The Second AM World Cup Draft (Sign-Up and Discussion Thread)

Have four years passed already? Apparently so which on one hand means the World Cup is only a few months away but even more importantly @A_G and I can run another draft to celebrate.

Now certain members (no names) had some difficulty following the rules in the last draft so no excuses this time round.

The rules are:

1) You can select any player who has started a World Cup game from USA 1994 to Qatar 2022. When selecting your player you have to state which World Cup you’re selecting them.

We’re NOT judging players on overall World Cup careers, just the World Cup that you’ve selected them from.

For example, if you wanted to select Emile Heskey you’d have to specify which one of his two World Cups you’re picking him from. Draft posts would then ideally look like this:

“I select Emile Heskey – South Korea & Japan 2002

Insert reasons for selection here.

@next user it’s your turn”


2) You can only select ONE player per nation.

3) You must have at least one player from each of the five FIFA regions in your starting XI:

• CONMEBOL (South America)
• UEFA (Europe)
• CONCACAF (North America & the Caribbean)
• CAF (Africa)
• AFC (Asia)

There is technically a 6th region Oceania but they’ve only sent one team to a World Cup. So if you want to select anyone from 2010 New Zealand they’ll count as an AFC team for the purposes of this game.

Please try and remember that it's a World Cup game so ideally you'd pick players based primarily on that basis. There are bonus points available based on performance...

If you don’t follow these rules you will be of course randomised into oblivion.

One footnote: if you select a player from any one of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro or Serbia you are not allowed to draft a player from the other two iterations. Yes, they’re technically different but each country inherited the previous one’s FIFA place.

 

[UpTheChampionz]

When we playing, my capitano Lei Weifeng getting impatient

 

[Makingtrax]

Hmm, so John Reform/Brexit Terry who only reached quarters is a and is rated higher than Javier Mascherano who reached the World Cup final (and played every minute of competition) !??

Not saying that Mascherano was a diamond in 2014, but if this purely based on only WC performances, then it looks a bit like a Blatteresque fix

That’s because we didn’t know the rules before we started. I thought going further in the competition would be important. Having seen the bonus/penalty sheet all is now clear.

 

[A_G]

Hmm, so John Reform/Brexit Terry who only reached quarters is a and is rated higher than Javier Mascherano who reached the World Cup final (and played every minute of competition) !??

Not saying that Mascherano was a diamond in 2014, but if this purely based on only WC performances, then it looks a bit like a Blatteresque fix

 

[Rex Caudillo]

That’s because we didn’t know the rules before we started. I thought going further in the competition would be important. Having seen the bonus/penalty sheet all is now clear.

Like genuinely is that not the case?

Players who get clean sheets and awards generally go further?

 

[Rex Caudillo]

Round 11 ratings for everyone:

Makingtrax	Shinji Kagawa	Japan	2018
Albakos	Gennaro Gattuso	Italy	2006
Steps	Denzel Dumfries	Holland	2022
Dashsnow	Marc Overmars	Holland	1994
Sanchriou	Jurrien Timber	Holland	2022
Rex	Tomas Brolin	Sweden	1994
AG	Makoto Hasebe	Japan	2018
GDeep	Enzo Fernandez	Argentina	2022
Jones	Takehiro Tomiyasu	Japan	2022
UpTheChampionz	Peter Rufai	Nigeria	1998
Clrnc	Hernan Crespo	Argentina	2006
Sapient Hawk	Georges Bregy	Switzerland	1994
The Ducking Duck	Roland Nilsson	Sweden	1994
Tir Na Nog	Fabio Grosso	Italy	2006
OnlyOne	Tim Cahill	Australia	2010
JMB/416	Michael Ballack	Germany	2002

 

[Makingtrax]

Like genuinely is that not the case?

Players who get clean sheets and awards generally go further?

You can reach the final without clean sheets, MOTM, or making team of the tournament, even though you’re probably more likely. The rules you showed were really good, I’m just saying knowing those up front would have made a difference to selection, because maybe like others I thought mistakenly that being in the team that went further in the competition would have been high rewards in itself.

It’s like submitting a thesis at uni and getting poor marks despite a lot of effort because you didn’t understand fully what the lecturer was looking for.

 

[jones]

Crespo a diamond in 2006 is wild. Bonus for scoring in the tournament fair enough but the guy was washed at the time ffs.

 

[Rex Caudillo]

You can reach the final without clean sheets, MOTM, or making team of the tournament, even though you’re probably more likely. The rules you showed were really good, I’m just saying knowing those up front would have made a difference to selection, because maybe like others I thought mistakenly that being in the team that went further in the competition would have been high rewards in itself.

