Haters gonna hate....

 

I have been shocked and disturbed by the extreme negativity so often being expressed online about this first Club World Cup competition. Most of the people dissing it so heavily are clearly driven by personal grudges and prejudices, and are often nakedly hypocritical too: they abuse the tournament, while also griping how unfair it is that their club isn't in it (if you're a Liverpool fan, you have the beginnings of a case on that; but it's not a reason to dismiss the worth of the tournament); or they suggest it's not worth watching or supporting - while they've clearly been watching it.

Many of them are also so stubbornly invested in this embittered view of the competition that they seek to disparage it further by questioning the quality of the football or the degree to which players and teams have really been motivated for it. I saw one comment from a guy this past week whose main argument seemed to be that Manchester City couldn't possibly have been beaten by Al Hilal if they'd been trying properly! I must assume he didn't watch that game (or many of the ones last season in which City were also chronically incapable of defending against swift counter-attacks): City tried their damnedest, and were just outplayed on the day; and both Pep and his players looked absolutely gutted to have been eliminated. The quality of football in this tournament has, in fact, been of an astonishingly high standard, and no club has been guilty of putting out a sub-par eleven or being unconcerned about a result (except in a few instances, perhaps, at the end of the group stage; but that always happens in competition like this).

So, these critics almost all appear to be driven by a knee-jerk emotional response rather than a rational analysis. And a great many of them also have a hidden - or not-so-hidden! - personal agenda fuelling their invective. Thus, they don't really merit much attention..

However, the detractors of the tournament do have two main lines of attack which I think are worth addressing.

Lack of 'prestige'?

The haters deride the tournament as valueless, they protest that it carries no 'prestige' - or only 'fake' or 'manufactured' prestige.

I would suggest that 'prestige' essentially means how highly the event is valued - by players, fans, and the club's ownership. And the key determinant of that is the standard of the competitors. Most people - players, certainly - are going to value a competition if they have to beat really top opponents to win it. And this competition - aside from the unfortunate but unavoidable omission of a few big names like Liverpool and Barca - does have all the best teams in the world in it.

'Official' status also counts for a lot. FIFA, although it may often be laughably corrupt and incompetent, is nevertheless the game's global governing body, and any event they endorse automatically carries considerable weight - far more than an event organised by one of the regional football associations, or a 'private' friendly competition set up by groups of clubs. And heck, the title of 'World Champion' is inherently prestigious - there's no getting away from that.

Moreover, in our sadly materialistic world, the sheer size of the prize pot is going to be a key determinant of the importance attached to a competition by a club's owners - and, at least to an extent, by the players and the fans too, because we're all dazzled by money, and we appreciate how important it is. And FIFA have produced an impressively huge prize fund for this tournament.

Now, yes, there's a further sentimental component to 'prestige' in sporting competitions, which grows from the associations we've all accumulated  around them - from their history. But no competition has 'history' when it starts; and that isn't a reason to never consider creating a new competition. Even the World Cup was a bit slow out of the blocks, with a lot of the European nations being uninterested in joining it, even when the second event was hosted in Italy in 1934; England and others didn't come on board until after World War II, The European Championship had an even rockier start, with some of the leading European footballing powers - England, Italy, West Germany, Netherlands - actively opposing its creation, and not participating in the first one or two iterations in the 1960s; and it didn't start becoming a major viewing draw until the 1980s. In its first iteration a new tournament is strange, unfamiliar, an unknown quanitity - it's inevitable that natural human scepticism (and resentment of change) is going to win out with a lot of people, and they're going to question the event's prestige, or even its reason for existing.

We had just the same distaste and dismay expressed towards the new Nations League competition in Europe just a few years ago. But now.... people are starting to get into it a little bit, now that they understand the format, and they're starting to build a stock of potent memories about times their team did well or badly in it. And the fact that the Great Egomaniac, Mr Cristiano Ronaldo, is so chuffed to have just won it is probably going to do wonders for how seriously people take the next one.

The same will be true of this Club World Cup - and probably on an even shorter timeline, because it's simply been such a bloody good tournament. People who've watched it with an open mind.... are already looking forward to the next one.  Supposed 'prestige' problem SOLVED.

Unacceptable toll on the players?

This objection I have a bit more time for. I am concerned about the increasing burdens we place on top football players - both physical and emotional - and alarmed about possible adverse consequences a little down the line. But for me, blaming summer tournaments (or international football more generally, or the governing bodies creating novel tournaments more specifically) is a dangerous distraction, it's missing the point. The core of the burden on players comes from the domestic schedule, and that's what needs to be lightened. 

We have been used to there being summer tournaments at least every other year for decades now; we ought to be well used to it. And it's unreasonable to insist that no new tournaments should be tried out ever. Without occasional innovation and experimentation, the sport will stagnate and die. 

People who take that tack in regard to this tournament are wilfully disregarding the very strong and worthwhile reasons for its creation. The original 'Club World Cup' format was tiny, it was buried in midwinter (at a time when most of the world is preoccuppied with preparations for Christmas), and given almost no promotion. For years, it failed to attract very much media attention in Europe; and in the UK, at least, we were barely ever aware that it was happening (even if our club was in it). But in the rest of the world - especially in South America - they went mad for it! The developing football nations were desperately craving an opportunity to test their best teams against the big boys of Europe (even if it rarely worked out very well for them). The demand was undoubtedly there (outside of selfish, insular Europe, anyway) for a proper international competition between the best clubs of all continents - something on a broader scale that could include multiple clubs from each continent, and provide a bigger spectacle that would grab the attention of global TV audiences. Events like this help to develop the game in the less well-off countries - hopefully to the point that, one day, we'll have a more level global playing-field in this sport, and the best African, Asian, and South American teams will be powerful enough to hang on to at least some of their best young players - rather than regularly having all of them poached by European sides. And I think an event like this is also good for 'cultural exchange' in the here-and-now, helping to educate football fans about the level of the game in other countries, and introducing us to some previously unknown talents. (It would be unfortunate, though, if it just became a big shopping showcase! I'm not sure that players like Arias, Mastantuono, and Jesus would have been getting moves to Europe without this competition....)

The root of the problem with player health is not the number of games, but the intensity of them in the modern-day style of play. One game can break a player! And of course, there's a huge variation in individual susceptibility: some players, like Declan Rice, are tanks who seem to be able to play a full 90 minutes again and again and again, with no tail-off in performance or incipient injury risk; others have hamstrings that ping more often than their phones. But sports science has made huge advances in recent years: clubs are now getting very good at monitoring fatigue levels and muscle soreness or stiffness for the earliest signs of danger. It's really the club's responsibility to manage their player's well-being, and ensure that they aren't over-played when they're looking vulnerable. 

The much deeper squads and routine rotation we've grown used to now are a big help with this, as is the increased number of substitutions allowed in each match. Permitting one or two further substitutions might help a little bit more. And the League does seem to be doing its best with scheduling - contriving a short winter 'break', and trying to ensure minimum 'recovery periods' are provided between all fixtures. However, the inevitable mid-winter log-jam still looms ominously over the season. Many countries suspend their domestic leagues altogether for a couple of weeks or so around the turn of the year; we really need to be looking at doing that in England too. Traditionalists, of course, (and especially those who support clubs who would suddenly be at a greatly heightened risk of relegation) are vehemently opposed to reducing the number of clubs in the Premier League. But, with the vastly increased pace of the modern game, I'm afraid it's now unavoidable: we need to get it down to 18 teams as soon as possible - and perhaps ultimately to only 15 or 16. It's not the end of the world, we'll get used to it! After all, it's only 20 years since the League was reduced from 22 teams to 20, and nobody grumbles about that any more; in fact, I think most people had got over it inside a couple of years.

