All the attention from yesterday’s games is of course focused on England’s failure to convince and the latest catastrophe by an England keeper. While Rob Green will be avoiding all the analysis today, our job this morning was to pick apart another three World Cup matches that included South Korea’s impressive 2-0 win over Greece and Argentina’s entertaining 1-0 win over Nigeria…
Starting with England’s performance then and although Ashley Cole may well have been somewhat shackled by the threat of Landon Donovan down the left, significantly his attacking contribution was still enough to see him earn two attacking bonus – the most in the England lineup. The stats fail to show where these Bonus Points materialised – indeed if anything four tackles should have brought Cole Defensive Bonus. We can only assume that Cole’s bonus came from dribbles into the box – a stat which doesn’t appear to be measured specifically by any of the notable statistics available. indeed, when we start to look at Argentina’s returns, we get a hint at just how important this “Dribble into the box” stat could be to our Fantasy scoring. More on that later.
Back to England and overall there was no defensive bonus on show for England (despite four successful tackles by Cole and Glenn Johnson and 4 recorded clearances by John Terry). Perhaps not surprisingly defensive returns all fell the the USA with Oguchi Onyewu perhaps the most impressive on the night – he collected a couple of Bonus Points to help his cause. The stats show that he made 5 clearances and earned 1 successful tackles – again that’s not entirely reflected in his McDonalds/FIFA returns.
South Korea’s biggest points scorers from their 2-0 win came courtesy of their bargain defenders. Lee Young-Pyo was the star performer at the turning in both Attacking and Defensive Bonus Points. Cho Yong-Hyung also brought in two Defensive Bonus Points. Interestingly the stats show he made 8 clearances in the match. We also had goalscorer Park Chu-Young in the back four of course. In attacking terms the performance of Park Ji-Sung was particularly eye-catching and his goal has seen him become the most “Transferred In” midfielder for the round.
There were paltry returns for Greek players, although Giourkas Seitaridis did chip in with 3 Attacking Bonus points. Bizarrely statistics show that the defender did in fact win 6 tackles in the match and yet FIFA have not awarded him defensive returns.
Argentina’s win over Nigeria allowed us to see the full effect that Bonus Points can have in the McDonalds/FIFA game with both Carlos Tevez and Lionel Messi notching huge 6 point hauls for Attacking Bonus. With 10 passes leading to efforts on goal between them, this was undoubtedly a contributing factor but both players also displayed the ability to carry the ball into the box from deep – that handy knack appears to be key for players looking to earn Attacking Bonus in the McDonalds/FIFA game. Messi will surely go on to earn more bonus from his ball carrying skills – if he starts grabbing the odd goal his points returns could well be hefty.
At the other end Javier Mascherano also showed signs that he can justify his 8.0 price tag in midfield by turning in a showing that produced 4 Defensive Bonus points as well as a single Attacking Bonus point. Indeed, Argentina’s performance certainly sparked further interest in their players. Messi currently tops the Forwards “Transfers In” rankings for the round after his impressive showing against the Africans. Similarly plenty of Fantasy Managers think that there are more points to come from Gabriel Heinze – he leads the “Transfers In” for defenders.