MLS GW3 Tips – Fantasy Major League Soccer

For some reason, I tend to look at most fantasy sports players as smart people, and I bet on some level we all do. Out of all of the millions of people that watch sports, there are always those fans that aren’t just satisfied with passively watching a game. The fantasy sports player watches that same game through the lens of statistics, probabilities and an assurance that the math will pencil out in the end. And we take great care to watch all of these mathematical elements unfold in real time – and we can’t wait to tell everybody on social media about how our calculations worked out better than most others. Smart people, right?

At least we all felt pretty smart up until GW2 of this week. It was the type of week that makes me envious of the regular fans of the games. You know, the normal people. They buy a ticket, buy a beer and just watch each game with no pretext. They simply come to the table ready to be entertained. Can you imagine being a just a fan, with no agenda on individual player performance, and seeing Colorado stand up to the mighty LA? Can you imagine how cool it would have been to just see Houston destroy Dallas and take in that wonderful match at face value? Gentleman, we’re never going to be capable of being that type of fan again, we’re too far down rabbit hole. Instead of just being grateful that this weekend’s action kicks off with Villa vs. Larin, let’s ruin it for ourselves and try to anticipate who will kick that ball with a higher efficiency. Time to get smart, people.[clear]

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#1) Dallas deserves the chance to apologize to you

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[/three_fourth]I’m a big fan of rage-selling players after bad games. It’s almost a therapeutic exercise. But sometimes you have to take a punch on the chin and just place a ‘hold’ order on certain members of your team.

There’s no sugar-coating this one, Dallas had about as bad of a game as anybody will have all season. What makes this so infuriating is that Dallas were the Chosen Ones this year from a fantasy perspective – and this sort of result just wasn’t supposed to happen (who didn’t think about making an Obi Wan meme after that match ended…”You were supposed to bring points to my score, not destroy it!”…or something along those lines).

But in this instance, we can’t simply rage-sell every member of the Dallas squad that we’ve selected. First of all, keep telling yourself that Dallas do have talent, and they will score better going forward. And if that doesn’t work for you, remind yourself that Dallas have a DGW next week where they’ll play DC and Columbus (both teams that really haven’t been able to gain much traction yet this season). Look, if Dallas didn’t have a bunch of fixtures coming up, I’d probably still be saying the same thing. They have to be better than what we saw. Losing 5-0 to Houston simply tells us two things: 1) Dallas aren’t perfect, and 2) Houston are capable of great things when all things come together. In this case, I’m tipping my hat to Houston on a game well played – but I’m keeping my Dallas picks intact.

Aside from the DGW though, we have to look at their fixture this week. Montreal are going away to Dallas (and Drogba could feature), and that’s one hell of a road trip – 1513 miles to be exact. Will Dallas regain a bit of form at home? I think so. Will Montreal continue their great attacking style? I also think that’s a possibility. My recommendation is to play your Dallas attack, but perhaps consider benching your Dallas defense if you have anything else that’s serviceable.

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#2) Speaking of DGW prep…

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[/three_fourth]Dallas aren’t the only team to feature in next week’s inaugural DGW fixtures; we’ll also be seeing DC, New England and Vancouver on the double. So in theory, bringing in some of these elements before the DGW will serve you well.

Starting with DC, just try to have a bit of perspective before loading up your team with their players. Last year, DC were notorious for employing a very heavy rotation on DGW’s. Will that hold true this year? Chances are good that when a coach has a system, he sticks with it. So buy these players at your own risk. DC play this week at home against Colorado, and then follow that up with another home fixture against Dallas and then away to San Jose. There are some tempting fantasy picks in there, but it’s anybody’s guess as to which players get assigned to any one match.

New England are a better team than people are giving them credit for right now. Sure, they have started the year with two draws (3-3 at Houston and 0-0 at home against DC), but they’re looking like a cohesive squad. I’ve never been really impressed with their forward play, but they have some gems in the midfield and on the defensive side that could prove to be useful. This week they play away to the Jekyll-and-Hyde Philadelphia Union (how that match pans out is anybody’s guess), and they follow that up next week away to NYCFC and at home against NYRB.

Lastly, Vancouver are a bit harder for me to pin down, at least as far as what the supposed value of any one of their players is. The Whitecaps have already lost to Montreal and SKC to start the year, but the most interesting thing for me is the manner in which they scored goals in those losses. To this point, Vancouver have three goals scored on the year – one was scored by Pedro Morales, and the other two were by the defenders Harvey and Waston. Unless Rivero and the other attacking mids start to get involved, they’re not going to be a very attractive option for fantasy purposes. You simply can’t have your defenders more active in scoring than your forwards. Will this trend turn around? Eventually. But Vancouver are going to have a hard time getting something going with their next run of fixtures. This weekend they’ll play in Seattle, and Cascadia Cup matches are always hard fought. And after that, Vancouver will see Houston and LA come to their stadium in their double. Houston could continue to surprise us, and LA are always dangerous (even if their road woes say otherwise).

I think Dallas and New England are probably the best buys of this group. Pedro Morales probably deserves a look too – but at $10.6, that’s a lot of faith to put into one player that is being outscored by other mids so easily. Just be careful with DC and try to strike it rich with that correct Vancouver pick. Part of me thinks that the whoever wins the DGW round will have chosen correctly on Vancouver one way or another. I tend to see them as the boom or bust squad of these four teams.