It’s like submitting a thesis at uni and getting poor marks despite a lot of effort because you didn’t understand fully what the lecturer was looking for.

You're not writing a thesis. This is a game.

Also why would you think that? By that logic you’d end up with b*ms like Otamendi rather than James Rodriguez.

If you just gave points out to everyone if they made the final it would ruin any differentiation between players as there's a hard upper limit on ratings in the simulator.

As anything that gets shared gets overly scrutinised we made a conscious decision not to share any bonus criteria in advance and only really did it as a courtesy because so many people were complaining yet again.

Crespo a diamond in 2006 is wild. Bonus for scoring in the tournament fair enough but the guy was washed at the time ffs.

One year removed from scoring in a CL final and was still playing for a juggernaut Chelsea side. His rating had fallen from his peak but he had a great tournament in 2006 which boosted him right back up again.

 

[Rex Caudillo]

Round 12 ratings for everyone:

Makingtrax	Javier Hernandez	Mexico	2010
Albakos	Robert Lewandowski	Poland	2022
Steps	Deco	Portugal	2006
Dashsnow	Michael Owen	England	2002
Sanchriou	Gareth Bale	Wales	2022
Rex	Alexis Sanchez	Chile	2014
AG	Neymar	Brazil	2014
GDeep	Rio Ferdinand	England	2006
Jones	Pedro	Spain	2010
UpTheChampionz	Jan Heintze	Denmark	1998
Clrnc	Ruben Dias	Portugal	2022
Sapient Hawk	Frank de Boer	Holland	1998
The Ducking Duck	Raul	Spain	2002
Tir Na Nog	Per Mertesacker	Germany	2006
OnlyOne	Emi Martinez	Argentina	2022
JMB/416	Mohamed Salah	Egypt	2018

 

[Rex Caudillo]

Round 13 ratings for everyone:

Makingtrax	Pepe	Portugal	2022
Albakos	Steven Gerrard	England	2006
Steps	Jan Vertonghen	Belgium	2018
Dashsnow	Paul McGrath	Ireland	1994
Sanchriou	John Stones	England	2018
Rex	Bruno Fernandes	Portugal	2014
AG	Juan Cuadrado	Colombia	2014
GDeep	Vincent Kompany	Belgium	2018
Jones	Patrick Kluivert	Holland	1998
UpTheChampionz	Cobi Jones	USA	1994
Clrnc	Ivan Rakitic	Croatia	2018
Sapient Hawk	Finidi George	Nigeria	1994
The Ducking Duck	Ko Itakura	Japan	2022
Tir Na Nog	Sadio Mane	Senegal	2018
OnlyOne	Theo Hernandez	France	2022
JMB/416	Cesc Fabregas	Egypt	2018

 

[Makingtrax]

You're not writing a thesis. This is a game.

Also why would you think that? By that logic you’d end up with b*ms like Otamendi rather than James Rodriguez.

If you just gave points out to everyone if they made the final it would ruin any differentiation between players as there's a hard upper limit on ratings in the simulator.

As anything that gets shared gets overly scrutinised we made a conscious decision not to share any bonus criteria in advance and only really did it as a courtesy because so many people were complaining yet again.



One year removed from scoring in a CL final and was still playing for a juggernaut Chelsea side. His rating had fallen from his peak but he had a great tournament in 2006 which boosted him right back up again.

Fair enough. But next World Cup I’ll know what’s what. Doubt you’ll be doing it then. Sick of catching strays from people complaining.

 

[The Ducking Duck]

Itakura looks like a repulsive pick now for fúck sake.

 

[A_G]

Itakura looks like a repulsive pick now for fúck sake.

Looked a repulsive pick at the time tbf

 

[dashsnow17]

Round 12 ratings for everyone:

Makingtrax	Javier Hernandez	Mexico	2010
Albakos	Robert Lewandowski	Poland	2022
Steps	Deco	Portugal	2006
Dashsnow	Michael Owen	England	2002
Sanchriou	Gareth Bale	Wales	2022
Rex	Alexis Sanchez	Chile	2014
AG	Neymar	Brazil	2014
GDeep	Rio Ferdinand	England	2006
Jones	Pedro	Spain	2010
UpTheChampionz	Jan Heintze	Denmark	1998
Clrnc	Ruben Dias	Portugal	2022
Sapient Hawk	Frank de Boer	Holland	1998
The Ducking Duck	Raul	Spain	2002
Tir Na Nog	Per Mertesacker	Germany	2006
OnlyOne	Emi Martinez	Argentina	2022
JMB/416	Mohamed Salah	Egypt	2018

Prime Lewa 2 goals 1 assist gets a diamond, prime Salah 2 goals 0 assists gets bronze. both were elite players who had unremarkable tournaments so feels like quite a discrepancy no?

