Fantasy Olympics Day 3 – Meet the Competition

Hello everybody. Finally I was able to put my baby to sleep and now I can finish this article. It is hard trying to be all calm, loving and soothing towards your loved little munchkin, but deep down inside you are almost yelling “go to sleep already, I have a freakin article to finish!!!”. And when I said that I put the baby to sleep, what I meant was that my wife, god bless her soul, has finally finished eating her supper and she took over with the little one. She was barely in the room, as I was already at my laptop writing what I am writing now. Anyways.

After a very disappointing second leg of the Olympic tournament Team MVP had somewhat of a steady third leg. The biggest shock of the day came from our right side which saw Mr. Vlachopoulos, whose name I can now write without double checking it, without a goal. Everybody else from our team had made at least one goal. Mr. Bijač conceded 8, but saved 8 and that statistic fits perfectly with the whole team. We will not make any changes for the fourth leg of this Olympic tournament. Some teams have changed their positions but Team MVP has not changed its situation at all. Still at the number 5 we are looking forward for a better tomorrow. It is a bit annoying that our biggest rivals VU Dance are still ahead of us, but there are still a lot of games in front of us. I think that by now our team chemistry should be peaking and we have a lot to look forward to. To bring you a little bit into my Fantasy world and the issues I have to deal with I have decided to do something different with this article. In today’s article I will focus a little on some of my opposing Fantasy Managers. I asked some of the three questions which they have answered and hopefully this will help you understand the pressure and stress that a Fantasy Manager goes through on almost a daily basis. I asked them all the same 3 questions:

1. What do you do related with media and waterpolo (you run a podcast, you write articles for so and so, you used to be a player and now you are writing articles)?

2. How are you dealing with this Fantasy league emotionally (do you follow your players on the Olympics a bit more closely, or just as usual)?

3. How would you feel if you end up winning the Fantasy League?

And here are their respected answers.

Eduardo da Cunha – Waterpolo Fantasy

1. I produce social media content for a WP brand in Brasil and still a player (Masters)

2. I am paying extra attention to the players on my roaster, before and during games. It is exciting, after a round is finished, to wait for the results.

3. Surprised!

Tamas Kerber – BT Infinity

1) I’m a volunteer of the vlv.hu what is the oldest, and I think the greatest portal of the Hungarian men waterpolo. I’m part of the team since 2014, at first I had to only transcript the interviews, but right after I made interviews by myself, broadcasted matches in a written form etc. I’m really happy, because the waterpolo and the media is just a hobby for me, I’m a fully outsider, normally I’m working as a consultant, but I have worked in the mixed zone during the world champs, EC, and Final6.

2) It makes me honor to be part of this game, and I can represent Hungary I really enjoy it. Due to the huge time lag, quite hard to follow the games as I would, but even if I couldn’t see the matches I follow the stats, and try to find some replay. I follow not only my players, but the others as well, because sometimes I’ve to change my line up. 🙂

3) Well, I named my team after Tibor Benedek, and as we know he won everything what was possible and he accepted only the 1st place, so yes I want to win. However I’d accept that I’ll not win this games, but the Hungarian team would win the Olympics. I guess Tibor would also accept this result.

Eric Spithoven – WET Fantasy

1. Despite the fact that the men of the Netherlands do not play a significant role internationally, I am and remain a big water polo fan. Once played at the highest level in the Netherlands (but as I said that doesn’t mean much) and still active in a friends team at a lower level. As a journalist I am associated with the Dutch water polo website Waterpolo.nl and the magazine ManMeer! (that stands for man up) and I write water polo reports for the Dutch swimming association, the KNZB.

2. I am amazed how dedicated all the participants in our group are. Statistics are sacred, as it turns out. Everything is kept up to date. That’s really new to me. In the Netherlands, in addition to the goal scorers, we only keep track of the % goals out of man up / man down situations. This makes you look at players differently and I also get to know other players. I couldn’t be there for the draw of the teams (the other participants did that for me, I feared that they would only give me players from South Africa), but the nice thing is that I am on top for two rounds already, haha. So they didn’t give me all the substitutes. Fortunately, Maro Jokovic and Alvaro Granados are on my team. Those are the players I had high hopes for before the tournament.

3. Haha, then I will be very surprised and also a little proud. Surprised because I rate the other participants much higher in terms of water polo knowledge and proud because the small Netherlands is apparently able to beat the great powers such as Croatia, Serbia and Hungary. At least with this game. That will never happen in the water.

Darko Stevović – Vaterpolo Vesti Fantasy

1. I have trained waterpolo 15 years ago and for almost seven years I am the editor of the Vaterpolo Vesti media outlet where I, together with my college Srdjan Tomic, have published six to seven thousand waterpolo news articles. We were at many competitions and we are trying to follow as much as we can.

2. I certainly pay a little bit more attention on my players, meaning how did they play and I am very pleased if they have play good.

3. I will be very surprised because I don’t analyze all the other players after every round and I don’t plan to change any of them, what is very important thing to do. In the end I think I have drafted very good players and I believe that I will be high in the rankings at the end of the tournament.

Andrija Martić – VU Dance Fantasy

1. Chief Editor at Danče.hr

2. I am always following the current waterpolo games, but when I am playing fantasy then there is one element more included. I am certainly emotionally connected with the efficiency of the players I have on my team. I am always extra annoyed if a player that I had my doubts about and then maybe I left him on my bench, or among the free agents, collects more points than the player I have decided to put in play.

Then there is another emotional aspect, rivalry with the other fantasy competitors. Just like in real life, you have bigger and smaller rivalries. In this exact competition that we are playing, it is very important to me to end up higher than your Team MVP.

3. Winning would be cherry on the top, but the most important thing is that we are able to communicate correctly one with another and still somehow annoy and provoke each other playing this Fantasy league. That gives something an extra element when following a tournament like this one. Too bad that a lot of games are during the night, or in the early morning hours, so its not so convenient to communicate and chat during the actual games themselves. Next week should be better as I will be starting my holiday.