We expected it to be an exciting round as the season approaches its final stages, and it was! Fantasy-wise, many managers had to swallow disappointment as the two most popular captain picks, Martinez and Almiron, failed to deliver the expected results. Nevertheless, 39 goals were produced including 5 braces from Rooney, Blanco, Picault, Diomande and Rodriguez. Philadelphia, LAFC and SKC clinched playoff spots, but the big news from this round was last year’s Champions, Toronto FC, crashing out of playoff contention. They joined Orlando, Minnesota, Chicago, Colorado and San Jose on the elimination pile. On a brighter note, the 16 year old defender George Bello scored his first MLS goal for Atlanta, which was a delight for his owners in FMLS.
16-year-old @_georgebello scores his first-ever MLS goal! #ATLvNE https://t.co/pfrJ3k1eTH
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 6, 2018
Gameweek 32 Review
Despite the usual suspects Almiron and Martinez blanking, Atlanta United still managed to take the three points against New England Revolution (2-1) to stay top, but they are closely followed by NYRB who won their away match at San Jose (1-3). In a similar situation to Atlanta, FC Dallas remained top in the West by eliminating Orlando City in a 2-0 win, while SKC booked their tickets for the postseason by drawing (1-1) with LA Galaxy. Both Portland Timbers and Philadelphia Union maintained fourth position in their Conferences with big wins over RSL (1-4) and Minnesota United (5-1) respectively. Vancouver Whitecaps knocked out Toronto FC (1-2) from the playoff contest and LAFC kept hopes up with an away victory (0-3) vs Colorado Rapids. Rooney’s brace extinguished Chicago Fire (2-1) and moved DC United closer to the top six. The round ended with a game in which Victor Rodriguez scored his first MLS brace and with two more goals from Bruin and Roldan Seattle Sounders (4-1) eliminated Houston Dynamo from the playoffs.
Why not, Ilsinho?! 5-1. #PHIvMIN https://t.co/nXeDsANILm
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 7, 2018
Gameweek 33 Preview
As always, when the rest of the football world is on an international break MLS insists on keeping us entertained, even with a tiny round including just four games 😀
LAFC ( W 15 D 8 L 8 ) vs HOU ( W 9 D 8 L 14 )
Last week the Black and Gold booked their ticket for the playoffs and that didn’t come as a surprise after they’ve been outstanding throughout the season. With a win here, they will match the 56 points Atlanta achieved last year as a team in an inaugural season. And with their remaining two games afterwards they could surpass the record of 57 held by Chicago from 1988. Of course, the fight for a second place is included in their campaign, so they have much to play for. After almost three months, Diomande scored a brace to remind everyone of the time he scored nine goals in six games earlier in the season. The rest is a large pool of well-known players to choose from. Expect to see various formation including Vela or Rossi, plus Feilhaber, Nguyen, Zimmerman, Beitashour and others. As the first game in the round, Miller (10 clean sheets) would be ideal for your keeperoo.
Too easy for Dio & @LAFC!
3-0 to the visitors. #COLvLAFC https://t.co/fQvWZk8zAK
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 7, 2018
Houston need to win all their remaining games to be in with a chance of post-season participation. And even then, that will be dependent on the results from other teams. It looks more likely that they will be eliminated from the playoffs, either by defeat to Seattle in Round 32, or by defeat to the mighty Black and Gold in this round. Either way, it’s not recommended to pick any of their players for this fixture.
MIN ( W 11 D 3 L 17 ) vs COL ( W 6 D 6 L 19 )
This will be a game between two teams already out of the post-season contest and with nothing to play for. That said, in games like this quite a few goals can be scored for fun and, if that is the case, most likely they will come from the host team. Even in a small round like this we still need 15 players and apart from the expected picks from the other games the likes of Ibarra, Quintero and a defender could appear in some teams.
