SHANE STAY - Blog

Mls 2019 Book excerpt: fantasy league west

5/16/2019

The following is a book excerpt from Major League Soccer 2019.

MLS Fantasy League 2019 Guide

Top Players
(Get these players fast, to help guide your fantasy team!)

Power Players
The ranking is out of 10 (10 being the highest). Players are ranked on their individual skillset, past performances, international experience (if applicable), accomplishments, age, and their team’s success. For instance, Orlando City players did not get high rankings, largely based on their team’s bad season in 2018, which would indicate similar things to come in 2019.
Players not mentioned does not mean they are undesirable; there might be more information about a player you are interested in which would be located in the team’s section within this book.

Western Conference:
Giles Barnes 7
Jack Price 7
Johan Blomberg 7
Michael Barrios 8.8
Paxton Pomykal 7
Reggie Cannon 8
DaMarcus Beasley 7.1
Arturo Alvarez 8
Tomas Martinez 8
Zlatan Ibrahimovic 9.9
Giovani dos Santos 9
Sebastian Lletget 7.5
Ashley Cole 9
Emmanuel Boateng 9
Perry Kitchen 8
Chris Pontius 8
Carlos Vela 9.8
Diego Rossi 8.5
Benny Feilhaber 8.3
Lee Nguyen 9.5
Miguel Ibarra 7.8
Ibson 8
Diego Valeri 9.6
Sebastian Blanco 9
Kyle Beckerman 7.8-8.1
Joao Plata 7
Chris Wondolowski 9.5
Danny Hoesen 8
Nicolas Lodeiro 9.4
Jordan Morris 8
Graham Zusi 9
Matt Besler 9
Break Shea 9.1
Kendall Waston 7
Felipe 8
Yordy Reyna 7-8

Goalies:
Tim Howard 9
Tyler Miller 9
Nick Rimando 9

mls 2019 book excerpt: fantasy league east

5/14/2019

The following is a book excerpt from Major League Soccer 2019.

MLS Fantasy League 2019 Guide

Top Players
(Get these players fast, to help guide your fantasy team!)

Power Players
The ranking is out of 10 (10 being the highest). Players are ranked on their individual skillset, past performances, international experience (if applicable), accomplishments, age, and their team’s success. For instance, Orlando City players did not get high rankings, largely based on their team’s bad season in 2018, which would indicate similar things to come in 2019.
Players not mentioned does not mean they are undesirable; there might be more information about a player you are interested in which would be located in the team’s section within this book.

Eastern Conference:
Josef Martinez 10
Darlington Nagbe 10
Ezequiel Barco 9.5
Hector Villalba 9.3
Julian Gressel 9.5
Jeff Larentowicz 9
Michael Parkhurst 9.6
Bastian Schweinsteiger 9
Dax McCarty 8.5
Gyasi Zardes 8
Wil Trapp 8.4
Ricardo Clark 7.8
Paul Arriola 8.8
Wayne Rooney 9.9
Luciano Acosta 8.9
Ignacio Piatti 9.7
Samuel Piette 7.8
Scott Caldwell 7
Teal Bunbury 7
Maximiliano Moralez 8
David Villa 9.9
Thomas McNamara 7
Bradley Wright-Phillips 9.8
Tyler Adams 8
Kaku 8
Kemar Lawrence 8.9
Tim Parker 7
Dom Dwyer 6.9
Will Johnson 7
Sacha Kljestan 6.8
Fafa Picault 7
Alejandro Bedoya 7
Sebastian Giovinco 9.8
Michael Bradley 9
Marky Delgado 7.5
Forrest Lasso 7
Corben Bone 7
Fanendo Adi 7

Goalies:
Brad Guzan 9.9
Zack Steffen 9.8
Andre Blake 9

5 guys that can stop the warriors

5/9/2019

Who can take down the Warriors? Coaches always try to find the right chemistry. Yet, they miss time and time again. How do they not see this combination of talent?

Your team to eradicate the Warriors dynasty run:
Nikola Jokic
LaMarcus Aldridge
Luka Doncic
CJ McCollum
Jamal Murray

Backups for the 6th, 7th, and 8th subs off the bench:
George Hill
JJ Redick
Ricky Rubio
Eric Gordon
Steven Adams

It’s a matter of how the flow goes through them. Leroy Green found out the hard way. His pizza shop got busted up. But he figured out the flow. Mr. Miyagi thinks these guys are on the right track.

