The action on the pitch in Quarterfinal #3 of Euro 2012 was mostly hypnotizing, but peppered with a few brief flashes of action that at least made you feel like you'd actually just watched a world class win-or-go-home soccer match.
But with the only goals coming from a player owned by no one in our pool, the game could hardly have been duller from a fantasy perspective. Muchas puntos extras created by Spain's third straight clean sheet may've made this the highest scoring day of the Knockout so far, but they sure as shit didn't shake up the standings much at all.
In fact you have to go all the way down to 7th place on the leaderboard to find someone who moved up based on today's action. That would be Brian C., yesterday's most significant mover as well, who rode a Casillas/M'Villa combo to inch just ahead of Mike S., who's started to go into free fall after a strong Group Stage had visions of C-Notes dancing in his head.
Of course another strong effort from Pirlo tomorrow could get Mike right back into it, and even if today didn't go so great on the scoresheet, he'll always have the fact that he beat Goal.com to the Headline of the Day for Spain's Basque-flavored demolition of France:
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| Mike beat the professional punsters by a good hour or so! |
Anyway, I've got nothing personal against Andrew L., and I'll gladly mail him a big check 8 days from now if he holds on to win this thing...but seriously man, do you have to suck ALL the drama out of the title race???
After seeing his lead cut to under 7 points entering today, creating hope things might tighten up down the stretch, Andrew bounced right back with the highest score of the day (matched by the two others who also feature Captain Casillas), pushing the cushion back to nearly 12 points. Like I said, I'm fine with whoever winning, but it'll be a lot more fun for me if the margin is closer than it is now, especially if it went back and forth a time or two during the Final!
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| Sorry Kyle, that's the way Fantasy Euros go! |
The only other real storyline I can pick out of the Leaderboard tonight is that of the divergent fates of Ryan W. and Kyle M. Joined at the hip near the top of the standings through the whole third round of the Group Stage, they've certainly gone their separate ways since then.
Ryan has held steady and taken a fairly solid grip on 2nd place (in fact he may be the only truly legit threat to Andrew at this point), while Kyle has put up the second-lowest quarterfinal scoring average in the pool so far, crashing out of the Top 10 altogether.
With nothing all that exciting happening on the actual Leaderboard today, it's at least a little interesting to check out the developments on the Fantasy MVP Rankings tab.
Xabi Alonso's brace actually made him the highest scoring fantasy player in Euro 2012 so far. Unfortunately for all of us, he's not on anyone's roster.
Among players who were chosen, Mario Gomez remains the total points leader in the "Still Alive" section, despite his big fat zero yesterday. Gomez will need to bag at least one more point to officially pull ahead of the eliminated Dzagoev and Krohn-Delhi. While we can expect him to take care of that task somewhere on the way to the inevitable German championship, he'll need to score another goal or two I think in order to pass Xabi, as well as fend off Pirlo and/or several Spanish defenders.
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| Goals like this are always called for, but for goddsakes let's see it from players actually owned in our pool! |
It's pretty amazing that Iker and his backliners have all outscored the midfield players on their team (at least among the selected Spaniardsl). I think we might finally see that change after the next match, but I've been wrong about everything, so who knows? The standings definitely prove that clean sheets count for a lot, as they should.
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| Will we see goals Sunday? Gianluigi says "Forse cosi, forse non" |
One player who won't be moving up the MVP Rankings tomorrow is the most popular Italian in our pool, defender Giorgio Chiellini. The thigh injury keeping Chiellini out vs. England will hurt his nation's chances, but will it come back to haunt any of our contenders? He's owned by 4 of the Top 7, including both the Top 2 ... Buffon owners, now is your time to shine.
Buffon's opposite number in goal is one of the three Englishmen who matter most tomorrow. The same Top 7 I just mentioned all feature either Hart, Gerrard, or Cole. Who will stumble onto the perfect combo? Impossible to say (for me especially, haha). I just hope we see some fireworks on the pitch and the Leaderboard. Clean sheets are nice, but they aren't going to add any drama to this pool, and as we've established...at this point vicarious drama is all I have left.
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