2026-05-18, 05:47 AM - Word count:
SSL Fantasy Series:
SSL Fantasy - An Intro
SSL Fantasy - Rosters
Previously, we’ve taken a general look at Fantasy, and then a look into roster positions that would potentially want to allow people to draft.
Now, we get to dig into the fun part of fantasy…the scoring!
As a reminder, here is where we landed on roster positions.
Striker
Attacking Midfielder (Contains L/R/C)
Midfielder (Contains L/R/C)
Defensive Midfielder (Contains LWB, DM, RWB)
Defending Back (Contains LB, CB, RB)
Goalkeeper
With these positions in mind, let’s take another look at the scoring system initially proposed.
If you remember the last article, I put a summary of points by the roster positions I established. However, for the purposes of that article, I displayed those points by putting any player who had a possible position into each group they could be a part of.
When you’re drafting a fantasy team, however, you really can’t allow players to be inserted in multiple positions, otherwise the backend tracking of it will be complex and painful. So, as a first approach to limiting that, I looked at the Player Position that gets returned from the Player API. Using that singular position, I have now locked down players, and we can look at the real point spread between spots.
Ignore Goalkeeper for now, we’ll come back to them later on.
Otherwise, the points aren’t all that far apart. AM has a clear advantage over the rest, but the difference between AM and Midfielder being only 1k total points is encouraging. If you were grabbing 1 or 2 of each of the top 5 positions, you would end with a fairly consistent mix of scoring (which is important, because everyone hates low scoring in fantasy) while also acknowledging the general imbalance of stats that does tend to happen in the matches themselves. Remember, fantasy isn’t about everyone getting the highest numbers, it’s about tying numbers to real performance and figuring out how to optimize at every position, regardless of the range of points that position reaches.
Now let’s address the elephant in the room. Goalkeepers don’t get points in the current model!
A little bit of this was intentional when I posted the first article. You see, the main stat that was listed in the quick search I did was clean sheets. I do believe it should be something that gets Goalkeeper’s point, but it was also a separate API, so back two weeks ago when I first started, I didn’t know enough to dig into it. Now, however…..let’s get wild.
Here are the stats the index returns for goalkeepers
Clean Sheets
Conceded
Saves Parried
Saves Held
Saves Tipped
Save %
Penalties Faced
Penalties Saved
xSave %
xG Prevented
Clean Sheet is right there, clear as day. So that obviously becomes a stat. Something that pairs with it, however, is giving points for a low number of goals allowed, even if the Goalkeeper doesn’t stop them all. That said, the standard I’m able to find online seems to be one goal only. I’m not sure I want to include customization that goes and checks for only a single goal, instead I want to overly reward a Clean Sheet. So, only Clean Sheets gets to be a stat related to the number of goals scored against the GK in the match.
Next we have our conceded stat. If we’re giving points for not allowing any goals, we have to penalize them for giving up goals. After all, that is the entire point of the Goalkeeper.
The next category is saves, and we’ll actually split that in half.
First you have regular saves. Parried, Held, or Tipped have different effects, and a little online research tells me that usually Saves Held gets the most points, Saves Tipped the second most, and Saves Parried the least. For now, we’ll score each individually, and see what points look like in relation to the other positions.
The second part of Saves is Penalty Saves. This is a high pressure situation, and rightfully Penalty Saves should get more points than any of the regular saves. The Goalkeeper is already penalized if they don’t make the Penalty Save from the Conceded stat, so given the degree of difficulty involved in a Penalty Save, its points must be higher.
With all those stats in mind, here is my first proposal for Goalkeeper Stats
Clean Sheet: 10 points
One Goal Only: 3 points
Goal Conceded: -1 point
Save Held: 3 points
Save Tipped: 2 points
Save Parried: 1 point
Penalty Save: 7 points
One final adjustment, Tackles Won, Interceptions, Yellow Cards, and Red Cards stats need to be included from the other position stats, as these are things Goalkeepers can get credit for (which is why you see the 6 above in the position scoring done before Goalkeeper scoring was expanded)
Because of the limited number of Goalkeepers, I can actually share what the points look like for all of them
![[Image: 9NStpr4.png]](https://i.imgur.com/9NStpr4.png)
The Grand Total? 1173 points. That puts them at the very bottom of the points chart, but I'm not sure that’s a problem yet. You aren’t going to have exact parity across all positions, and you shouldn’t adjust scoring so that every position scores the same as the other.
With Scoring assigned, our next article in the series will move on to assigning roster position counts based on scoring averages. Now that you have scores, you need to balance the roster so that one position doesn’t completely dominate all parts of the fantasy experience.
SSL Fantasy - An Intro
SSL Fantasy - Rosters
Previously, we’ve taken a general look at Fantasy, and then a look into roster positions that would potentially want to allow people to draft.
Now, we get to dig into the fun part of fantasy…the scoring!
As a reminder, here is where we landed on roster positions.
