Guess the Starting XI - Week 5 vs. MIN & SKC

Welcome back everyone. The Vancouver Whitecaps got back on track this past weekend with a 2-0 victory over CF Montreal, and many of you, unlike our writers (myself included), were on the right end of the score/result prediction this past week.

The first double match-week of the year inevitably will lead to some squad rotation, which should make the lineup predictions more of a challenge than it’s been so far. With three games in eight days, Marc Dos Santos will surely be looking to mix things up in a major way, either on Wednesday against Minnesota, or on Sunday against SKC.

Reviewing last week’s predictions, a shoutout to Tecate and CReimTime for earning 20 points and congrats to Tecate for correctly predicting the 2-0 score-line, impressive!

Now to some housekeeping. In terms of keeping track of the overall standings, my plan was to divide the season into four parts. Because 34 does not divide evenly into quarters, and because there is a rather large international break after the first 7 matches, my thought was to divide the season symmetrically around this break in the schedule. This would mean a split of 7, 10, 10 and then 7.

These breaks will allow us to consolidate the rankings, award quarter and half-point winners, and also to allow for some missed match forgiveness. My thought would be to deduct the lowest score (or zero score) from each contestant each “quarter” of the season. That way, if you miss a match week, you’re not out of the running. If people have differing thoughts about this system, let me know in the comments, I’m open to feedback! Also, let me know if you’d prefer to predict both matches in this thread, or to create a separate one for the weekend.

Ok, with all that said, here are the rules and standings to date.

• Predictions will be ‘valid’ if posted HERE prior to the lineup being officially announced, usually about an hour before kickoff.
• You receive 1 point for every player you correctly guess to be in the Starting XI. You receive 4 bonus points for correctly predicting all 11 starters.
• You get 5 points for correctly guessing Win/Lose/Draw, this doubles to 10 if you also predict the right score-line along with the result.
• That means, if you correctly predict the Starting XI, Final Score, and Winner, you can earn 25 points!