Not on the team, ever:
John Wall
Russell Westbrook
James Harden
Paul George
Kyrie Irving

The last group are all too “ball-centric.” Good players, especially Harden, but too ball-centric, and, from this time onward, you’re not winning a championship with them at the helm. Plain and simple.
Also, if your star player thinks the earth is flat, you’ve got problems. Serious problems. Not only did Irving think the earth was flat—as an adult—but, if I remember correctly, he tried to ‘drop science’ and convince others of it. He was like, “Nah, nah, check it out, check it out, here’s the thing…” Oh really? Please, continue. Tell us how the earth is flat, Kyrie. And he did. Apparently, he’s recanted his stance. Yeah, you’re the guy I want leading my team.

Warriors better without durant?

5/9/2019

Before Kevin Durant, the Warriors had a different flow to its style. There was fluidity. Gregg Popovich said (paraphrasing), “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He was baffled when it came to coaching against it. Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, D. Green, A. Iguodala, S. Livingston; it was—and is—a perfect combination of chemistry. Then Durant showed up. Obviously, with Durant on the team, it’s a “better” team; there are just too many talented players. But without Durant, the Warriors are better. It’s a strange paradox, but true. The ball gets moved around better, there’s better fluidity—the style of play just looks better. And it doesn’t seem to matter who scores. There's a lot of talk about Durant possibly moving on to New York or elsewhere. If everyone else can stay around, this might be a good thing for the Warriors.

2019 fifa women's world cup

5/6/2019

The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup will be here, in France. France is known for food, wine, Paris, the Eiffel Tower, World Cup 1998, Michel Platini, Zinedine Zidane, hosting this year's Women's World Cup, Daft Punk, artists, chain-smokers, polite service, taxi cab drivers that don't mind Uber,* beautiful scenery, Emmanuel Macron, Joan of Arc, liberty, Louis XIV, Mbappe, PSG and so much more. It will also be known for the USWNT winning the 2019 World Cup, hopefully, likely, most likely, probably. If the USWNT brings home the trophy it will be the fourth in total.

The World Cup lasts from June 7-July 7, 2019. It will be phenomenal!

* Well, this might be a stretch.

major league soccer 2019: Book Excerpt

4/21/2019

The following is a book excerpt from The Major League Soccer Book 2019: Everything You Need to Know About the Teams.

INTRODUCTION
MLS: The world’s next super league. It’s as simple as that. There are already established leagues that seem irreplaceable: English Premier League, Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga. Can MLS do it? Can MLS reach the mountaintop, and become as powerful as these leagues? Many people say yes.
Essentially, an elite league is defined by quality of play and profitability.
As the leader in world athletics, the United States is simply the place to be for other leagues, including the NBA, NHL, and MLB. Players from all around the world want to play in these leagues; it’s their ultimate destination. In part, this is what MLS is striving for, to be an ultimate destination for any soccer player.
MLS wants to be one of the world’s top soccer leagues, and one of America’s top athletic leagues, both in terms of quality of play and profitability. It wants to be on par with the EPL, Bundesliga, Serie A, La Liga, and the elite leagues of Europe, along with the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB, the powerhouse leagues within the American sports landscape. In some respects, this is occurring as we speak; MLS is pulling in higher attendance for live games than some NBA and NHL franchises, though TV ratings for MLS games are not quite as high as its American counterparts.
And this is the tricky thing about MLS. It’s not just competing with soccer leagues around the world, it’s also competing with sports in America. The other international soccer leagues have a few distinct advantages over MLS. For starters, most, if not all, soccer leagues have been around a lot longer than MLS. Also, soccer is the favorite sport of many countries. Soccer is on the rise in America—some think it’s soon to replace baseball in popularity—but it’s not the most popular sport. Therefore, MLS is competing with other established sports in America, such as the Big 3 (i.e., baseball, basketball, and football). Of course, European nations have other competing sports, but soccer is far and away their favorite pastime. Essentially, MLS is pleading with Americans to choose soccer over other established sports in a way that’s different from European nations, and, for that matter, pretty much every other nation on earth.
Organizers of American soccer (including but not limited to US Soccer, along with the leaders of MLS) see this quest of getting MLS to be an elite world-class league as something within the realm of possibility. With a late start, the US is on its way to dominating the world’s game, soccer. (To people that might laugh at this idea, proceed with caution; the US has dominated the Olympics for years, and soccer is quite literally America’s last athletic frontier. The US will dominate soccer as well, someday. When is the question.) Attaining world soccer supremacy includes winning the World Cup (a process patriotically occurring by continental drift) and making MLS an elite league. Both these quests are very attainable, and the latter is currently underway. Without a doubt, it’s a top-shelf priority, and, if MLS organizers have anything to say about it, it will happen. Currently, they’re in a good place; Major League Soccer has turned into a great success.
In 2017, Ken Belson wrote a story for The New York Times that described some of the process for choosing expansion franchises for MLS (this was prior to Nashville, Tennessee being accepted into the league). Don Garber—the Commissioner of Major League Soccer—was touring Nashville, weighing his options, meeting with officials, and receiving first-class hospitality. (At this point, there were other cities eager to join MLS, including Detroit, Indianapolis, and St. Louis.) Ken Belson wrote, “So for Garber, who stood at the lectern in Nashville, the latest warm reception seemed as much a validation as an opportunity. He had taken over a struggling 12-team league in 1999 and contracted it to 10 clubs two years later to stave off its collapse. Now, the league is executing a plan to grow to 28 clubs by 2020, and interest in professional soccer in the United States—in MLS and far beyond it—has surged.”[i]
For all intents and purposes, there’s no looking back. MLS is crackling with energy, leaving many to extrapolate its future rise to power, on par with the EPL and Serie A. It wasn’t always that way. Originally, there were fears that MLS would not make it, that it wouldn’t expand, that it would be an ephemeral soccer dream for American soccer dreamers, much like the NASL. And, guess what? MLS might not make it. There is always a chance that it might fold, though it seems highly likely that it will succeed. As of 2018, there were 23 teams in MLS. As the league transitions from 2018 to 2019, even though TV viewership of games is not as high as it could be, MLS games are filling stadiums left and right, and more teams are jumping on board, including franchises in Miami, Cincinnati, and Nashville, ready to take off.

