Fantasy: Play fantasy soccer with IntelligentSoccer.com

Posted by Creaven on August 2, 2009 under England, Fantasy, Premier League | 4 Comments to Read

I know there are some purists out there who detest fantasy sports. That’s great, but I don’t want to hear it. To me, the invention and explosion of fantasy sports is the third best thing to happen in sports in the last 30 years (dozens of sports channels on television is No. 1 and the Internet is No. 2).

Fantasy gives fans an excuse to dissect the minutia of sports, it opens up hundreds of debates (Is Player A better than Player B? Is Player B better than Player C?) and it gives the fan a reason to watch games between terrible teams. I LOVE fantasy sports!

With the English Premier League starting in a couple weeks, I’m breaking new ground and playing fantasy soccer for the first time. I’m pumped and I hope readers of IntelligentSoccer.com will join me. I think it’s going to be a good way to start a little competitive competition and debate. Plus, it’s free and the winner will get a prize from yours truly.

I spent quite a lot of time on the Internet looking for the ideal league and I settled on “Premier Fantasy” run by ESPN’s Soccernet.com.

It’s pretty simple. You pick 15 players with a budget of $100 million. You then pick your starting 11 and once the season starts you get points depending on how your players perform in real life. For example, if you have Carlos Tevez and Tevez scores two goals in the opener, you get eight points because a goal by a forward is worth four points. A goal by a midfielder or defender is worth more because they don’t score as often. There are also points for assists, shutouts and penalty saves and you lose points for yellow cards, red cards and conceading goals. You also chose a captain and his points are worth double for that week.

For a detailed look at the rules, go here: Premier Fantasy Rules.

Signing up is easy. If don’t already have a free ESPN account, go here to make one (I should note, ESPN is not giving me anything to do this). Then go to the Premier Fantasy homepage and click “Join Now.” After you choose your favorite club and team name, you can click on the “My Leagues” tab and then scroll down to the league name: “Intelligent Fantasy.” The password to join is: “intelligent”.

Then select your team and you’re off. If you don’t want to spend hours picking your team you don’t have to (I did it in 15 minutes) and you can change your team at anytime from now to the start of the season. Plus, you get 30 transfers during the year.

More than anything this is supposed to be fun and I think it will be. Tell your friends about it and lets build a decent size community — my goal is at least 20 teams. The will also be a prize for the winner, don’t expect a plasma or anything but I’ll give out something.