So we learned a few things from last week’s picks, and their corresponding results. We learned that sometimes a group of people think too much alike, that it doesn’t necessarily mean that they know what they’re talking about, and if it seems like they do, most of the time it’s because of dumb luck and/or the law of averages. We almost all figured Richmond v. Greenville would be a stalemate (kinda happened), that North Texas would easily take care of Fort Lauderdale (duh) and that Union Omaha would dispatch of Tormenta (homers….. and duh). And while all of us would have been here for a Fort Lauderdale win in Arlington, we also don’t mind being right.
So we all know 3rd division American soccer can get wonky, but who knew wonky would mean a six-way tie at the top of the table through three weeks, with two different tiebreakers being used to separate teams. What a league! Though I won’t be as excited when we reach the end of the season and two teams level on points are separated by the league’s first tiebreaker (wins), only because we have to do something different for some reason or another.
Here is last week’s recap:
| Ben | Jon | Liam | Luke | Rich | Riley | Ryan | |
| Richmond 0-1 Greenville | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Omaha 2-0 Tormenta | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 |
| North Texas 4-2 Fort Lauderdale | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 2 pts | 4 pts | 2 pts | 2 pts | 4 pts | 2 pts | 2 pts |
| Record | Points | |
| Rich | 4-2 | 6 |
| Jon | 3-3 | 5 |
| Liam | 3-3 | 5 |
| Riley | 4-2 | 4 |
| Ben | 3-3 | 3 |
| Luke | 3-3 | 3 |
| Ryan | 3-3 | 3 |
Here are the predictions for week 4:
| Ben | Jon | Liam | Luke | Rich | Riley | Ryan | |
| Greenville Triumph v. North Texas SC (Saturday, 18:00) | 1-3 | 3-2 | 1-1 | 1-1 | 1-0 | 1-0 | 1-0 |
| South Georgia Tormenta v. FC Tucson (Saturday, 18:00) | 1-1 | 1-1 | 0-2 | 0-3 | 0-1 | 0-2 | 1-2 |
| Fort Lauderdale CF v. Richmond Kickers (Sunday, 18:30) | 1-2 | 2-2 | 0-3 | 1-2 | 0-3 | 1-3 | 0-2 |
Just as an aside; I’ve been taking everybody’s picks in confidence this whole time. You know, because I value the spirit of the competition. I even make sure to tell the first person that reaches out to me my picks ASAP so that I’m on the record, and everybody knows there is no chicanery going on. And even as I go through all of this trouble, Luke (of course) decides to go all “Leroy Jenkins” on me, and puts our whole group chat on notice with his picks. Thankfully, the rest of the team is disciplined. I think right now it’s because they respect the process. Eventually, per the direction of Luke’s picks, it might become, “Gee, I want to do everything opposite of what Luke does. Look at those results….”. I know we’re all within a game of each other with a grand total of 3 individual matches predicted exactly correct, but give a guy a break writing filler for this post with only three matches (all non-UO) this upcoming weekend.
Who Gives A Hoot? 