We round-off our Euro 2012 coverage with a review of the Scout Leagues in the Fantasy League Pro Game – our little experimental dabble with auction leagues. We had three Scout divisions running, each with a contributor amongst the community participants. You won’t be too surprised to hear that, in all three cases, those contributors got the run-around from some pretty strong team performances.
Scout Division One
As expected, Boomslang maintained his strong lead in this league to claim the crown and finish just outside the top 1000 places overall. He eventually held off the challenge form bozovac’s “Bozinja” side to win out by a convincing 15 point margin.
Boomslang went into the final with just a couple of Spaniards up his sleeve, but held on thanks to a Iker Cassilas clean sheet as his three Italians drew blanks. Bozovac benefited form more handsome returns form Jordi Alba but it wasn’t enough to challenge for top spot. Instead, he held off Gigging Order who enjoyed a fine late charge to cement third spot, registering the most goals in this division with nine. A ten-point return from Fernando Torres almost saw him through to the runners-up position, but the late rally proved fruitless.
Lower down this division, Mark finished a miserable sixth behind the Red Devil and Gummo88. The less said about that, the better.
Scout Division Two
Ginkapo was the winner of our second Scout league after accumulating 90 points over the six rounds of matches. He picked up a storming 32 points over the semis and finals, with Jordi Alba ultimately proving the difference at the top of the table; the Spain left-back produced 18 points over the final couple of rounds.
TommyJ ended 10 points behind in second place. Despite finishing joint-top for goals and producing the most assists in the group, he was undone by the double points scoring system in the knockout stages, as Ginkapa overcame a 12-point deficit to triumph at the top. Paul (ie, me) finished in third, with a total of 65 points. Sergio Ramos and Mario Balotelli both picked up 12 points each over the last two rounds, but Andrea Barzagli and Federico Balzaretti lessened my score by -10.
McH ended in fourth in the league on 60 points. Fernando Torres was the only player to boost his score in the last two rounds – a goal and assist from the Spain forward earned 10 points. SuperDunny ended in fifth, with Iker Casillas and Xavi producing 20 points over Spain’s final two fixtures and helping him to an overall total of 52. Saram just sneaked past Gurka into sixth spot by a single point, while Shinoda ended up bottom of the pile after accumulating 16 points over the entire tournament.
Scout Division Three
This was a league dominated by a supreme showing from Giggs Boson who notched up an incredible 123 points over the campaign,. That saw him finish 49 points clear of second place ralphypne and a hugely credible 47th place overall. Giggs Boson owes a huge debt to his defence which accumulated no less than 15 clean sheets over the tournament, while his creative players conjured 11 assists. The performance of Torres in the final capped a strong run of scoring and saw his team over the line with a flourish.
Ralphypne can feel unfortunate to come up against such a team, having gathered 74 points, holding off a stern late challenge from Scout contributor Andy who clawed back a deficit to finish in third. Kostja claimed fourth spot, with just four points separating second from fourth in what, aside from the leader’s dominance, was a tight division.
Thanks to all those who participated in the Scout Leagues and those who tried out the Fantasy League Pro game for the tournament. We may well revisit the game as a potential candidate for Scout Leagues come the Premier League kick-off – we’d certainly welcome your thoughts on that.