DCU ( W 11 D 8 L 11 ) vs DAL ( W 16 D 9 L 6 )
Since the arrival of Wane Rooney we have seen a totally different DC United. The Black and Red are unbeaten in their last six games and are now standing only two points behind sixth-placed Montreal, with still another game in hand after this one. We hardly need to mention that Rooney will be in every team, accompanied by L. Acosta, plus others.
The Texans are currently topping the Western Conference but with SKC and LAFC not far behind they will need six points from their remaining three fixtures (which includes this one) to secure a top two place. In contrast to their excellent home record, the one on the road is not perfect. They have two losses and two draws in the last five.
2⃣ more goals for @WayneRooney, 3⃣ more points for @dcunited. pic.twitter.com/kKAWEGJE63
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) October 8, 2018
NE ( W 8 D 11 L 12 ) vs ORL ( W 7 D 4 L 19 )
The last game of this rather short round will surely see the Revs going all out, following their loss at Atlanta last week, as anything less than a win will see them eliminated. Given the calibre of the opponents, no doubt a home win is expected here and players like Penilla, Fagundez and Bunbury will be popular. Knighton has played the last five games in goal and made 26 saves in them. He is reasonably priced and can be used as last resort in the keeperoo.
It’s hard to remember the last time the Lions won a game [Ed. It was the 15th July; 2-1 at home against Toronto]. They have shipped 14 goals on the road in the last five games and that bad record is only likely to increase in this game.
Captain Suggestions
1. Wayne Rooney (DCU)
2. Carlos Vela (LAFC)
3. Cristian Penilla (NE)
Deadline
Friday 12.10.18 at 10PM EDT – Saturday at 3AM BST
Best of luck to all Managers.
Thanks for reading: MLS Tips Fantasy Major League Soccer GW33. This article was written by Ivan The Terrible
So the LAFC vs HOU match is currently on a long weather delay after 36mins of playing time, during which HOU surprisingly took the lead through Manotas. Not good news for my Miller/Zimmerman defensive double up and nothing so far for my differential captain pick Diomande 🙁
Luckily I re-checked my team, 4 of them flagged injured in the last couple of hours. MLS is hopeless & I still hate this format.
Restarted..Vela scored from PK 1-1 @halftime
Vela outburst – missed the (C) train.
I missed the entire Vela train, not just the captain train. I only switched to Diomande last minute too. My instinct was right to gamble on a captain in this fixture, but I chose the wrong striker. It will be virtually impossible to recover from not owning Vela at all, so my GW (and MLS season) is probably over now 🙁
Bad luck…this is like in FPL. Last min. I did Aguero > Kane + Zaha > Jimenez for a 4PH and changed armband from Hazard to Kane. You know the result.
Lets hope some day the (C) selection gamble pays off big time. I changed (C) from Vela to Quintero this week and found that everybody thought like me, no differential and all suffered.
I switched from Vela to Quintero last minute as well.
The only good thing so far is that didn’t go into that trap and waste so much cash on Miller.
Now I have to find two cheap defenders and three mids for the rest of the games.
Ha ha…I am in that trap as well. Miller took my bench. Now I am not sure whether to go for Shuttleworth or Knighton.
News from MIN is that Shuttleworth is likely to be out with a back injury and Lampson will likely play so that’s my keeperoo sorted. And R Ibarras supposed leg injury which kept him out of the international is much better so check the starting lineup tonight
Thanks for that info Otieno. This answers the question from GM and maybe others. Another one who won’t play tonight is Arriola from DC after the death of his father.
Starting line up Minnesota is Lampson, Miller, Boxall, Kallman, Burch, Maximiano, Fernando Bob, Ibarra, Gomez, Quintero, Rodriguez.
Bench : Kapp, Ibson, Heath, Pangop, Omsberg,Toye, Warner
So, Ibarra starts after all 🙂
Shriv, I am a bit worried about Fagundez (NE) before the last game he only played 45 minutes in the previous two.
