal!
Let's break down this huge swing in Fantasy Points:
- Our 3 Mellberg owners, 1 in serious contention and 2 not quite out of it yet, lost 8 huge points.
- Our 2 Johnson owners became victims of the first OG of the tourney, knocking Jeff R. out of the top 15 and delivering a potentially fatal blow to the hopes of Nathan L.
- Zlatan got robbed of an assist!!! He's owned by more than half of the pool, and a bunch of you e-mailed me about how upset it made you to lose 3 nice bonus points from him. It's a small boost to those who don't have him, but one that the contenders will appreciate...in fact everyone in the current Top 3 left Ibra off their roster.
With such a big impact on the pool, the most important question becomes: was it the right ruling? I think so, Hart made a nice save on Mellberg's shot and was just unlucky to have it bounce right off Johnson and back into the net. The shot itself was fairly well struck though if you were being reaaaaaaaaaalllllllly picky, you could argue he should've layed it off to Martin Olsson as Hart was charging... those of us with Olsson on our fantasy rosters will argue it loudest of all!
With both French Goals coming from players unowned in our pool, Benezema owners won the fantasy day. Karim's two assists made up nudged him ahead of his clean-sheet winning countrymen for top scoring honors on the day.
We've moved past the halfway point of the tournament, 16 games down, 15 to go. If you're more than 40 points off the lead, it's going to be very tough to come back at this point, so I encourage side betting! I may not ever climb out of the pool's Relegation Zone, but I can sure as hell finish higher than Rob M., dammit! Find a way to keep it interesting for yourselves (beyond the ecstasy these writeups bring, of course).
Kyle M.'s first single-digit scoring day so far saw him as our most notable dropper on the day, falling from 2nd to 6th. Mike S. hate's Roy Hodgson's Walcott policy even more than I do, but Theo's ability to still put up 9 quick points as a late sub helped push Mike to 30 points on the day, vaulting him into 3rd place overall.
Down at the other end, Kyle S. has been our cellar-dweller ever since a pair of Red Cards on Day 1, but he's no longer our gold standard for fantasy futility, thanks to Austin S. and his drop to the bottom. Good news for Austin tho - he should feel confident now that his captain, Wayne Rooney, will take the field for more than just one game.
Let's hope for more diciness today, the first of four that will eventually chop all of our rosters in half and identify which fantasy studs will keep pulling their teams up the leaderboard. I myself am hoping a bit of Greek magic can put a dent in the hopes of all the Dzagoev-owning jerks out there.
Also I'd love to hear from some of y'all in the comments section here about what you think of the tournament, the pool, the writeups, whatever. I do hope everyone feels like even if they have no shot at a prize, they're allllllllllmost getting $50 bucks worth of entertainment out of the whole thing. I mean, think about it, if you hadn't joined this pool, there's a chance you might never have seen this:
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