How to select your daily fantasy football goalkeeper
Germany’s Manuel Neuer has propelled goalkeepers into the spotlight in recent times with his proactive approach, perhaps taking a leaf out of Rene Higuita’s book. The Colombian was a pioneer in influencing goalkeepers to take more responsibility for situations further from goal.
When asked about El Loco (‘’The Madman’’), infamous for a Scorpion kick save that he once pulled off against England, Ron Atkinson, the former Coventry City manager was quoted as saying:
‘We’ve got absolutely no interest in him. We’ve got a goalkeeper with a better trick – he stops the ball with his hands.’
This leads us to ask ourselves what exactly makes a keeper stand out from the crowd and more importantly what should fantasy managers be looking for?
Clearly, clean sheets are important but ever-increasing access to Big Data has resulted in the full goalkeeper package coming under closer scrutiny. This in turn has led to more sophisticated scoring systems being introduced by game operators so the likes of saves, passes, fouls, catches and so on are now scoring points in some game formats. A goalkeeper will always to a certain extent be dependent on the players in front of him but strong organization skills, positioning, agility, quick reflexes, game-reading ability are just a few of the other factors that will contribute to the number of saves he makes and his overall performance.
To initiate the goalkeeper selection process you must first study the scoring criteria of your chosen game and adapt your strategy from there. Once you understand this you need to factor in player valuations and the significance of goal expectancies. To get a better understanding of this process it makes sense to carry out a case study that looks at one of the operators in more details.