The London Times is continuing its fantasy game for 09/10, and unlike most other soccer/football games, it's not a Salary Cap format.

Play The Game http://playthegame.timesonline.co.uk/soccer/times_login.asp is more like your traditional fantasy sports games in that each team drafts its players, and no one player is on more than one team in the league.

When you sign up, you have the option of being placed in an open league, creating your own, joining a private league, or silling an opening in an existing custom league that needs managers. Rosters are filled through an auto draft, and they have a pre-ranking system that allows you to try and manipulate your draft.

Once you find a league, you will be given a draft ('allocation') date. The scoring is pretty straightforward, with only ten categories, and there are league forums where you can interact with your leaguemates.

The league I joined has Saturday as its allocation date.....I'll post my roster so those who might be interested can get an idea of what the rosters would look like.

http://playthegame.timesonline.co.uk/soccer/times_login.asp

Our league allocated early this morning, and here's what I wound up with in a 10-team league:

GK: Pepe Reina
LB: Jamie Carragher
CB: Titus Bramble
CB: Ryan Shawcross
RB: Glen Johnson
GK/D Flex: Tim Howard
LM: Rory Delap
CM: Frank Lampard
CM: Tim Cahill
RM: Simon Davies
M Flex: Elano
F: Peter Crouch
F: Jo
F Flex: Kevin Doyle

Bench: Michael Owen, Emile Heskey, Bobby Zamora, Lucas Leiva, Maynor Figueroa, Kamil Zayatte

I haven't had a chance to check out the other teams, but I'm cool with what I've got on first impression. The defense looks pretty solid, and it's hard not to like a midfield starring Lampard and Cahill. The forwards could be a problem, especially if Owen doesn't pan out.

Jozy Altidore just joined Hull, I think I'm gonna make a run at him.

Just joined, made sure to put Altidore on my list, and one guy I put relatively high as well was Andrei Arshavin. He looked explosive at times last year.

I was just able to pick up Jozy in place of Zamora. I had Arshavin in the RW Cup last year after the transfer, he was a huge second-half add, and should have a bigger scoring load since Adebayor is gone, and Van Persie gets hurt just thinking about it.

Word to the wise.......load up on Midfielders, especially Wingers.

My league allocated today:

F Robinho
F Emile Heskey
F Kenwyne Jones
F James Beattie
F Johan Elmander

CM Cesc Fabregas
LM Clint Dempsey
CM Darren Fletcher
LM Albert Riera
RM Lee Cattermole
CM Phil Neville

CB Jamie Carragher
RB Glen Johnson
CB Christopher Samba
CB Aaron Hughes
CB Gary Cahill
LB Fabio Aurelio
RB Pablo Zabaleta

GK Tim Howard
GK Chris Kirkland


I don't think I have the brightest league... 1st pick was Mark Schwarzer, 2nd pick was Andrea Dossena(huh?). I missed my favorite Gerrard by one pick (he went #8, and I had the #9 pick) and ended up with Carragher as my first pick.

How does it look?

LOL....that's pretty bad. My league has seven former champions, so the draft went how you might expect. That being said, Van der Sar and his broken hand went #1 overall, which allowed me to get Lampard at #2.

The remainder of the top 10 were: Gerrard, Berbatov, Arshavin, Given, Anelka, Kuyt, Torres, and Rooney.

I actually got Carragher at #22....go figure.



Pretty solid, if you ask me. I like your overall depth a lot more than mine, especially in the Midfield.

I'm guessing that you'll be going 4-4-2?