My fantasy

I used to be all into fantasy sports. At one point, I had a fantasy NFL, NBA and MLB team. I've only got fantasy baseball to keep me going these days and that's actually a strat league so I don't really dedicate a lot of time because I don't have a lot of time for that. But I still enjoy it to some extent.

Anyway, I jumped back into the fantasy world for one reason: this blog. I wanted to start a fantasy MLS team and keep track of it here. I don't really have a ton of time but what the hell? It's only going to take a few minutes each week to update my team.

So I sorted out my team yesterday and now am awaiting this weekend to start my own search for a title. I signed up for a team on mfls.com because I'd heard good things about it. Okay, I saw it on a post on the WhoAteAllTheCupcakes blog. They had some good things to say about it so I figured why not.

First thing I did was to look at the scoring system. Turns out you get points for goals. But since this isn't baseball where you can get points for hits, extra-base hits, total bases, home runs, RBIs, walks, runs scored, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS (on-base plus slugging)... and that's just the hitters... in soccer there aren't quite as many things to keep track of. You get four points for a goal, two points for a PK goal, three for an assist plus points for players whose teams don't surrender goals. Goalies get points for shutting out teams for a half and extra for an entire game. You also get negative points for various things.

Now, I didn't put too much thought into this. There are players in every sport who perform better in fantasy than in real life. So I didn't do research on that. But there were things I wanted right off the bat. I don't want to worry about injuries or national team absences. I also wanted to have solid players at each position and not Landon Donovan-Christian Gomez and nine scrubs. You get a salary cap (2600) so you have to invest wisely.

Part of the problem of being a reporter, though, is you get to know guys and talk to them and you are influenced by them. At one point I had five Chivas USA players and considering another but I had to stop myself. So I cut back to four. I also ended up with several Colorado Rapids players (including former Galaxy players Herculez Gomez and Ugo Ihemelu).

I started in the back and wanted someone with some upside who was going to play a lot of games. Brad Guzan was a good choice for that and he was relatively inexpensive. Still, he's been benched each of his first two seasons so I have to be wary of that. I took Matt Pickens as cover. Pickens was an even bigger bargain than Brad.

You have to take a 3-4-3 formation which is good because it cuts down on scrubby defenders. I wanted some punch from the back but somehow I ended up with three left backs. Funny how that worked out. Oh well, it's fantasy. I nabbed Jose Burciaga because he's probably the highest-scoring defender. I'll sacrifice some negative points for goals allowed if he can score another eight goals and eight assists. To round out the defense, I took Todd Dunivant and Jonathan Bornstein. I gambled with Bornstein because I think he'll be gone a lot this summer and Dunivant may as well. But I took Ihemelu and Craig Waibel for cover.

In the midfield, I went with value again. Francisco Mendoza and Sacha Kljestan could do big things this year and both were cheap (110; Landon Donovan was 300; most stars were above 200). I took Brian Mullan and Kyle Martino to round it out. Oh yeah. You can only pick so many foreigners. Anyway, I think Martino will have a great year but there is some risk involved because the Galaxy will have a crowded midfield. Still, I'm willing to take that risk... for a few weeks. For cover, I took Medhi Ballouchy (a steal at 90) and Clint Mathis, who could have a monster season or be a dud. A risk worth taking.

Up front, I needed some goals. Aside from Herculez Gomez I grabbed two guys who could be gone this summer too: Brian Ching and Kenny Cooper. Ching was my most expensive player at 240. In fact, he was the only guy I took over 200. For backups I took Nico Hernandez and Roberto Brown (can you tell I'm high on the Rapids this year?) as well as Nate Jaqua who I think could have a great season as well.

You also have to take a coach. There are no salary restrictions so I took Dominic Kinnear. I was thinking about taking Tom Soehn but I didn't have any D.C. players and had some Dynamo guys.

My team name is Atletico SV (Atletico Sideline Views). I need to join some league or something. Maybe I'll hit up the Cupcakes crew for their division.

So that's one MLS team I'm rooting for: Atletico SV

Vamos, Vamos SV
Esta noche tenemos que ganar