And if we're talking about unnecessary additions to the minutes-burden, surely the League Cup has to go before anything else?! I know fans of clubs like Newcastle and Spurs will briefly get very passionate about it, as it's the only piece of silverware they've managed to claim in the modern era. But that's all it is: a lame 'consolation prize' for teams that aren't quite good enough to win anything worthwhile. It is - and always has been - a complete non-event. And if it were cancelled tomorrow, nobody would miss it in a year's time. [The one small counter-argument I can see in favour of retaining it is that it has become useful as an opportunity for giving squad players and emerging youth talents a few full run-outs.... in a competition that doesn't matter.]

I fear many of the gripes we're hearing from the online community about the possible harm to players from playing another summer tournament are driven by the purely selfish concern that it may impact their team - especially at the start of the season. Pep himself has already jumped on that bandwagon, whining about the possible detriments to City in the domestic league from their participation in America. (He's just getting his excuses in early, as the tournament exposed the fact that his Manchester City might be quite poor again next season, the 'no defence' problem still not fixed!) It's notable, I think, that there were no such complaints before they got knocked out; and you'll probably never hear Chelsea fans bitching about the tournament, because they're so surprised and delighted to have reached the Final!

Fantasy managers tend to be even worse in their narrowness of focus, resenting not just the possibility of a player going missing with an injury, but the likelhood of increased rotations, uncertain starts, and reduced minutes - anything that might eat into their precious points tally. But that's such a problem with Pep's City anyway, you never want to risk taking more than one or two of their players! It's really a very small, potential impact on two EPL teams; it shouldn't be that big of a deal. But people are treating it as the most massive and unconscionable source of grievance. It is not: get over it.

This first Club World Cup has gone far better than anyone can really have expected. It has been a huge success, producing a very high level of competition, a few surprises and upsets, some extremely entertaining football (the main media partner, DAZN, is missing a trick by not having put together a 'Goal of the Tournament' reel yet, because there have been some absolute bangers!!) - and it's produced a fascinating Final for us to enjoy tomorrow.

Quit bitching - it's here to stay.

A 'Team of the Tournament'

 

Notice - I said  a 'Team of the Tournament' up there in the heading, not THE Team....

This is not intended to be any sort of definitive verdict on all the teams and players who've participated in this first Club World Cup. It's just a quick snapshot of some of the ones who've most caught my eye - with particular reference to how well they returned in the Fantasy game (while still trying to keep to a formation and a balance of players that could actually work on the pitch - so, I wouldn't allow myself three left-backs!!).

I have deliberately omitted the more major European clubs, to focus more on some of the less well-known teams (to European fans!) that have enjoyed an excellent showcase in this tournament. In fact, I was going to exclude all the quarter-finalists; but I felt that would be a bit rough on Fluminense, because, honestly, no-one expected them to get that far.

Obviously, if we were just going for the outright best players, and the ones who've been most successful in this tournament, we'd probably go for almost the whole of the PSG starting eleven, with perhaps just a token representative or two from Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, and maybe Chelsea - but that wouldn't be very interesting.

So, this is what I've come up with - essentially, the Fantasy picks that worked out best for me. But I'm pleased with the overall diversity in the selection: there's quite a spread of ages, nationalities, and different clubs here.

My Team of the Tournament - Club World Cup 2025

One of the chief pleasures of this tournament for me was being introduced to some previously unknown talents, particularly from the South American clubs. I'm really frustrated that I couldn't find a way to crowbar in a few extra ones like Fluminense's Juan Pablo Freytes, Palmeiras's Joaquin Piquerez, or River Plate's Franco Mastantuono.

What do you think are my worst omissions?

A little bit of Zen (50)

 

"All these moments will be lost in time. Like tears - in rain."

Rutger Hauer ('Roy Batty' in 'Blade Runner')

There is a common story that the Dutch actor himself came up with the celebrated short monologue at the climax of 1982's Blade Runner, just before Roy Batty, the charismatic antagonist of the film that he played, reaches his pre-ordained expiry date on the rain-drenched rooftop. However, I've never found any substantiation of that claim, and I suspect it's just a legend. It certainly seems improbable that such a sophisticated piece of dialogue could have been purely improvised in the moment. We should probably give at least some of the credit to the great screenwriter David Webb Peoples (who also wrote the scripts for Unforgiven, 12 Monkeys, and the criminally underrated Hero; even if it's a relatively short filmography, it's pretty hard to top!).

I get a bit emotonal whenever we near the end of a big football tournament - particularly one as surprisingly exciting and entertaining as this first Club World Cup event has proved to be. We need to savour such moments of joy while we can.

Almost done...

 

So, it's nearly over: the first Club World Cup Tournament is down to its last game. It's been a hell of a ride so far. I wonder if there might yet be one or two surprises in store for us on Sunday? 

Funnily enough, I picked Chelsea and PSG to reach the Final (and Chelsea to win!) in my 'bracket prediction' at the start of the competition - though that was more wishful thinking than crystal-ball confidence!

After PSG's demolition of Real Madrid, I imagine the betting market for the game is revolving around how many goals the Paris team are going to win by.... But Chelsea, as I said the other day, have a certain amount of momentum behind them now, having played with a lot of confidence and determination to overcome adversity in their progress to this point. And Joao Pedro, outstanding the other day, is currently looking the best forward to have appeared in the whole competition. (Although he's not really a forward. I don't know what position he was supposed to be playing on Tuesday, but it sure as hell wasn't a No. 9; 'false 9' or 'joint 10', maybe - but he hardly set foot in the box all game.)

The semi-finals, while they had plenty of excellent football, were a bit of a disappointment as contests. I had been wary of making any firm prediction for them, because I felt they could both potentially be very close. But it didn't really turn out that way!

Fluminense, perhaps, finally ran into 'altitude sickness', a faltering of self-belief as they realised how much further they'd progressed than anyone, themselves included, had ever expected. But if that penalty award just before half-time hadn't been overturned on review, that might have given them the lift they needed to go after the game. Or indeed, if Cucurella hadn't pulled off that remarkable goal-line clearance from Arias, they might immediately have been back on terms after Joao Pedro's confidence-sapping opener. The penalty decision ultimately seemed fair; Chalobah did appear to be trying to pull his arm out of the way of the ball rather than moving towards it (although it might have been slightly ambiguous: as he swivelled his torso away from the ball, centrifugal force made his arm sway slightly away from his body towards it...). However, we've seen an awful lot of penalties given for incidents like that in recent years. And we almost never see VAR daring to query the referee's decision on something like that. So, that was a very hard blow for the Brazilians. As were the two wonder-strikes out of nothing from their former player - ultimately the only difference between the two sides: Chelsea had two chances and put them both away emphatically, Fluminense had rather more but couldn't make any of them count. (And I'd be curious to see what the xG calculation was for Joao Pedro's brace: very, very low, I would expect!)

And if the 'Many Universes' theory is true, I would imagine that there are a large number of possible worlds where Real romped away with an improbably comfortable win over PSG, rather than vice versa. Having both of the usually immaculate centre-backs, Asencio and Rudiger, lose possession in front of their goal to give up easy chances.... in the first 10 minutes of the match??!! No-one was predicting that! The game was pretty much dead-and-buried almost before it had begun.

Alas, the Fantasy game is pretty much dead-and-buried too. This is the unfortunate weakness of Fantasy games in knockout tournaments: with progressively fewer teams (and, usually, cagier matches as there's more and more on the line), points returns dwindle in the later rounds; and with only a single game on the last MatchDay, there's very little scope for differentiation, little hope for making up even a small deficit over a rival. Going for one of the subs (like Goncalo Ramos), who might possibly contribute a goal or assist late in the game, could provide a bit of an edge. But in all probability, rankings for the last MatchDay will be determined mainly by how well you did with your captaincy choice.

