Guess the Starting XI and Final Score (MLS Match #12 - San Jose Earthquakes

Welcome to another season of our Vancouver Whitecaps contest “Guess the Starting XI and Final Score”. As is tradition, thanks to former regular Spencer for starting this several years ago. It has grown into a great contest and I am appreciative of him for the original idea. Like last season, we will break the contest up into the three ‘seasons’: first half, second half, and non-MLS. We will continue to have fun monthly ‘bonus’ prediction categories, with some being based on whatever it topical at the time. Last season we had things like “Robbo post-match quotes”, “yellow cards”, “first goal scorer”, and several others. However, to start the season, we will keep March simple. With that out of the way, let’s remind you all how the scoring is done.

P.S. I would love if someone would create a great little graphic that we could use for these articles!

Contest Details

• Contest article will be posted 2-3 days prior to game day.
• We will keep track of first half, second half, and monthly winners so that late joiners will have something to play for.
• I will have a separate ‘contest’ for Voyageurs and Champions League.
• As the MLS season is 34 matches, each half of the season will be based on 17 matches, with your worst two match predictions being dropped. This will allow everyone a few misses or bad guesses throughout the season.
• Predictions will be ‘valid’ if posted HERE prior to the lineup being officially announced (1 hour before kickoff).

How Scoring is Determined

• You receive 1 point for every player you correctly guess to be in the Starting XI. Receive 1 bonus point for correctly predicting 10 starters. Receive 3 bonus points for correctly predicting 11 starters.
• You get 5 points for correctly guessing Win/Lose/Draw.
• You receive 1 point for correctly guessing each team’s final score. Receive 1 bonus point for correctly guessing both teams final score (for a total of 3).

That means, if you correctly predict the Starting XI, Final Score, and Winner, you can earn 22 points!

After each match, I will tally the scores and update the standings, which will be posted with the following match’s prediction article. I will post three sets of standings. First, the results from the previous match. Second, the monthly standings. Third, the first/second half standings (with your worst two match predictions removed).

Match in Review (Houston Dynamo) Preview (San Jose Earthquakes)

Well, that was fun wasn’t it! For some of you, that last second goal from Kendall Waston salvaged a point (so many 2-1 predictions). For those that predicted a 2-1 Houston victory, it was a crushing blow. For two predictors though (CWilkins and ZTJ99901), that last second goal earned each an additional 5 points! They were the only two to predict a draw in this one.

You know what else was a crushing blow? The unpredictable lineup! Of course, we all predicted Rowe starting. Ha! Marinovic should be out for a few weeks now, so plan accordingly. The backline was a bit unpredictable, as was the offense. I had a gut feeling that we might see Blondell/Kamara, and that Ibini might start, but I could not pull the trigger. Were you thinking the same? I guess we all lost. It is that fine line (HA!) between trying to make a bold prediction and knowing that if you are wrong, you lose points to the field. In the end, AmandaC led the predictions with 9/11 (congrats!). BlackPanther99, CascadiaCrunchFC, and dfree646 followed behind at 8/11. It could have been better for dfree646 though. They were nice enough to let Jph003 know that they had Reyna in their lineup twice...only for me to go and count dfree646’s score and see they had Davies twice. Oops!

This May contest for first goal scorer has fizzled two matches in a row. First there were no goals in Minnesota, then Aja is the first scorer against Houston. Sigh. Hopefully this week will be different! Hate seeing a category not award people points.

This week, we have a double-match week. First up is San Jose, at home, on Wednesday evening. We could certainly see some rotation this week. However, we have seen rotation all season, so is this really going to be different.

San Jose has not had a lot of success in Vancouver; however, prior to Friday night’s match, neither had Houston. I predict a good victory for the Caps, but in all honesty, who knows!

Time to show if you know what is going on in Robbo’s head, and if you can do better than me at predicting the final score. Good luck!

Known Out (Updated as information becomes known)

Injury: Jordon Mutch; Stefan Marinovic

Suspension: None