UPDATE: As of right now, we have 8 players on board, looking for at least 10 players in total (the more, the merrier of course). I've settled on a time for the live draft which will be on August 10, 7PM UK time. We can have the draft on August 9 if you all would prefer it that way, or on a weekday of that week. Right now, I'm ruling out August 2-3 as a draft date as it's too soon. I'll set up the league on the London Times site this weekend. If you haven't signed up and are still interested, just send me a PM, an email, or simply post a comment.
I can hardly contain myself but I had to post this: The London Times' Premiership game finally provides LIVE drafts instead of autodrafts for private leagues. There's even an auction system for extra sophistication. Pretty sweet, check it out:
There's even a top 200 ranking sheet although I'd make some big modifications to some of the rankings. I'm sorry, Paul Scholes is ranked #4 because he monopolizes the successful passes category? No thanks. He's fantasy soccer's equivalent to Jose Reyes although the irony is he's not particularly speedy nor can he make a tackle to save his life. But when Scholes scores goals, boy, does he score them and he scores goals galore. Well, anyway, here are the Times' top 200 fantasy Premiership rankings but they're all based off of last year's rankings according to overall performance:
As I've said before, unlike the traditional salary cap game, this is a draft-and-trade roto league that's scored like any fantasy baseball/basketball/hockey league divided into defensive and offensive categories. So, not only are goals and assists counted for but so are clean sheets, points earned by the players' respective teams, and by ratios (AGF - average goals for/scored and AGA - average goals against).
Even though we've decided on using the Fantasy Premier League's site for our game, I'm thinking of setting up a league for this coming year, just to test the water on what we'd feel more comfortable with going into the following season of the Rotodatabase Premiership. If you're interested in joining the London Times roto league, let me know by dropping me a private message and you're in. What I'm looking for is a bare minimum of 10 dedicated players, 12-16 would be ideal, and 20 would be phenomenal. Even if you're not a soccer fan and I've piqued your curiosity a bit, I encourage you to join. Seriously.
Lastly, in the next few days and weeks, I'll be publishing a guide on fantasy soccer and club soccer in general, catered to an American audience not quite familiar with soccer besides the World Cup (which often leaves an indelibly awful impression on those curious lookie-loos). I'll try to explain how the way football in England is structured, how football culture in England is like, and even some club-by-club comparisons to American sports counterparts as well as some fantasy analysis to boot. So, stay tuned for that.
Again, let me know if you're interested in starting up a private fantasy soccer roto league which will run parallel with our official Rotodatabase Premiership competition (which oddly enough has a H2H element to it this year). Until then, keep your clothes on.
-Ray
Signing up:
me (The Artful Dodger)
Chris (captchris)
beetley
Mark (mark43)
Paul (lapaarnlei)
Poyser
asp1152
asp1152's friend
Fantastic news! I've wondered for ages why no one has set up a fantasy football game with live drafts! Count me in to give this a go!
Played it last year - wasn't overly enthused, but a live draft should help iron out some of the kinks.
I setup my premiership team last night, got it all registered and assigned to the league.
What I don't understand is why I have to select my players before I join the league. Without reading through the rules, do I get to make adjustments, with zero penalty, before the season starts? I of course recognized nobody, other than Renaldo, so I just stuck a bunch of schleps on my roster trying to get under my salary cap. I am hoping this wasn't huge mistake.
Yes, there are unlimited changes up to the start of the season. I haven't set mine yet, because there are sure to be some significant transfers (trades!) before opening day.
As for the schleps, one piece of advice is to make sure you don't have any defenders or goalkeepers from teams like Fulham, Hull, West Brom, Middlesbrough, Stoke, Sunderland or Wigan. They are highly likely to concede bucket-loads of goals this year! (Newcastle probably will too - before Ray pipes up! - but I can't possibly include them on the same list as the Mackems & Smoggies!)
Mackems and Smoggies.
I think i just found my team name.
I set up my roster but tried to keep away from the players rumored to be transferred. There are some good bargains there but I splurged on a few players and no, it's not Cristiano Ronaldo because he'll be out until October due to injury. Not worth the 14m at this point.
Yes, you can make roster changes each week. There's a penalty for two or more transfers but there's a wild card which you can play where you can make unlimited transfers for a week. It's wise to keep that if you have a slew of injuries and/or players are transferred out of the league in the January mid-term deadline.
I would if they're just subs.
You forgot to mention Tottenham but if the Rich Harden of all defenders, Ledley King is healthy, they'll be OK. They've had better support from Woodgate and Hutton too.
Newcastle, oh good grief. Last year with the London Times game, the autodraft left me with the best offense in the league but a lousy, lousy defense. It was so bad I had to take a chance on Claudio Cacapa, Jose Enrique, and my favorite, Celestine Babayaro (thankfully who transferred over to the hometown L.A. Galaxy only for them to dump him too).
Yeah, sure, subs are OK, if you pick the right games to play them in - a bit like choosing pitching match-ups!
That's quite a horrific defense you had yourself there - only Enrique showed anything like having decent potential out of the three of them last year! The worrying thing is that we still haven't signed any defenders for 2008-9 yet...
And I didn't include Tottenham because they have a decent back 4 if they're all healthy. Woodgate is quality (was really hoping he'd come back to Newcastle last year), King is England-worthy when healthy & Hutton is at least serviceable.
I had Corluka on a free transfer and so it wasn't all too bad, but I had to deal with Aaron Hughes (Fulham) being injured and had another former Geordie, Titus Bramble at the back.
I'm halfway home to getting to my quota of 10. Just PM me if you're interested in signing up. Lots of room.