Striker
Attacking Midfielder (Contains L/R/C)
Midfielder (Contains L/R/C)
Defensive Midfielder (Contains LWB, DM, RWB)
Defending Back (Contains LB, CB, RB)
Goalkeeper
With these positions in mind, let’s take another look at the scoring system initially proposed.
| Stat | Points |
|---|---|
| Goal | 10 |
| Assist | 6 |
| Shot | 1 |
| Shot On Goal | 1 |
| Crosses | 0.75 |
| Fouled | 1 |
| Fouls | -0.5 |
| Tackles Won | 1 |
| Interceptions | 0.5 |
| Yellow Cards | -1.5 |
| Red Cards | -3 |
| Penalty Kick Misses | -5 |
If you remember the last article, I put a summary of points by the roster positions I established. However, for the purposes of that article, I displayed those points by putting any player who had a possible position into each group they could be a part of.
When you’re drafting a fantasy team, however, you really can’t allow players to be inserted in multiple positions, otherwise the backend tracking of it will be complex and painful. So, as a first approach to limiting that, I looked at the Player Position that gets returned from the Player API. Using that singular position, I have now locked down players, and we can look at the real point spread between spots.
| Position | Sum of Total Points |
|---|---|
| Attacking Midfielder | 2662.75 |
| Defensive Midfielder | 1957.5 |
| Defending Back | 1833.75 |
| Striker | 1796.75 |
| Midfielder | 1504.25 |
| Goalkeeper | 6 |
Ignore Goalkeeper for now, we’ll come back to them later on.
Otherwise, the points aren’t all that far apart. AM has a clear advantage over the rest, but the difference between AM and Midfielder being only 1k total points is encouraging. If you were grabbing 1 or 2 of each of the top 5 positions, you would end with a fairly consistent mix of scoring (which is important, because everyone hates low scoring in fantasy) while also acknowledging the general imbalance of stats that does tend to happen in the matches themselves. Remember, fantasy isn’t about everyone getting the highest numbers, it’s about tying numbers to real performance and figuring out how to optimize at every position, regardless of the range of points that position reaches.
Now let’s address the elephant in the room. Goalkeepers don’t get points in the current model!
A little bit of this was intentional when I posted the first article. You see, the main stat that was listed in the quick search I did was clean sheets. I do believe it should be something that gets Goalkeeper’s point, but it was also a separate API, so back two weeks ago when I first started, I didn’t know enough to dig into it. Now, however…..let’s get wild.
Here are the stats the index returns for goalkeepers
Clean Sheets
Conceded
Saves Parried
Saves Held
Saves Tipped
Save %
Penalties Faced
Penalties Saved
xSave %
xG Prevented
Clean Sheet is right there, clear as day. So that obviously becomes a stat. Something that pairs with it, however, is giving points for a low number of goals allowed, even if the Goalkeeper doesn’t stop them all. That said, the standard I’m able to find online seems to be one goal only. I’m not sure I want to include customization that goes and checks for only a single goal, instead I want to overly reward a Clean Sheet. So, only Clean Sheets gets to be a stat related to the number of goals scored against the GK in the match.
Next we have our conceded stat. If we’re giving points for not allowing any goals, we have to penalize them for giving up goals. After all, that is the entire point of the Goalkeeper.
The next category is saves, and we’ll actually split that in half.
First you have regular saves. Parried, Held, or Tipped have different effects, and a little online research tells me that usually Saves Held gets the most points, Saves Tipped the second most, and Saves Parried the least. For now, we’ll score each individually, and see what points look like in relation to the other positions.
The second part of Saves is Penalty Saves. This is a high pressure situation, and rightfully Penalty Saves should get more points than any of the regular saves. The Goalkeeper is already penalized if they don’t make the Penalty Save from the Conceded stat, so given the degree of difficulty involved in a Penalty Save, its points must be higher.
With all those stats in mind, here is my first proposal for Goalkeeper Stats
Clean Sheet: 10 points
One Goal Only: 3 points
Goal Conceded: -1 point
Save Held: 3 points
Save Tipped: 2 points
Save Parried: 1 point
Penalty Save: 7 points
One final adjustment, Tackles Won, Interceptions, Yellow Cards, and Red Cards stats need to be included from the other position stats, as these are things Goalkeepers can get credit for (which is why you see the 6 above in the position scoring done before Goalkeeper scoring was expanded)
Because of the limited number of Goalkeepers, I can actually share what the points look like for all of them
The Grand Total? 1173 points. That puts them at the very bottom of the points chart, but I'm not sure that’s a problem yet. You aren’t going to have exact parity across all positions, and you shouldn’t adjust scoring so that every position scores the same as the other.
With Scoring assigned, our next article in the series will move on to assigning roster position counts based on scoring averages. Now that you have scores, you need to balance the roster so that one position doesn’t completely dominate all parts of the fantasy experience.