I keep my interest in the game going by focusing on the round-by-round head-to-head tally against my principal antagonist - my best drinking buddy from college days. He managed to get a monster score in the 'Round of 16', and despite trouncing him in two of the group rounds and the quarters and the semis, I still haven't quite clawed back the gap - and almost certainly won't now be able to. But coming out on top in the Final, by even a solitary point, will confer epic bragging rights.  [Well, what do you know.... I bet heavily on Chelsea, putting Sanchez in goal; while my friend backed PSG and went with Donnarumma. I was chasing a daunting 17-point deficit and wound up with a 45-point advantage in the final game!! Still a rather disappointing tournament for me overall, though. I had hoped to top 500 points, but in fact barely scraped above the 'adequate' threshold of 450 with a fairly strong finish in the last two rounds. I suppose that was still in the top 5%, but I had aspired for much better than that. Fairly poor returns in MD1 and the 'Round of 16' cost me heavily; and I never quite managed the magical ton-up in a round to redeem those set-backs.]

In the Many Universes,  I imagine at least 75% of them see Paris St Germain cruise to the title quite comfortably. But I have an inkling we might live in one of the other ones - one of the ones where Palmer and Joao Pedro, and Cucurella and Gusto, pull off something remarkable. 

Either way, it should be a cracking game!!

When will it end....?

 

For some weeks already, many of the FPL hordes online have been griping and fretting about how long the summer break between our seasons drags on; they are becoming painfully frustrated by the seemingly endless wait for the next session of Fantasy Premier League to be launched....

Patience, patience - if will be here soon enough. Far too soon, really!

The new launch date migrates around the month of July quite a bit (perhaps occasionally delayed by upgrades to the site in progress - we can but hope!!); but in general, it's round about now. 

They probably don't want to launch while a major tournament is under way: that would seem impolite,... and it probably wouldn't work in their own favour either, as people's attention might be mostly elsewhere on the date of launch. In the past, though, they've often started trailing new player pricings during the last week or so of the big summer tournament, and that hasn't happened yet this time - so, maybe something is holding things up a bit?

Most of the Premier League clubs have been reassembling their squads this week, to begin their pre-season preparations. And - amazingly! - a few actually have a first warm-up game scheduled this coming weekend. I would usually have expected the Big Announcement of the FPL relaunch to happen early next week,.... but they do love their pre-season teasers so much: I can't see them doing it until at least a week after they've done their first information-drop about the new pricings. So,.... maybe the very end of next week, or early the week after?

We shouldn't be too bothered about this anyway!  The only relevance of the new launch date is the somewhat unfair (but to me, ultimately unimportant) rules wrinkle that date of registration is used as an additional tiebreaker for rankings, after number of transfers made.

I say I find that little detail unimportant and irrelevant because rank is an irrelevance anyway, no true measure of merit; and if you gain a few ranking places simply by virttue of having rushed to sign up for the game early, can you really take any pride in that?? This tiebreak rule can have a huge impact early on, but its significance diminishes as the season progresses. By the end of the year, it's very unlikely to have much bearing on the positions at the very top of the table, as they tend to be extremely spread out on points alone - certainly, the global No. 1 is almost invariably way out on their own. And it makes absolutely no difference to me if I finish in 41,000th or 42,000th spot, or 150,000th or 155,000th: these numbers are meaningless.

But if you are intent on gaining such a trivial and unjust advantage over your peers, what you should do is: Watch for word of the relaunch over the coming days, log back into your account as soon as you see this (they seem to demand that you change your password every bloody year, which is a royal pain-in-the-behind...), use the Auto-Select option to generate a preliminary squad and 'submit' that.

Then.... LOG OUT, and DON'T LOOK at the site again until after the Community Shield on August 10th.

Really. As I said in one of my earliest pieces on this blog, it is actively harmful to spend time going through endless draft squads weeks before the season even kicks off. You will only just be starting to form a picture of tactics, lineups, and possible form and confidence for the various teams on the basis of their later pre-season games in early August. And there will still be some big transfer news - and, alas, probably also some big injury news - in that final week before the Big Kick-Off on August 15th. [Full schedule for next season's fixtures.]

So, you will not have adequate information for making any Initial Squad selections until.... Friday 15th August. Beginning to make decisions before that is utterly pointless. It is worse than pointless, it is positively detrimental - because once you've made a decision, it is very difficult to unmake it: the human brain just doesn't like doing that (even with decisions that you're trying to regard as tentative, provisional, contingent, or whatever....). 

What you're doing when you start making 'preliminary decisions' about your squad way before the new season starts... is just hard-wiring prejudices into your thinking which will, more often than not, work against you. DON'T DO IT!!

An ADDENDUM

I realise I omitted one small but quite important little wrinkle in my earlier post on Fantasy tactics for a knockout tournament like the current Club World Cup.

I did so because the main post was getting over-long. And also because I felt this was pretty obvious. But tournaments of this type come up so rarely - and are so brief compared to the 9-month week-in/week-out grind of a Fantasy Football game based on a domestic league - that many Fantasy enthusiasts really seem to struggle to get their heads around them. (I suspect, in fact, that many people only play the Fantasy Euros tournament once every 4 years or so. World Cup Fantasy ought to be HUGE; but it isn't, because FIFA is crap - the game is badly put together, and receives almost no promotion. And I don't even know if there is a Fantasy game for AFCON or the Copa America...?)

Hence this supplement....

One way you can spread risk a little, to try to contain the problem of possibly disastrous losses of players to elimination if one or two results go against you in the knockout rounds of the tournament is.... to balance up the number of players you have from each side in a tie. If you have 3 players from both teams - or 4, or 5, or 6 - you're bound to lose that many players whatever the result, but you also know how many you're definitely going to be keeping. (And, of course, you don't have to balance the numbers on each side exactly: 5 + 4 or 4 + 3 is fine.)  If you only back one team in a tie, you can't afford to risk taking many players from them.

This possibility of backing both sides in a game is generally of most use in the semi-finals - although it can occasionally be applicable in the quarter-finals too.

And it's most appealing where you have two of the best teams drawn against each other, so you know you're going to want lots of these players in the next round, whoever goes through - but it's dangerous/impossible to predict which of them will.

As I said in the earlier post, I don't usually like to take more than 4 players from one team in the semi-final round. But in exceptional circumstances, you might push that limit a little.

In the Final, you can get by with a light bench, or even no bench at all; and in the Club World Cup, we're getting 6 Free Transfers ahead of the last game (in some tournaments it's 7!), so you could in theory risk losing up to 10 players from the semi-finals and still muster a full starting eleven for the Final, without having to spend any points on additional transfers. The most obvious way to do this with the current semi-final match-ups is to take 5 players each from Paris St Germain and Real Madrid (you might even go to 6 players from one of them) and a lesser number from Chelsea (few or none from Fluminense, since no-one seems to fancy their chances very highly; though you might perhaps have one or two budget-saving gaps on the bench by now - so, only 2 or 3 or 4 Chelsea players, 1 or 0 from Fluminense). 

This way, even with 6 players from one of the favourites, you couldn't possibly lose more than 10 players to elimination. If you took 5 or 6 players each from two teams in different ties, it could be disastrous for you if they both lost (however remote that possibility might appear, it could happen!). Therefore, if you want to take a large number of players from two teams in a late round of a knockout competition - you can only afford to do it if they're playing each other.

However,... it is extremely likely that you will also lose 1 or 2 players at least to injury or suspension (or falling-out with their manager, or 'family issue', or whatever...). And, as I said, a lot of people have already opted to leave 1 or 2 gaps in the squad, so the number you can lose to elimination is reduced by that amount. Plus, you'd probably really like to have some Free Transfers still available to be able to make some elective changes - swapping in players who look to be coming into stronger form than some of the ones you have already.

So, you really don't want to take such liberties with the elimination risk by exposing yourself to the maximum possible loss - or anywhere near it, ideally (though, generally, that's just about impossible to avoid getting pretty near that scary limit).

But actually, an even stronger reason to avoid taking a large number of players from one team is that it probably won't do you much good, even in the current round. There are only a handful of players, even in a really elite team, who are going to produce good Fantasy returns in a game. You usually do better to identify one or two of the most promising prospects from a less fancied team than by loading up on more Galacticos....  And this is even more the case where two top teams are facing each other, as we will soon have with PSG and Real. Hopefully, it will be a feast of football; but it is also likely to be a pretty tight, and possibly quite a low-scoring game - in which few if any of the players deliver big Fantasy returns.