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#3) Are Houston for real?

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[/three_fourth]I was really high on the addition of Maidana coming to Houston in the offseason. And I was extremely high on Houston getting Cubo Torres the year prior. But I would be lying if I told you that I thought that Houston were capable of anything like what we’ve seen from them. After the first two games of the year, Houston have scored 8 goals and have a differential of +5 (both are league highs).

But can we trust those numbers? And if we do trust the numbers, can we actually afford to bring some of their players on board? In the FPL system, any team that started out the year with eight goals would have their players being bought up left and right. But the MLS is a different beast entirely. How much can you realistically invest in a team when they don’t have a DGW until GW10? And not only that, but we have 16 instances where a team will be on a DGW prior to Houston getting their turn. Surely those teams take priority, no? In this crazy world of MLS fantasy, we’ll prioritize a Colorado DGW above a single game week from a team like Houston that are on fire.

But to our trust issue, we also have to be fair and say that Houston haven’t had to go on the road yet, and we’ve all seen what air travel does to our fragile boys here – it apparently takes away all of the mojo and skill from about 80% of the player pool on any given weekend.

Yet even if we take away the Houston road fixtures that are upcoming, the numbers still don’t lie. Houston have shown exactly what they’re capable of while at home. When it comes to LA, we theorize about how much they could score because we know all of their names from a decade ago. But Houston have taken out the abstract thinking and have given us a proven result. It may not be a repeatable result game in and game out, but at least we know they have the ability to put up consecutive crooked numbers. I’m not saying you should open up your entire roster to them, but Houston deserve to have somebody playing in your starting XI.

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#4) Will LA turn the corner – or will they forever be slow starters?

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[/three_fourth]LA are expensive to bring into your team. Whether you want a defender, a mid or a forward, you’re going to pay a hefty price for them. And when all the dust settles, you can usually justify the cost because these players will score over the course of the year.

But are they right for you right now? Every year we listen to Bruce Arena hail the signing of the latest old man to enter his squad – and every year we think that this old man from the big leagues is going to make this wee MLS look like a child’s plaything. And that just doesn’t happen anymore. The MLS learned a while ago that you don’t beat LA with talent – you beat them with youth and speed.

And when you look at the team through that lens, it’s easy to see why they start so slowly every year. Last year, LA managed to scrape together just 5 points through their first 5 games. And a huge reason for that is that this team just doesn’t travel well. When you consider that LA didn’t actually win their first road match until August 1 of last year, it’s easy to see how a team, that by rights should destroy Colorado, could lose to them in a 0-1 effort like they did this past week. And if that’s not enough to convince you, look at their 2014 campaign. They won their first road match that year on April 6…against Chivas (another team that was in LA, so no travel required). But after that LA Derby, they didn’t win on the road until June 28.

LA play at home this weekend against San Jose, but following that they’ll rotate home/away fixtures each week for the next nine weeks. It’s probably safe to say that for this stretch of the season, LA (with no DGW’s on the horizon) just aren’t worth your time.

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#5) Captain Picks

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[/three_fourth]Giovinco – We didn’t cover Giovinco in the main article yet? Well, how much can I possibly say about him week after week? This week Toronto fly down to SKC for yet another road fixture, and Giovinco will still be the best player on the pitch. But it’s hard to imagine that Giovinco will score at least a goal in each of his consecutive road matches this year, so each time you pick him as a captain, you’re essentially betting against the inevitable letdown that will happen at some point during this stretch. 8 consecutive road matches is nothing to scoff at.

Mauro Diaz – Just to be crazy, you have to expect Dallas’ main main to come out firing this week right? No doubt Dallas are embarrassed and Montreal are going to have to bear the brunt of that frustration.

David Villa – NYC are going into their second match of four straight scheduled home fixtures. And if a little bit of consistency can go a long way on the pitch, Villa should be primed for several big scores in the near future.

Good luck this week folks! If you want to hear more of my ramblings, head over to SportingSanchez.com for my weekly podcast (The Married Man’s Guide to Sports Addiction) and some random articles.

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The MLSFI Podcast

We mentioned this last week and we hope you had a chance to listen in but if you didn’t then be sure to try and check out this weeks edition. The guys know MLS inside out but more than that they’re just a great listen every week and you get to follow their teams, their successes and their woes. Pretty much the same soap story that unfolds on our FPL comments on here every week, only in a podcast format!

The link to the podcast itself is here MLSFI – GW3 but even if you don’t find the time then their handy chalkboard of pundits picks is back this week also as per below.

Don’t forget to stop by mlsfantasyboss.com to catch up on their great weekly articles that lead into the deadline.

Or if you are after listening to more of Guy himself then be sure to drop in and give his Married Man’s Guide to Sports Addiction a listen!

To play the MLS game itself it’s fantasy.mlssoccer.com that you need.

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And last but not least, don’t forget to join the FF247 MLS League, Code is: 123-361

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MLS GW3 Tips – Fantasy Major League Soccer This article was written by Guy Sanchez (FootyFantastic)

Follow @Guy_M_Sanchez

