"Lemon, it's only a Tuesday night NWSL game."
NWSL, and United States sports more generally, can be hard. Like three away games, and thousands of miles of travel, in ten days hard. Let's agree not to talk about what happened to the Wave on one of these last season.
Gotham had the honor this week, giving us the only scheduled double game-week of the fantasy season. I went big on Gotham, deciding that:
a) Gotham were rounding into form
b) Portland wasn't that good of a team, and
c) Minus fives are really only minus threes for double gamers.
It worked a treat and I earned 72 (-10) points on Friday alone thanks to Esther's goals, assists from Portilho and Schupansky, and a Reale clean sheet.
After the weekend, I'm third overall and pushing for first place. Then Tuesday night happened.
Moultrie was benched. Perry, who I sold for Reale, started again and scored a PK, and other than Esther's goal Gotham did f' all. I still think I had enough investment in the week to take me top, but...
ShePlays uploaded Tuesday's points at the expense of Friday's, instead of in addition. They're aware of the issue and working to resolve it. Likely happens over the weekend, not before the deadline.
So, we put aside our table-topping dreams and look at the week in front of us. I'm "stuck" with a full complement of Bats, but I'm ok with that as they play Chicago next week. I'll want all four again then. This week, I'm going to bench Gabi Portilho. I could see her getting a rest, though that's just a guess. I'll play Schupansky over her because of the rookie's set-piece duty. I think she just has the higher floor and I'm a floor guy, not a ceiling guy.
As I wrote last week:
I'll just shout out the Spirit as my team to target after this week. Following this match against Gotham, their next match against one of the top four -- for my purposes this is Orlando, Kansas City, Washington, and Gotham -- is Gotham again in August and then Kansas City in September. And even during that great stretch they get Angel City (more about them in a moment) and North Carolina as home games.
So for my transfer, I'm going to do what I promised on social media that I wouldn't do. I'm going to sell Ryan Williams. It breaks my heart as she's one of my favorite players in real life and fantasy. However, North Carolina is struggling and now has to face the KC Current machine. I'm going to take the Williams money and bring Rebeca Bernal in. Maybe not an ideal week to do this, but if she can put up double-digit points against Orlando, she can do it against Gotham. And the price difference will be useful in the following weeks. Like if I want to bring Alyssa Thompson back into the team when Angel City's schedule swings back to easy, or if I want to continue to add Spirit plays like Leicy Santos or Ashley Hatch (presuming - and hoping for - a quick recovery from her concussion).
I've got some sit-start dilemmas this week.
- Is Patterson back from injury?
- Will Moultrie start after Portland did so well without her?
- As mentioned, which Gotham players to play?
We'll get the Houston lineup before the deadline and if Patterson plays I think I'll play her to and bench Moultrie. Otherwise, I'll flip those spots and hope for the best.
Right now my team looks like this:
And yes, I'm the type to organize my team by jersey color.
Good luck, all. Wish me luck on hitting the number one spot, if only for few hours.
If you have any thoughts or ideas, or see something that I've missed, I'd love to hear from you in the comments or on Bluesky .
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