Fantasy football tactics for a short knockout tournament (in a nutshell)

I've already touched slightly on the Fantasy tactics for knockout tournaments, in relation to the inaugural FIFA Club World Cup currently going on, notably in this post last week, But I thought I'd take a moment to sketch out the basics in a little more detail now.

The main points to watch out for are:

1) Not quite the game you're used to

Be aware of the rule differences (particularly in points allocations!) from Fantasy Premier League, or any other Fantasy football games you play more regularly. Small differences in the points weightings for different positions can have quite a big impact on the players you choose for certain positions, or the optimum formation you might go with for different sets of fixtures.

2)  The group phase lottery

In the group stage, be aware of the wide variation in fixture difficulty from one batch of matches to the next, and of the likelihood of heavy rotation in squads. It is very, very difficult to plan effectively for the short group stage of tournaments like this - usually only three matches - because: a) You're largely playing blind on MatchDay 1, having very little idea of the likely form, fitness, or selections even at the teams you're most familiar with; and it's inevitable in a bigger tournament that there will be at least a few teams about whom you know next-to-nothing,... some of whom might turn out to be better than you expect.  b) There are probably a few very weak teams who offer the prospect of big points for almost any opponent; but you might not be quite sure who they are until after MatchDay 1; and, in any event, you don't have enough Free Transfers to keep optimising your team against these weaker competitors from one MatchDay to the next. Moreover, stronger teams may be tempted to rest some of their best players against opponents like this, even if qualification is not yet completely settled. c) There will usually be some 'dead rubbers' on MatchDay 3, where teams have little or nothing to play for (other than pride!), and may field a weakened lineup or be lacking in motivation. d) It is quite common for top players recovering from an injury to be brought to a tournament in the hope that they will be able to participate in the later stages. Even if they are 'fully fit', concerns about fatigue after the domestic season may lead to them getting rested in the earlier games. Just because a big name is included in the squad, it doesn't guarantee he's going to appear - much, or sometimes at all - in the group games.

3)  'Second chances'!!

Make the most of the 'manual substitutions' feature! Being able to swap out disappointing players for ones who have yet to play (and in some games, like the current Club World Cup Fantasy, also to have a second chance at picking the recipient of your captain's bonus) can be enormously valuable. So, you should always have not just a full bench, but a strong one; and you need to make sure that the players you initially leave on the bench are playing as late as possible in the MatchDay, so that you will have the maximum opportunity to to review the performance of your players playing on earlier days and consider switching them out. (Remember, there's a lot of flexibility as to formations; so, you're not restricted to swapping a forward for a forward, etc.; you can usually sub out a player from any position [except goalkeeper, of course] for one of any other position.)

4)  Emptying the bench cautiously, later on

However, in later rounds, you might consider gradually emptying your bench. As the games in each round become fewer (and less far apart; and, often, much more closely contested - meaning there might be low points for all attacking players, and perhaps scarcely any for keepers and defenders), the value of the manual substitutions is gradually diminished. In the Final, manual substitutions are no longer posssible, and the remaining value of your bench in being able to replace any unexpected non-starters by automatic substitutions (as in the regular Fantasy Premier League game) might be fairly minimal; so, you can consider having at least one or two gaps on the bench for that last game, perhaps even leaving it completely empty. For the 'Round of 16' - and sometimes, perhaps, for the Quarter-Finals too - with multiple games spread across multiple days, it is still worth trying to keep a full and strong bench; but after that, you can hang on to one or two eliminated players - ideally a cheap goalkeeper or defender - as a 'budget enabler' to help you spend a bit more on the rest of your squad. However, leaving gaps in the squad puts you more at risk of needing to use large numbers of extra transfers to rebuild the squad if some of your players are unexpectedly eliminated from the competition (see next point).

5)  Elimination roulette

In the knockout phase, you need to take care to spread risk by never taking too many players from one club. You can't afford to leave yourself short for the subsequent round by landing yourself with a lot of eliminated players. (The game tempts you toward self-destruction by usually allowing you to take far more players from one team than you should sensibly want. And the larger number of transfers than we're used to in extended league format competitions encourages the dangerous hope that we might get away with it, that one wrong guess about a result won't leave us having to take 'hits' for additional transfers. But, oh yes, it can; it very often does.)  As a general rule of thumb, I'd say - try to take no more than 2 players per team in the 'Round of 16', 3 players per team in the Quarter-Finals, and 4 players per team in the Semi-Finals. (Of course, this may vary, depending on whether there are any fixtures in the round that you feel you can trust as absolute gimmes [always a bit of a gamble!], whether you're making do with any empty spaces on your bench, and how many Free Transfers you're allowed for the next round. Also, of course, in the nations' World Cup, there's a Third Place Play-Off game, so you don't necessarily lose anyone from the semi-finals [although you'd rather have as many players in the Final as possible, because it will be a more competitive match, and isn't likely to omit any of the teams' top players].)  And you need to be mindful that, if you max out your number of Free Transfers replacing eliminated players, you may be further screwed by injuries or suspensions; and you have absolutely no wiggle-room for additional elective transfers to swap out players who've shown disappointing form. [I added a footnote to this point a little later.]

6)  Heightened risk-awareness

Remember that this additional hazard of potentially losing players to elimination after each knockout round means that you also have to be extremely careful with other players who present any risk of not playing - those who are an injury doubt, or are threatened with possible rotation, or could be likely to pick up a suspension. In the knockout rounds, you want to try to pick not only players who will do well in this round, but are also virtually certain to play in the next round as well (and, ideally, in the one after that too!).

7)  Chip strategy

The types of 'chips' available vary from tournament to tournament, so you need to be careful to assess what each one may be worth.

There's almost invariably a Wildcard - an 'unlimited transfers' rebuild option, just like we have in FPL. Since you're always allowed a full rebuild anyway after the group phase, the choice on this one is a simple binary: use it to optimise your team for MatchDay 2 (when there are usually a lot of unbalanced match-ups that could produce high points scores, and you should have a better idea of everyone's form and fitness after the first batch of games,.... and you may have found that a lot f your inital picks are not looking too good, not just for MD2 but in general), OR save it for the quarters or semis, as insurance against getting hit hard by eliminations (and injuries and suspensions) in one of those key rounds.

There's sometimes an additional rebuild chip. If it's a Free Hit style of rebuild, reverting to your previous squad after one MatchDay, it's better used in MD2 - as it's very dangerous to use a chip like that in the knockout rounds, unless you're very, very confident in how well you've done in the last round,... that all of your players are going to get through the next round as well (but if you think that, why would use a Free Hit to replace a bunch of them??). Such a chip often boasts the additional advantage of an unlimited budget, but I generally find that to be of little or no practical use as FIFA and UEFA games rarely put any serious pressure on your budget. If it's a simple Wildcard type of chip, it's better to save it for the later rounds, where you might have been badly hit by eliminations in the previous round.

Because of the 'manual substitutions' facility usually available in these games, there's no Bench Boost option. 'Bonus Chips' are typically a 'Maximum Captain', where your captaincy bonus points are automatically ascribed to your highest-returning player (I actually rather prefer this to FPL's Triple Captain), and/or an 'Extra Man', where you can get points from an additional player (outside of your squad, and your budget limit - the purest Fantasy indulgence: "If I could have the points of one player I couldn't afford to fit in my squad, who would it be.... and which Round would that be in??").

'Bonus chips' are almost always of most value in the 'Round of 16' and the 'Quarter-Finals', because there are more games being played, and at least one or two of them should usually have a fairly obvious winner and the prospect of some good points for leading players. There may be a case, depending on form and fixtures, for trying one in the group phase occasionally; but, for me, there is usually too much uncertainty early in the competition. It's probably more valuable to optimise your entire squad for favourable fixtures in MD2 (which will probably require a Wildcard, and thus preclude you from playing a bonus chip); while in MD3 there's too much risk of top players being rested, even if qualifcation is not yet fully assured. And in the later rounds of the competition, games become increasingly cagey, and often the outcomes are impossible to predict with any confidence; we tend to get fewer goals, but also few or no clean sheets - so, no-one earns that many Fantasy points any more (at least, not in any kind of predictable way!).