[i] Ken Belson, “As Appetite for Soccer in U.S. Grows, So Does M.L.S.,” The New York Times, published August 8, 2017, accessed August 5, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/08/sports/soccer/mls-expansion-nashville-cincinnati.html

things to do list

4/1/2019

Watch more curling, or, as it’s known in some circles: bocce ball on ice.

things to do list

3/23/2019

The last Blockbuster on earth is in Bend, Oregon. Amazing. Now I know where I can rent Tron, Time Bandits, The Last Dragon, Goonies, Harlem Nights, Top Gun, Colors, Caddyshack, Easy Money, Fletch, The Toy, Midnight Run, Running Scared, License to Drive, 'The Burbs, The Money Pit, Breakin’, The Best of Times, The Cannonball Run, reassure myself I'm not stuck in the 80s and then haggle over my dollar and thirty-five cent late fee like an exhausted Silk Road trader.

usmnt update: berhalter

3/22/2019

The Four Year Review: America's Quest for the Cup

United States vs. Ecuador
Friendly
1-0
Zardes
Orlando, Florida

Where Berhalter was right: Appointing Tim Ream as captain.

Where Berhalter was wrong: Playing Tim Ream at outside defender. Ream is best suited at center fullback. Plain and simple. His skillset is exactly what the USMNT needs back there. Everything starts with the back four. The back four have to be skillful. Tim Ream brings that. Place him at center defense, not outside defense.

Do people want a World Cup championship or more of the same? Despite a good start from Berhalter in the win column, it's looking like more of the same, just a lot of different names. If the World Cup were next month, this team would not escape the group stage.

Berhalter's starting lineup on 3-21-19.
United States vs. Ecuador

Johnson
Adams Long Brooks Ream
McKennie Trapp
Morris Pulisic Arriola
Zardes

A better option.
The 'ideal' lineup right now:

Keeper
Yedlin* Ream Bradley Shea
Pulisic Torres Nagbe
Nguyen** Wood Weah***

Alternatives
* Adams
** Sargent
*** Arriola

This is a better, possession-oriented, lineup. This is the only way to defeat the world's best.

fifa 2019 women's world cup: top 5 teams

3/17/2019

The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup is right around the corner. Here are my Top 5 teams going into the tournament:

1. United States
2. Germany
3. Japan
4. England
5. France

Canada is a close #6.

<<Previous

Mls 2019 Book excerpt: fantasy league west

mls 2019 book excerpt: fantasy league east

5 guys that can stop the warriors

Warriors better without durant?

2019 fifa women's world cup

major league soccer 2019: Book Excerpt

things to do list

things to do list

usmnt update: berhalter

fifa 2019 women's world cup: top 5 teams

Archives

Author

Categories