Guess the Starting XI & Final Score 2019 (MLS Match #11 - Portland Timbers)

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.

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 half-an-hour 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 (Colorado Rapids) and Preview (Portland Timbers)

THEY DID IT!!! They won (on the road)! It took the worst team in the league to do it, but they got it done. To be honest, I was nervous that they would not win. With Montero continually deciding to give penalty kicks too, I thought for sure it would blow up in their face. VAR showed up again, but it was the right call, so I am okay with that.

I wanted to begin by saying that I have some new assistance. Please join me in thanking Tres_Tristes_Tigres, who will be taking over calculating the scores each week. Over the years the number of people participating has grown and it takes, probably, two hours now to calculate all the scores, convert them to the tables used by this website (I can’t import excel spreadsheets!), compile the post, and read over everyone’s comments and...well...comment. So, it is tremendously helpful to get some assistance in that regard from Tres_Tristes_Tigres.

In my first (full) match of not calculating scores, who should wind up on top but ME! I was happy about that. ZTJ9901 was second with 20 points, with Columbian_Southsider77 rounding out the top three with 19 points.

We had FIVE! perfect lineups. Unfortunately for our new statistician, they could not translate that into the top of the leaderboard. To be fair though, we had a lot of good scores this week. 16 of our 23 predictors had Vancouver winning. Combined with the three bonus points for the perfect lineup, that really bumps the scores up for the match.

As I noted on Twitter, if you predicted Levis as the first substitute coming on, you should get major points. Luckily, for me, no one did that! There were a lot of PC and Bangoura predictions though.

Smart move CapsOnTheDrive with “heding my bets” on the substitutes. Always hard to figure out the double combo, but covering yourself for two different scenarios is a good idea. Go for the more likely ‘2’ than the full ‘4’.

There is not a lot to say about this one. Was fairly straight forward...with less additional commentary from all of you in the comments. This month we have SEVEN matches, so that means we will have a pretty good total for the month winner. In addition, the end of May will bring us to match 16. That is one match from the halfway point. Therefore, we will be close to crowning our First Half winner. Meaning May could go a long way to determining who that champion is. It is currently very close. Should be a fun race. Hopefully the Caps can make it even better by winning some of those games!

Don’t forget that this month our ‘bonus’ category is first substitute. Correctly predict the first Whitecaps player to come out receive, two points. Correctly predict the first Whitecaps player to come in, receive another two points. Remember that you will need to get the ‘way’ correct. That is, if you predict Player A coming out and he actually goes in, you get ‘0’ points.

As always, look for our pre-match coverage with Know the Enemy and Match Preview.