It's probably odd for me to say this considering how much I look at the analytical side of sports, but I've never been a big fan of fantasy sports.  Part of the reason is that I'm incredibly lazy and find it hard to make the effort required to become knowledgeable about the players and make selections and moves in a systematic way, but I don't like to watch sports and think about how some player I'm watching is helping or hurting my fantasy team. 

Nonetheless, I am interested in issues of player valuation and the best strategies of identifying talent and then selecting a team in order to do well over a season.  I need a motivating example to try out some of the ideas that I have.  To this end, I've decided to enter a team in Major Fantasy League Soccer. 

I have been aware of MFLS since the very beginning of the league, but it's only been this year that I've worked up the effort to submit a team.  Of course I couldn't rouse myself that quickly; I submitted a team five weeks into the season!  I made some gut decisions based on who I felt were undervalued along with some high-profile picks, but there's nothing systematic about it right now.  I can't even claim that I know what I'm doing, so no one has anything to fear from me.  Fantasy league soccer is hugely simplified from the real thing, but it might be possible to apply some analytic techniques that could be relevant to both types of games.

At any rate, it should be interesting to see what happens. Oh, and look for Gaussians XI.