The inaugural Club World Cup fantasy game also has a novel bonus chip called the 'Qualification Booster' (which, again, I rather like - and hope to see reappear in World Cup Fantasy next summer...): in a knockout round, we get 2 extra points for every player who progresses to the next match - a reward for being able to guess team results correctly. That's almost certain to be best used in the 'Round of 16', because matches become closer and outcomes more unforeseen the further we go into a tournament: even if the matches in the first knockout round seem hard to call, it's bound to become harder still in the subsequent rounds.

Sorry, this ended up being rather longer than I'd intended. But I think it is just about everything you could possibly need to know about Fantasy games for knockout tournaments. I hope some folks will find it useful. (Now a bit late for the 2025 Club World Cup, of course, but there will be other tournaments of similar format soon enough....)

Definitions, explanations?

It is a source of constant frustration to me that Fantasy Football games - and the companies collating football statistics in general - never seem to offer any attempt at defining the terms they use to designate various aspects of performance. 

And, heck, even carefully framed definitions would not be enough. There is always scope for some ambiguity, for some borderline cases which defy convenient classification within one description rather than another. Ideally - as with exam marking schemes and tax regulations - you need not just the basic rule, but amplified interpretation guidelines, and detailed discussion of some illustrative example cases. I fear there's no chance of ever getting anything like that from FPL or Opta.  [And while we're dreaming of a better world, fuller 'implementation guidelines' for our referees from the FA and PGMOL would be helpful too!]

This omission is particularly galling in the current Fantasy Club World Cup game, where, instead of awarding general 'bonus points' based on a range of indicators of overall player performance, we are supposed to be getting extra points for certain individual game actions. But it is very unclear how or even if this is actually working, as the game site doesn't provide any tabulated player statistics [one of the most galling of its many, many shortcomings], and it's a bit of a rigmarole even to root out MatchDay figures for players in your current squad; and when you do find them, there's no justification given for them.

Far fewer points seem to be being awarded under these additional categories than we would have reasonably expected before the tournament. Often, it's been a struggle to find any such points being awarded in a MatchDay.

Are goalkeepers somehow making hardly any saves in this tournament? Are forwards not having any shots on target? Are midfielders not completing any tackles, or creating any chances??

That doesn't accord with the viewer's subjective experience - that it has been a high-quality tournament, with lots of excellent attacking play, and, in most games, quite a large number of scoring chances for both sides.

We must conclude that either the game is sometimes omitting to apply the appropriate points for these game actions, or the stats provider is somehow egregiously miscounting/misrecording them, or.... they're using extremely narrow definitions which exclude the majority of game actions that most people would expect to be eligible for counting under a commonsense view.

Chances created - does that mean only 'missed chances' and exclude actual goals?! If it encompasses 'missed chances', does that include instances where the attacker was put in a good position for an attempt on goal, but shanked his shot, or miscontrolled the ball initially, or hesitated for a moment before shooting and so allowed defenders to recover and get a block in, or was dispossessed just as he was pulling the trigger by a heroic last-ditch challenge? Or does it include only actual goals? (But if so, how is that different from the more familiar term 'assists'? Why not just use that instead??) I imagine there's a lot of definitional overlap here with what constitutes a 'shot on target' (see next point, below), so probably also includes at least efforts that required saves to be made by the keeper. Does it include players who 'make a chance' for themselves by - carrying the ball forward a long distance, or jinking past a couple of defenders to break into the box, or cutting inside and racing away from a marker to find room for a shot? Common sense would say 'YES' - but heaven knows what FIFA and their Fantasy game has decided. And I'd really love if it included key contributions earlier in the move - the tackle that wins possession, or the early pass that carves open the defence - rather than just the final 'assist' (which is often just an easy lay-off, or sometimes even a miskick or an accidental deflection).

Alas, I think the definition the game is using can include none of these latter possibilities, since only a handful of players in the whole competition so far seem to have been credited with even 2 'chances created' in a match.

Shots on target - that ought to be a bit less problematic, but it's not entirely straightforward either. It's always frustrated me that stats compilers treat attempts that strike the woodwork as 'off-target' - which seems very harsh. (We really need an additional category of 'near miss' to give proper recognition to such efforts.)  Presumably headers, etc. count as well as shots with the foot; so, that's clumsy wording right there - why don't they say 'attempts on target'? And do they draw any distinction between shots blocked close to the player and further away? A player who just fires off a shot when there's a crowd of players in front of him, hoping that his effort might somehow find a path through their legs, probably doesn't deserve to have that considered a 'shot on target'; and it's difficult to see where the shot is bound anyway, when it hits another player almost immediately - on target or not? But... sometimes such hit-and-hope efforts do end up going in! Where do you draw the line on this - between a shot that never had much chance of getting past an intervening player and one where you're crediting the defender with making a fine block?  And what about 'tame' shots that are hit too softly and/or too close to the keeper to be of any real danger - do they not count? Again, occasionally a keeper will make a complete pig's-ear of such an unthreatening attempt and fumble it into his own goal,...... so, perhaps they all should count??? And, wait.... are actual goals excluded from this 'shots on target' count?? (It looks to me as if they must be.)

Saves - that last point feeds into this as well: does a keeper get credit for catching a ball that's kicked pretty much straight at him? What about if it's hit with a lot of pace, and maybe swerving in the air a little, but still straight at him? And I rather fear that 'saves' are only seen to encompass blocking, diverting or catching attempts which are bound directly for goal; but smothering the ball at an attacker's feet or pawing it away from him (especially if the keeper is the last man) or diverting a square-ball across the six-yard box heading towards an onrushing attacker, or catching a cross that's bound for an unmarked opponent at the far post - these are also 'goal-preventing actions' and really ought to receive the same credit as conventional 'saves'.

In the Euros last summer, they were awarding defenders and midfielders points for 'ball recoveries'. That seemed to work a bit better, in that it was fairly consistent and predictable which players would benefit most from this, and - in the absence again of conventional 'bonus points' - it had a significant impact on points returns and was a major driver of selection decisions. But even there, there was an opacity about what the hell the term actually meant.

Ball recoveries - presumably refers to 'turnovers of possesion' (but why didn't they just say that?); but it sounds as if it should mean only recovering possession after a ball has run loose, after it has not been clearly under either team's control for a short period; and that would be a very narrow category indeed! They probably wanted to come up with a term that suggested all forms of recovery of possession - but why didn't they just say that? Or why didn't they content themselves with using 'tackles' or 'duels' instead? Those terms aren't completely free of ambiguity, but they're more common and more straightforward than 'ball recoveries'. 'Duels', I suppose, encompass both tackles with the feet and aerial challenges - and perhaps also shouldering an opponent off the ball or using your body to stop him reaching the ball (without it being a foul!)? 'Duels' would have been a more readily understood category description to adopt than 'ball recoveries', I think. But 'duels' can be both active and passive: taking the ball off an opponent (or prevailing in a '50/50' contest) or resisting having the ball taken off you. I suppose 'ball recoveries' refer only to the former - but it wouldn't be too difficult to make that clear.

Tackles - this would appear to be the simplest and most uncontroversial category for deciding additional points allocations of this sort, and I wish they'd use this instead. But even with this, there are some potential problems. Is a tackle 'won' the moment it dispossesses an opponent, or does the tackler have to retain possession of the ball himself?? Very often a ball will break to a teammate - perhaps somewhat fortuitously - rather than being retained by the tackling player. And sometimes the ball will just run loose into space, with neither team immediately having possession of it, but a teammate of the tackler will be able to respond quickest to recover it. Are these 'tackles won' or not?