Same here, I also have Fagundez, am thinking of changing it to Agudelo (But he has low minutes) or maybe Caicedo (Who will miss the next match if he is booked). No real good choices there
I don’t know. Last week he only played the last 20 minutes and assisted Agudelo’s goal in the last seconds.
I think it will be a coin flip, as I have Benny and his five points on my bench. A bird in hand and all that, though all depends on Captain Quintero firing a hat-trick
I know, 90% have gone with Quintero (C) but….
I am so tempted to scrap Rooney and get Penilla or Bunbury and that FOMO is stopping me 😆
I was thinking of Penilla as well, but then you are right, FOMO, get it wrong and suddenly you are 20 points down, though, I do think that this week, Penilla will outscore Rooney
Shriv, let’s sink with the rest of the crowd 🙂
As for Penilla, think about Orlando. They are about to break the all time record for most goals conceded in a season 😉
We should have scrapped Quintero instead, 1 Assist and 1 Goal, both done for with VAR. A grand two points in the end for Quintero. All this week needs now is for Orlando to blitz the Revs and Dallas to sneak a 1-0 to make it a grand MLS week.
I keep telling myself that nothing can possibly happen anymore in MLS which can surprise me. And every time I am wrong. That was a shocking result :noshake:
Thanks for this Ivan. I will have to change Arriola then.
I am going to try Lampson on the bench. He’s not played since spring but at only 5.0, what the heck 😉
I had Miller on bench last night, so unsure whether to go Lampson or Knighton in the keeperoo. Currently on Knighton.
I can afford both of them as I passed on Miller. In your case Knighton looks a better option.
Thanks Ivan, That’s what I thought too.
Good luck with the rest of today’s matches.
Looking at my H2Hs, I have a small chance of still progressing despite my Vela mistake. Only 9pts behind Middy in one and beating Mito in the other who doesn’t appear to have done his team yet.
Best of luck Chips!!!
Middy is a dark horse and I think Mito is waiting for the new season with the new rules 😉
All the best Ivan in your H2H
Thanks mate, the same to you. Next week will be more interesting round.
Well, my cr@p MLS luck continues with a nail-biting finish to the MIN vs COL game in which my cheeky pick of T. Smith as a COL defender looked like it had paid off, with a 9pt haul, when COL were leading 1-0 at 90mins. Then stoppage time happened…
MIN then scored and he lost the CS points and went down to 4pts. Then the MIN goal was disallowed by VAR and he went back up to 9pts. Then COL scored again for 2-0 (which was VAR’d but held) and it looked all set, but at 90mins +14 (ffs!) Smith gets a red card for foul and abusive language. Nothing like the foul and abusive language spilling from my gob when I saw that had happened and he’d slipped from 9pts down to 6pts. Game finally ended at 90mins+16 (is this a record?). What bad luck to get a RC’d player in the 104th minute of a game :rant:
OK, after that surprise away win for the Rapids, I’ve made some changes for the DCU vs DAL fixture, by nuking my DCU defender and bringing in 2 DAL mids. Essentially, I’m hoping for a massive goal fest from both teams, as I have no defensive assets from either side. Watch it play out as a boring 0-0 now, knowing my luck this week 🙂
Hahaha Chips, I am exhausted with predictions. Just sit back and be ready for the next shock DCU 0-3 DAL and NE 0-2 ORL :big-lol:
Oh FFS! My final changes haven’t gone through! I swear it said SAVED, but when I refreshed it went back to a midway tinkering team that had Gonzalez in goal and Brillant in defence, plus Asad (instead of Knighton, scrub defender and Mosquera who I had settled on). I just have to hope this seeming bad luck turns out for the best (although I’m not hopeful) 🙁
That just adds to the never ending MLS fun 😆 😆
Well done to Otieno with the massive 111 points in this small round :thumbup:
That must be the highest overall weekly score 😯
Thanks. It shows me 68th for the week overall and the highest I’ve seen is 119 so well happy. Sorry you were our H2H.