Fantasy Soccer

Enjoying Professional Soccer through Fantasy Soccer

Soccer is undoubtedly the world’s most popular sport. Although the sport’s popularity in North America is not massive, the sport’s following in Africa, Asia, South America and Europe is very impressive. The World Cup – a soccer tournament that happens once in every four years can easily gather more than a billion watchers worldwide. Professional soccer players coming from different countries around the world come together in one or two countries to represent their country in the tournament.

It’s no surprise that fantasy soccer would also become a popular game. This form of fantasy sport is very popular in Europe as the continent is home to the world’s premier soccer tournaments. Almost every country in Europe – France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy all have soccer tournaments that features not just the best in the country but in the world.

History

Since Europe is home to the world’s top soccer tournaments, it’s just proper that fantasy soccer would start here. The first nationally recognized fantasy soccer was started in a newspaper called the Daily Telegraph. This was introduced in 1993 during the start of the Premiership. Two years before the national recognition, the fantasy game was slowly introduced by Fantasy League Ltd. Like most fantasy sports, it started out in a very simple stats comparing game into a full blown industry because of increased online activity.

Variations in Play in European Leagues

There are three popular variations in fantasy soccer in the European league: the salary cap fantasy soccer, bidding variety and the popular draft style.

In salary cap fantasy soccer, players in this game are only given a specific budget in order to assemble a team. The player would be required to “purchase” 11 to 14 players to ensure there are enough players in the roster in case of injury. The usual arrangement for this type of fantasy soccer is that it is only limited in a single tournament. But since it is based on salary, two or more players could use the stats of a single professional soccer player.

Player selection based on bidding is a variety of the salary cap fantasy soccer. Its main difference from the salary cap based fantasy soccer is that the stats given by the professional soccer player could be use by only one fantasy player. The scope of players is also wider with almost unlimited number of replacements in case the players in the roster are injured.

Draft form of fantasy soccer is almost the same as fantasy sports basketball in USA. In this format, members of the tournament take turns in selecting one player for various positions. This type of fantasy soccer doesn’t employ any salary cap as it focuses more on the fantasy player’s ability to select the right player for the team. Through the season, fantasy players could also trade or waive players. This is usually dubbed as “mini-games” since this form of fantasy game pits a small amount of players, usually acquaintances that opted to play online. There is another variety of this type of fantasy sport wherein in has added a salary cap variable to keep the game and drafting a lot more interesting.

Scoring

Scoring in these formats of fantasy soccer is based on points assigned to the performance of the players. Multipliers are deductions that are conducted on positive and negative output of each player, respectively. Multipliers are usually added on goals, assists and saves (for goalies) while deductions are made when players receive a penalty card, when they allowed a goal or had an own goal.

MLS Fantasy Soccer

MLS or Major League Soccer is a soccer league based on USA. Like most European professional soccer league, the team is city based and composed of professional soccer players around the world. It has slight differences in the game play and league format (running shot during free kick, playoffs) but overall, the league could be easily enjoyed by almost any soccer fan around the globe.

Major League Soccer has an official fantasy soccer game. This online game is a salary cap based game wherein a fantasy player could select 11 players with the budget allowed by the fantasy game. The team could be extended to 15 players but this doesn’t mean that the budget would be increased. Typically, each fantasy player only has $5 million dollars to spend on salaries. The roster could be changed at least 24 hours before game time in case there are injuries.

In terms of scoring, MLS fantasy soccer assigns points to each performance as well as deductibles. But since each player is assigned to a specific position, there are limited aspects that the player could score on. For example, the defender and the forward players cannot have points if they blocked a kick towards the goal. The goalie is the only person awarded when he successfully defends the goal from a kick.

On the other hand, there is a unique feature in MLS scoring in terms of goal. The less likely a person could goal in the game, the higher his score will be when he actually scores. When the forward scores a goal, he will be awarded with 20 points for the goal but when the goalie or defender scores during the game regulation, they will be given 70 and 40 points respectively.

News as Your Powerful Source

Having fun in fantasy soccer is very easy but winning in this type of fantasy game is a little bit challenging. You need to learn as much as possible about a player so that you will know more about his strengths and weaknesses. By figuring out what they can and cannot do, you should be able to assemble a team that will complement each other. Remember that soccer is a team based sport. A goal is not only made by one player defeating every defender since he will need another player for the assist and defenders to protect their end of goal before they become truly successful. By carefully monitoring the news about the players and teams, you should be able to have a good idea on how to assemble a formidable fantasy team.