Definitions MATTER. And they're too complex to be encapsulated in a simple phrase or sentence; they require extended explanations to clarify them.

What next?

Well, hats off to Fluminense! I have made the classic mistake of dismissing - or at least undervaluing - someone's chances without sufficient information. I now realise they are one of the very few teams (the only one in the last eight) that I hadn't seen in action for at least one full game in this tournament. Watching only the extended highlights and reading multiple match reports just aren't an adequate substitute for your own 'eye test'.

The other games played out much as I expected: Real winning fairly comfortably against a lacklustre Dortmund; PSG and Chelsea also progressing, but in much tighter contests.

It was a disappointment that Al Hilal, after their sterling performance against City in the quarter-final, just didn't turn up for this one. It might have been an emotional reaction, a heavy comedown from the high of that achievement; and some of their players might have had their heads taken out of the game by the sad news about the death of Diogo Jota (his Portuguese teammates Joao Cancelo and Ruben Neves were, of course, particularly emotional; but the whole team looked very shaken during the moment of commemoration before the start of the game; poor Neves, a very close friend of Jota's, was in floods of tears). Or maybe it was just the physical toll of having had to play extra time in such suffocating heat and humidity in the previous match against City. That drain of extra time in extreme weather to get past Benfica might have been a problem for Chelsea too, who dominated comfortably for the first 20 or 25 minutes and took an early lead, but then unaccountably took their foot right off the gas to let Palmeiras walk all over them for the next two quarters of the game.

Al Hilal can also feel rather ill-served by the officals in their match. I've long had reservations about Danny Makkelie's competence for top-flight refereeing: he strikes me as one of those somewhat arrogant, prima-donna-ish refs who are perhaps insufficiently self-reflective.... and hence prone to being wildly erratic in some of their decision-making. Perhaps his unfortunate reputation for major errors in high-profile matches is just a function of the fact that he gets put in charge of so many high-profile matches; but it seems to me that with such a long record of controversy now, FIFA really ought to be downgrading him a little bit, not putting him in the firing-line quite so often (maybe they thought they were giving him a low-pressure assignment by allocating him to the tie with the two least glamorous teams remaining in the competition?). To be fair, he was perhaps a bit unlucky that, in a hard-fought game, there was an exceptionally high number of close calls: challenges where he thought there wasn't any contact, but there was; and challenges where he thought there was contact, but there wasn't - or not enough for a foul. And it probably is just an unfortunate coincidence that very nearly every one of these bad calls was to Al Hilal's detriment. 

And the three most contentious decisions - the three penalty shouts turned down - in effect rested with VAR rather than him (or at least, they should have done; maybe the off-field team felt hamstrung by the 'clear and obvious error' nonsense; although in the first instance, they did direct Makkelie to take a second look - which prejudiced him towards reversing his onfield decision when he probably shouldn't have). Admittedly the victim 'went down easily' in all three cases; but in all three cases, there definitely was contact - in the middle instance, full-on wrestling. I do not see how that 'possible holding' cannot have at least been worth a second look. For the last one, replays from behind the goal showed that the defender clearly trod on the attacker's heel - which Makkelie probably couldn't see. That kind of thing is given as a penalty 99 times out of 100; and it was certainly worth the referee having a second view of it. The victim going to ground somewhat theatrically should not disqualify him from receiving the penalty. (And with that kind of foul, it takes a moment for the pain to become noticeable and start to spread; indeed it may create a chronic soreness at the base of the Achilles, which you won't fully feel until you try to push off on that leg - and then perhaps suffer an awful moment of panic that you have have suffered a tear to that tendon. Collapsing a second or so after an impact like that is quite a natural reaction, not necessarily forced, exaggerated, 'play-acting'...) And for the first one, where Makkelie reversed himself, he came up with the - to me - bizarre justification that the incident had been just 'a normal football contact' - which smacks of him inventing rationalisations that don't necessarily accord with the rules. I am not aware of that phrase occurring in the Laws of the Game, certainly not as a defining criterion for contact fouls. The defender caught the attacker's heel with his foot, and it unbalanced him, brought him down; it doesn't have to be deliberate - it just has to be causally decisive.

If a team has three such solid appeals for a penalty in a game, they usually get at least one of them! So, in that regard, Al Hilal may feel they were robbed. But honestly, while the dubious refereeing cast a shadow over the match, it probably wasn't really decisive. Fluminense were much the better team on the day, and well worthy of the win.

PSG and Real clearly have much the strongest squads in the tournament, but... neither have really showed their best yet. Ousmane Dembélé is only just back from his injury, and while he looked very sharp in his 20-minute cameo at the weekend, it seems unlikely he's yet ready to start a game. Ditto Kylian Mbappé, returning as a late impact sub after a debilitating spell of stomach illness. I would favour PSG to prevail in that semi-final - but it's really a bit of a coin-toss: one or two moments of genius from one of the several outstanding talents on either side could turn the match on its head.

And whoever comes through that 'de facto Final' could still face an unpleasant surprise in the actual Final. The two giants of Europe might have the star-studded rosters, but it's the teams in the other semi-final, Fluminense and Chelsea, who seem to have got some momentum going for them in the tournament. I've been really impressed by how Chelsea, despite suffering potentially devastating setbacks in their last two games (an unjust last-gasp penalty award against them in the Benfica game, and then a wondergoal [or 'outrageous fluke'.... or yet another Sanchez cock-up.... depending on your persuasion] from young Estevao Willian in the Palmeiras clash). bounced back confidently to power through to victory anyway. But Fluminense are looking like the best team in the tournament; not the best club or the best squad or the team with the best players, but the team that is playing together best as a team.... and hence 'punching above their weight'. Without any 'big names', they are just functioning superbly well as a unit, consistently showing themselves well-organised, hard-working - and giving up very few chances.

The odds are, I fear, that either of these two will choke when they face such a daunting and glamorous opponent in the Final; but they are potentially good enough to win it, if they can hold their nerve and concentration. But I haven't a clue who will win their semi-final against each other.

With all three of the remaining games in this Club World Cup probably being too close to call with any confidence, where does that leave us with selections for the Fantasy game?

Well, as I said the other day, I think we just have to hedge our bets a bit, by not taking too many players from any one club. (Even in a tournament where one of the ties does look very one-sided, it's still a huge risk to go all-in on a team by taking 5 or 6 of their players. An upset result could devastate your prospects in the subsequent round.)  I should try to put together a separate post on tactics for knockout tournaments in a day or two.

GOOD LUCK, EVERYONE!!!

Happy 4th July!

 

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for America. (The country and its people, that is. Its government has generally tended to be a force-for-ill in the world, even on the rare occasions when they have managed to elect a decent and competent person to the Presidency...)  I've spent quite a bit of time there: probably several months in total, by now. Four of my best friends from college days relocated over there, so I always have excuses to nip over for a visit when I can. And I've experienced four or five July 4ths over there.

And their big annual holiday has always seemed a surprisingly un-jingoistic event to me. I'm not usually a fan of National Days, as they get too bound up in obnoxious nationalism (and often with forced 'celebration' of the government [looking at you, China!]), But even the public parades for the 4th July in America always seem to have a strong community focus, rather than a national or global one. And the majority of the celebration seems to just involve getting together with family or friends for a big barbecue somewhere. And probably those indulgences will be spread across the entire weekend...  Plenty to like about that!

I can't visit my American and America-based friends this weekend, but I shall be thinking of them. And I am hoping I will be able to join in with their festivities in spirit by finding myself a pulled pork sandwich somewhere....

I imagine all the firecrackers and nationwide jollity will add to the atmosphere of the crucial quarter-final games being played in the Club World Cup over there this weekend. Looking foward to it!

Best wishes for the Holiday Weekend to any American readers I may have garnered on here!!!

A little bit of Zen (49)

 

“Life is very short and anxious - for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.”

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (the Younger)

What next?