Also Pepe was excellent in 2022, McGrath one of the best defenders of his generation had a legendary performance to beat Italy.

Feels like the ratings are a bit formulaic and as a result some are a bit off compared to how well the player actually played in that tourno. Most are pretty much right tbf.

 

[jones]

Prime Lewa 2 goals 1 assist gets a diamond, prime Salah 2 goals 0 assists gets bronze. both were elite players who had unremarkable tournaments so feels like quite a discrepancy no?

Also Pepe was excellent in 2022, McGrath one of the best defenders of his generation had a legendary performance to beat Italy.

Feels like the ratings are a bit formulaic and as a result some are a bit off compared to how well the player actually played in that tourno. Most are pretty much right tbf.

Lewa got a diamond to keep the forum from being shut down tbf.

 

[Rex Caudillo]

Prime Lewa 2 goals 1 assist gets a diamond, prime Salah 2 goals 0 assists gets bronze. both were elite players who had unremarkable tournaments so feels like quite a discrepancy no?

It’s the context with Lewa and Salah though. Lewandowski led a dogsh*t Poland team out the groups which was an achievement in itself.

Meanwhile a half fit Salah missed the first game then flopped at 3-0 down to Russia to get a scabby consolation penalty. Then in the final dead rubber against KSA which was essentially a friendly he scored a goal as they lost again.

Lewa was great in 2022 and Salah was definitely not in 2018.

Also Pepe was excellent in 2022, McGrath one of the best defenders of his generation had a legendary performance to beat Italy.


Feels like the ratings are a bit formulaic and as a result some are a bit off compared to how well the player actually played in that tourno. Most are pretty much right tbf.

Pepe was fine in 2022 but it wasn’t his efforts in Euro 2016. He was pushing 40 and they weren’t exactly watertight as a team.

McGrath meanwhile at that point was also ancient playing at midtable Villa.

He was close to silver tbf. At Italia 90 he’d have been gold at least I think.

 

[The Ducking Duck]

Looked a repulsive pick at the time tbf

 

[Clrnc]

That’s because we didn’t know the rules before we started. I thought going further in the competition would be important. Having seen the bonus/penalty sheet all is now clear.

Ngl I had a few of picks i didnt rate got good ratings and the wc winners that I was confident of a diamond just getting gold. But all make sense now that is their individual stats in games being important.

Like Friedel who was famously dubbed the human wall in 2002 and one of the best goalies performance ever in a wc was only bronze.

 

[Rex Caudillo]

Ngl I had a few of picks i didnt rate got good ratings and the wc winners that I was confident of a diamond just getting gold. But all make sense now that is their individual stats in games being important.

Like Friedel who was famously dubbed the human wall in 2002 and one of the best goalies performance ever in a wc was only bronze.

Friedel I thought would grade higher but the Americans shipped a lot of goals in the groups despite going through. Really that was an all-time collapse from Portugal going out there.

The keepers to get from 2002 were Recber and of course Kahn but I'm guessing you really needed CONCACAF players.

And yeah your first part is accurate - you remember great players like James, Hakimi or Modric even if they didn't win more than the eleventh best player on the Champions like say Pavard, Acuna or Howedes. If there's players who do both like R9, Iniesta or Buffon then perfect.

 

[Clrnc]

Friedel I thought would grade higher but the Americans shipped a lot of goals in the groups despite going through. Really that was an all-time collapse from Portugal going out there.

The keepers to get from 2002 were Recber and of course Kahn but I'm guessing you really needed CONCACAF players.

And yeah your first part is accurate - you remember great players like James, Hakimi or Modric even if they didn't win more than the eleventh best player on the Champions like say Pavard, Acuna or Howedes. If there's players who do both like R9, Iniesta or Buffon then perfect.

Yeah I get what you mean. It's kinda flawed though, but that's the only way we can try to distinguish the players I guess.

Like e.g. if a goalie didn't have much to do but kept clean sheets due to easy games or good defence, vs one that maybe conceded a few goals but genuinely made a superhuman performance saving left right centre to prevent more goals, the latter is going to be shafted