MLS GW18 Tips – Fantasy Major League Soccer

MLS GW18 Tips – Fantasy Major League Soccer

This week’s article is going to be a bit different. Due to the severity of the change in playing style we’re going to see in the fantasy game, I focused a bit more on how to deal with those changes than I normally would. The fact of the matter is, we’re moving into a phase of the game that isn’t going to give us a slew of DGW’s to anchor our teams. In fact, in the next five rounds, only Columbus and Chicago will have a DGW — but for the most part we’ll be playing a more typical fantasy game with teams playing just once each week.

No longer will we have to worry about which player is the most likely to play 180 minutes, we’ll just have to worry about picking the best players in each round (the way fantasy football was meant to be). That being said, there are a host of other challenges that we have to dance around. So let’s start there.

#1) Avoiding the international players
Ah American soccer – the only league in the world that keeps right playing through the league schedule while some of the best players are called into international duty. Some people find this irritating, and others find it a bit of a quirk. If you’re a fantasy player, you’re definitely not feeling all that quirky about it now, are you?

The MLS site has published a list of players called into their international squads here… Gold Cup It’s highly advisable that you spend a bit of time looking at this list prior to making any transfers. The FMLS game itself is updated as well, but it helps to see the overview of how badly certain teams are going to be hit.

Only one team avoided any call-ups, and that’s the New England Revolution. But aside from that, every team is going to be losing some international-caliber players for the next few rounds. All of the major American players that you would expect are out; Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore, Omar Gonzalez and a few others are sure to cause some selection headaches. But countries like Panama are causing a concern by taking players like Blas Perez and Jaime Penedo.

Just be aware that there are going to be tactical changes and replacement players in every team to accommodate for this tournament.

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#2) Giovinco stands alone
One of the hardest hit teams for international play is Toronto FC. Toronto are losing five players, that includes the aforementioned Bradley and Altidore, but they are also losing Jonathan Osorio from their starting eleven.

This is a serious dilemma for owners of Giovinco because there really aren’t any other star players for Toronto that teams will have to prepare for. Can Giovinco really be good enough on his own to create his chances and feed the new players getting a starting opportunity? Or will opposing teams simply create a defensive scheme just for Giovinco and dare the rest of the Toronto team to take the shots? The simple answer is that we don’t know yet how well he’s going to do on his own. We do know that Giovinco will now be taking all of the corners and free kicks with Bradley gone, but how will those chances even be created?

There is a silver lining for Giovinco this week, however. Toronto are on the road to LA, and LA are missing Penedo, Gonzalez and Zardes. The tandem of Penedo and Gonzalez is huge loss for LA, and there isn’t a combination available to them that will be nearly as good. So even though Giovinco will be doing everything by himself, at least he’ll be shooting against a defense in a bit of turmoil themselves.

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#3) The Top 10 teams in FMLS
I looked at the Top 10 teams in the FMLS game after this last round – and there are some definite elements to their teams that they have in common.

First of all, their favorite formation was a 3-4-3 (six teams) followed by 3-5-2 (three teams).Only one team used a 4-3-3. And none of the teams used five defenders. So keep that in mind if you’re building your squad.

Here are some other similarities for you:

8 of the 10 teams owned Kei Kamara
7 teams owned Robbie Keane
Every team owned Giovinco
Every team owned either Ciman or Toia from Montreal
8 teams started Stefan Frei

Those were the major common themes of those teams. And that helps to put things in perspective because sometimes we use the ‘teams selected by’ stat incorrectly (and I’m guilty of that too).

When you see that Giovinco is owned by 22% of players in the game, it’s easy to think that you can be one of the 78% that don’t own him and find a differential that will work just as well. But when you look at stats like these it’s clear that 100% of the best teams owning him is more important than 22% of all teams collectively. Try to do what the best teams do, and find your differentials elsewhere.

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#4) Fixing your team’s international and bye week problems
Two teams, Philadelphia and SKC, are on bye weeks this week. And many owners probably do have a few international players to offload right now.

Here are a few picks for fixing those issues.

Sell Cristian Maidana ($9.0 – M) and buy Ethan Finlay ($8.7 – M). Finlay put in a wonderful performance in this last week with a 16 point performance. It’s clear that Finlay is getting himself into the attack more and more as he’s produced 24 points over his last three matches.

Sell Michael Bradley ($10.4 – M), buy Fabian Castillo ($10.4 – M). Castillo has been left off of many squads due to Dallas’ poor run of fixtures that saw them play five straight on the road. But now that Dallas are getting a good run of home games, Castillo is great option for any squad – he has a goal in each of his last two matches.

Sell Alvas Powell ($7.2 – D), buy Jorge Villafana ($6.3 – D). Portland are really using their two wing backs in a more attacking scheme lately. Alvas was always good for a bonus or two, but Villafana is probably the better option going forward due to his skill with set pieces. Plus, you’ll save some money to invest elsewhere. How can that be bad?

Sell Gyasi Zardes ($9.8 – F), buy Fanendo Adi ($9.7 – F). Adi looks to have taken back the mantle of starting forward for the Portland Timbers. Now that Valeri and Will Johnson are back, Portland are seeing the benefit of having Adi up front to hold the ball up instead of having the pacey Urruti outrunning the service into the box. Adi scored twice in his last game, and he looked like he had no plans of slowing down.

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#5) The Captain Picks
The Top Tier: Keane and Giovinco. I’m not going to get off of these picks until they give me a reason to not trust them. I think that Keane is now in great form, and a home game should be all he needs to keep his run going. And Giovinco? I’m hoping that LA’s loss in the defense is going to open up some opportunities for him.

The Differential Picks: Diego Valeri and Javier Morales. Valeri should be getting better minutes now going forward, and even in his hour of play each week he’s still producing. Expect a bigger rise from him. And Javier Morales should come back and try to rectify his poor performance last time out. I don’t own him, but if there was a week in which you’d expect a fireworks performance, it would be this one.

The Ultimate Differential: Fanendo Adi. It’s hard to look past him this week with San Jose coming to town. San Jose without Wondolowski means that Portland will be able to free up a bit more offense than usual.

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MLS GW18 Tips – Fantasy Major League Soccer This article was written by Guy Sanchez (FootyFantastic)

Follow @Guy_M_Sanchez

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Don’t forget that Guy does have his own MLS blog and we highly recommend a visit as it expands even more upon the current GW – http://www.footyfantastic.com/