 

Well, well, well - the big 'upset' I barely dared to wish for has indeed come to pass, with Pep's Manchester City being well-beaten by Al Hilal on Monday night (turns out that, even with new players onboard and tweaks of set-up.... City are still defenceless against counter-attacks!). And on the same day, Inter Milan, who came so close to winning Serie A and the Champions League this season, were booted out of the Club World Cup by lowly Fluminense.

After two such expectation-defying results in quick succession, we should be very wary of prognosticating on the quarter-final round of this fascinating competition. But I'll try....

It is unfortunate that, thanks to Bayern screwing up in their final group game against Benfica, the two teams which I - and everyone else! - had expected to be the leading contenders for the title wound up in the same half of the draw, and are playing each other in a quarter-final. It is hard not to regard this as probably the de facto final, since no-one else in the competition - not even Real Madrid - has looked anywhere near these two so far.

The additional excitement/uncertainty in this clash of the titans centres on the possible impact of Ousmane Dembele and Jamal Musiala. Both have been struggling with injury, but seem to be possibly poised for a full return. I fear it's unlikely that either of them will in fact play the full 90 minutes, and they're unlikely to be anywhere near their best, even if they do; but even a cameo from players of this calibre can turn a match...

Bayern have struggled for consistency so far, and there are question-marks over their somewhat makeshift defence. Harry Kane appears to have brought his scoring boots to the tournament; but we haven't seen that much of a threat from anyone else (except in that Auckland game, which obviously doesn't count). Before the tournament kicked off, I worried that their Champions League triumph might have taken some of the edge off PSG's appetite-for-glory - but it doesn't look like it; they seem eager and determined to me, intent on further success. So, I'd be betting on PSG for this one - although it might be very close, and I'm hoping above all for a really good game. (A few weeks ago, I would have said that this match-up was almost bound to be the 'Game of the Tournament'; but now it's going to be very hard to top Al Hilal's stirring demolition of City!)

Real Madrid have been misfiring a little so far (also nearly getting beaten by Inzaghi's Al Hilal in the group stage). With Mbappe out with illness, and Vini Jnr and Rodrygo blowing hot and cold with remarkable rapidity, they've lacked much incisiveness up front. But there are signs that new manager Xabi Alonso is starting to put his stamp on them, and I'd expect them to get better with each game. And they are a club that loves to win big trophies, so they might have a very good chance in the likely semi-final against PSG or Bayern, (Yep, sorry, Dortmund, you just haven't looked very good in this tournament so far, and it will be a cold day in hell before you can upset Los Blancos here....)

For sentimentalists it's perhaps a pity that the last round's two 'giant-killers', Fluminense and Al Hilal, have to go up against each other now; but at least that guarantees there'll be at least one non-European team in the semi-finals - which must be good for the tournament, and for its aim of promoting the development of the world game across other continents.  Alas, I feel Fluminense have relied mainly on defensive stubbornness, and they've probably now gone a bit further than they really deserved to. Meanwhile, Simone Inzaghi, one of the most inventive and inspirational coaches to emerge in the last few years, seems to have been able to work some of his magic on Al Hilal immediately - and they now look like they wouldn't be at all out of place in the semi-final, or the final,.... or even winning the Cup (if the European big boys from the other half of the draw should happen to have a slightly off day against them). Would that console Inzaghi for the pain of his parting from Inter, would it make up for that damp squib of a performance in the Champions League Final? Will he have an opportunity of revenge against PSG??  It would be quite a fairytale! I wouldn't bet on it. But I do dream fondly of the possibility.

Palmeiras v Chelsea might be the toughest of the lot to call. The Brazilian side have looked very good so far, but, as with Fluminense, I have a feeling that their charge may have run out of steam now - having already progressed a little bit further than they probably expected. And the loss of Joaquin Piquerez and Gustavo Gomez to suspension is bound to weaken them in defence. Chelsea will similarly be missing their midfield lynchpin Moises Caicedo after he picked up a second yellow card against Benfica (there's an amnesty on accumulated yellow cards after this round, so we can probably expect some uninhibited tackling in these games!!), but hopefully that won't have quite such a damaging impact, so long as Romeo Lavia's still fit (presumably Enzo Fernandez will drop back alongside him in the double-pivot, which will reduce their attacking options - but it shouldn't be the end of the world). Cole Palmer has started to show some of his magic again, having a fierce near-post shot heroically clawed away by Trubin in the Benfica match, and being credited with assists on two of the four Chelsea goals. It would be nice to see him really catch fire again in this tournament; and Palmeiras look like a good opportunity for that to happen. Moreover, the spirit Chelsea showed the other night in not being disheartened by the unjust penalty award against them in the dying minutes of regular time, but immediately refocusing again and powering on to a comfortable win - that was really very impressive. Sure, Benfica having a man sent off almost as soon as the extra time started was a big help, but that didn't really appear to be the decisive factor; Chelsea were playing with a determination and self-belief that would surely have carried them through against a full-strength opponent. I think that could be the kind of momentum shift that can help carry a team to a title. But we shall see. I'm not completely convinced of Maresca's acuity as a coach, and I can equally imagine them suddenly reverting to the under-performing mess they were from December to April last season.

And from the Fantasy point of view - many people have just received a painful reminder about the importance of spreading risk in your selections in a knockout tournament like this. I've come across a number of opponents in my mini-leagues who are now left without 7 or 8 players (just through eliminations - never mind possible injuries or suspensions, or elective changes you might hanker to make on grounds of form or whatever), and have only 4 Free Transfers to work with going into this round. Alas, you just have to restrict yourself to 2-players-per-club in the 'Round of 16' (never mind that the game allows you more...), even if you're really confident they're bound to go through to the next round (so many people felt like that about City!!). And you can't afford to take any players from clubs that you're not really confident will go through. (It's unlikely that even an outstanding points-prospect like Yildiz or Otamendi can produce a good haul in a game they don't win. And even if, by some miracle, they did - you have to weigh that against being left with a short squad when they're eliminated; and against not getting any of those juicy extra points from them under the 'Qualification Bonus' chip [which really should have been played on the 'Round of 16' - as the games are only going to get even more difficult to predict from here on...].)  Indeed, you really want to focus on the clubs you think will win not only the quarter-finals, but the semis too - to put yourself in the strongest possible position for the Final; but with unpleasant surprises always possible in a knockout competition, you can't afford to lean too heavily into any one team. (still no more than 3 or 4 players-per-club for the quarter-finals, I'd say).

However, given the facility in this Fantasy game to make multiple 'manual substitutions' - and take a second guess at your captaincy choice mid-stream! - during the MatchDay, your bench has enormous value. (In every round so far, I've had at least 3 or 4 of my original starters who returned only 2 or 3 points - or 1, or 0,... or -1! - but who I was able to replace with a bench player who produced at least 5 or 6 points. On that basis alone, it is certainly worth taking as many 'hits' as you need to in order to restore your squad to full strength (particularly as paid transfters here only cost 3 points rather than the 4 points we're accustomed to in FPL). And even if you're not swayed by the cold logic of mathematics on this (or you just can't be bothered with the additional hassle of attending to in-game substitutions), it's dangerous to leave your squad short because that's just saving up more woe for the next round. You should expect that at least one team in the last eight will go out 'unexpectedly' (plus, of course, either Paris or Bayern must), and if you already had holes in your squad, you could find yourself very short going into the semi-finals. You'll have 5 Free Transfers to address those problems with; but if all or most of those have to get used simply on plugging gaps, you won't be able to do much in the way of elective transfers to bring in the players hitting the hottest form.

In tournaments like this, it's vital to plan to try to minimize the number of players who get eliminated from your squad in each knockout round. And if the breaks go against you, and you lose a lot of players anyway - you just have to bite the bullet and spend points to replace them. 

The one exception is that you might feel able to do without a back-up keeper - particularly in this tournament, as the three best goalies are now adjacent to each other in the draw and will play against each other in a quarter- and semi-final (so, you might want to avoid all of them until the Final...). Keeping a cheaper second keeper from the 'Round of 16', even after they've been eliminated, can be a useful 'budget enabler' to help you strengthen your core squad a little. But for the rest of the bench, I wouldn't want to go light. If you're really confident in your initial starters, you might perhaps leave one empty seat rather than spend points on another transfer - but that's about it.  (Except in the Final, of course; there, with no more manual substitutions possible, the bench suddenly has very limited value, and it probably won't hurt too much to leave it completely empty.)

==

It ain't FAIR!

 

It is a recurring problem in big knockout tournaments like the current World Club Cup that the Fantasy games based on them have never given any thought to how to deal with extra time. (Presumably this is a problem with the knockout stages of the Champions League as well, but I've never played Fantasy in that competition.)

To me, it seems plainly unjust that a goalkeeper (or a defender) who keeps a clean sheet for 90 minutes, should then be penalised for conceding in the extra time period (particularly if the game's decided by a solitary goal!);... whereas one of his defensive teammates who didn't play the full 90 minutes, was perhaps even subbed off barely past the hour, gets a full 'clean sheet bonus'.

In last Saturday's knife-edge contest between Palmeiras and Botafogo, the Botafogo keeper, John, produced a superb display (I counted at least 6 saves from him, 3 of them outstanding; but he was somehow only credited with 4 saves, which was only worth a paltry single extra point - a further instance of injustice), but thanks to Paulinho's extra-time winner for Palmeiras, he wound up with a scant 3 points. His fullback, Alex Telles, was subbed off just after the hour yet received twice as many points. That is a jarring unfairness in the game.              [I perhaps shouldn't complain too much, as Telles, despite his unfortunate booking in that game, and the lack of the hoped-for additional 'Qualification Bonus' points, has been one of my most reliable returners so far, yielding 34 points across four games.]

It seems to me it would be better to award the clean-sheet points for the 90 minutes only. Additional points could be offered for maintaining a further clean sheet throughout the additional period of play (perhaps 2 points for defenders and keepers who play all of it?), but that doesn't really seem necessary. Extra time is designed to break a deadlock, and produces goals - sometimes quite a lot of them - more often than not.... if only because players are getting knackered and making more mistakes. When the extra period does remain goalless, it's usually because one or both sides have decided they fancy their chances more in a penalty shootout and have just stonewalled for most of the final 30 minutes - and I don't think we should be rewarding that kind of negativity.

Most Fantasy points are awarded for individual game actions; but the clean-sheet points are given for a cumulative achievement over a fixed span of time. I think that span ought to be limited to 90 minutes.

It also seems anomalous that penalty shootouts are not usually recognised in the points system at all. I think an additional 1 (or 2?) points for every successful conversion, and perhaps an additional point for scoring the decisive penalty (or making the decisive save) would be in order, along with perhaps 3 points for the keeper for each save (but only for saves, not misses...!).

How about this, FIFA? Please try to sort this out for the World Cup next year!

Too close for comfort...

 

Darn - well, much as I expected, this 'Round of 16' stage in the new Club World Cup has been very finely balanced so far.

I suppose the bookies made Palmeiras and Chelsea the favourites to go through from their ties - but only very narrowly. And the games were even closer than that. In the all-Brazil clash of Palmeiras against Botafogo, there was absolutely nothing to choose between them, with both defences on top more than the attacks, and an isolated goal from Paulinho clinching a win in extra time. That was particularly rough on the Botafogo keeper, John, who'd done heroic work between the sticks and deserved far more from the game.

Chelsea had been rather more on top in their encounter, but couldn't convert dominance into goals against an excellent Benfica defence, and also found themselves going into extra time after their opponents conjured up a last-gasp equaliser. The way they roused themselves from that setback to go on and win comfortably in extra time was most impressive, and should lend their campaign good momentum going forward into the quarter-finals.

Although Bayern had a slightly easier time of it, Flamengo showed a lot of threat, and briefly had the German giants a bit rattled when they twice clawed themselves back into the game by reducing the lead to a single goal.

Only PSG have so far enjoyed a smooth passage through to the quarter-finals - against Inter Miami, whose qualifying for the knockout stage was really a bit of a fluke, and so produced the only really heavily mismatched fixture of this round.

After all that excitement, I'm wondering if we might have an upset or two in store somewhere in the remaining four games. I said the other day that I think Juventus could certainly beat Real Madrid. But Inter Milan, Dortmund and Manchester City aren't by any means invulnerable, and I fancy Fluminense, Monterrey and Al Hilal - who are on a bit of a high from their performances so far - could at least give them a stern test. Let's see.

[Much as I'd love to see an underdog victory in one or more of these games - particularly against Pep's City! - it would completely screw my own Fantasy campaign! I played my Wildcard in the group stage, so I am entirely dependent on correctly guessing how the bracket will pan out if I am to avoid having to pay points for additional transfers to rebuild a decimated squad. And I didn't bet on any of these less-fancied sides.... except Botafogo, which didn't work out for me. Oh, woe!]

'Mystery Chips' - a BAD idea!

 

I mentioned yesterday that I really dislike the idea of 'Mystery Chips'. I may have been prejudiced somewhat by the truly godawful one they visited upon us in FPL this year, but.... I really think they're a bad idea in general.

Here's why:

1)  Fantasy games like this are essentially about planning. So, it is absolutely counter-productive, destructive of the purpose of the game, to introduce elements which prevent players from planning ahead. Introduce new chip ideas occasionally, if you must (I'd really much rather not, though, thank you!) - but at least tell us what they are, before the start of the competition.

2)  This idea of concealing the nature of the new chip for a while necessarily entails that it will have a shortened period of availability, only being launched part-way through the competition. And this causes intolerable congestion, possibly confounding the rest of one's chip strategy. This was ultimately my biggest gripe against FPL's novelty 'Assistant Manager' Chip last season. That only became active in Gameweek 24, so there wasn't that much time left in which to play it; and most Fantasy managers would have kept their 2nd Wildcard and their Free Hit and both the bonus chips for use in that latter part of the season as well. (In fact, the FPL case was even worse, because the new chip had a bloated three-week duration. And, moreover, an expected Double Gameweek for Liverpool was yet to have its date confirmed, and since this was likely to be a prime opportunity to use the Triple Captain chip on Mo Salah [which did indeed pay off handsomely!], nobody could play the new extended chip until they knew for sure which gameweek they had to keep free for that possible TC play.) In effect, many people found they had barely a third of the season in which to try to use up six or seven weeks of chip options. There's a similar problem here in Fantasy Club World Cup: most players will have kept all their chips (except perhaps the Wildcard, which can be worth punting on early, in the group stage), and now have to juggle using a chip in every round.

3) All chips - well, 'bonus' chips, anyway - are unnecessary gimmicks, superfluous to the basic gameplay. They merely introduce the thrill of additional uncertainty - appealing to the gambling addicts out there, but frustrating the majority of serious Fantasy managers who are only seeking a test of their judgement of teams and players. Shifting the stakes of selection decisions with chips like these creates an uneven playing field in individual Gameweeks/MatchDays: you can't really compare your score against other people's when some are playing highly valuable bonus chips and some are not. And having such rare and one-off additions to the game increases the chances that a few players will get absurdly lucky with the chips, and obtain a massive but scarcely deserved advantage from them. Double-points for the captain selection is fine, because that happens every week, and freak instances of luck, good or bad, should generally balance out over the season as a whole. Allowing people to get even more from their captain just once in the year..... is simply betting on a die-roll.

Having said all that, I don't in fact hate the new chip they've introduced in this Fantasy Club World Cup game: the 'Qualifcation Bonus' for players who make it through to the next round. If you're being smart, you should be choosing your squad based on who you think is most likely to qualify for the next round (and the one after that!), and this is - to an extent, anyway - reasonably predictable.

What I don't like about this chip is that, together with the others in the game, it makes the latter stages of the tournament overcrowded with chip options. They should have introduced the 'Qualification Bonus' to replace one of the other two bonus chips.

And 'keeping it a secret' until half-way through - WTF is the point of that?? It's just childish.