Fantasy Focus: A More Perfect Union

I'm just going to put this out there: If I made a list of my five least favorite D.C. United players ever, Brian Carroll is definitely on it. He's not Chris Albright or Carlos Ruiz, but he's on the list. Why does that matter? We'll get to it, but first we have a weekly leader to get to. Hell's Kitchen led everyone this week with 71 points. RSL's Javier Morales ($8.7M) scored a captaincy-aided 24 points to lead the team's players. Lamar Neagle (SEA, $6.0M) followed with 11 points, and both Jose Goncalves (NE, $6.6M) and Landon Donovan (LA, $10.5M) contributed 8 points. Hell's Kitchen rose to 6th in the league, and now trails the 5 teams in the league who all eclipsed the 1,000 point mark this week. The new overall leader is Stallions FC.

Positional Leaders

Goalkeepers

Philadelphia's Zac MacMath ($4.9M) is bad. Of his 15 games played this year, he's scored more than 4 points just 4 times. This week he led all goalkeepers with 9 points. D.C.'s Bill Hamid ($4.8M) was 2nd with 8 points (CLEAN SHEET! WOO!), and Bobby Shuttleworth (NE, $5.3M) came in with 7 points. For United, Bill Ha -- oh, I don't have to do this because Bill Hamid was among the league's leaders for the first time since... let's just move on.

Defenders

Sheanon Williams ($4.8) continues the Philadelphia Union charge by leading all defenders with 13 points, aided by a goal and a clean sheet. Four defenders tied for 2nd with 8 points -- D.C. United's James Riley ($4.5M), New England's Stephen McCarthy ($4.8M) and Goncalves, and Philadelphia's Jeff Parke ($4.7M). Other United defenders were not slouches (CLEAN SHEET! WOO!) as Daniel Woolard ($3.9M) scored 7 points, Ethan White ($4.2M) scored 6, and Chris Korb ($4.2M) scored 5.

Midfielders

Brian Carroll (PHI, $5.7M) scored a goal, added an assist, and totaled 15 points to lead midfielders and all players. Morales and Russell Tiebert (VAN, $5.4M) tied for second with 12 points. For DCU, Perry Kitchen ($5.6M) and John Thorrington ($5.3M) tied for the positional lead with 5 points. The triumvirate of Nick DeLeon ($7.4M), Chris Pontius ($8.1M), and Kyle Porter ($5.1M) scored 3 points, and Dwayne De Rosario ($9.3M), and Sainey Nyassi ($5.6M) scored 1 point.

Forwards

Vancouver's Camilo Sanvezzo ($7.8M) scored two goals and 12 points. RSL's Olmes Garcia ($7.0M) followed closely with 11 points, and Frederic Piquionne (POR, $7.2M) scored 8. DCU's Carlos Ruiz ($7.8M) scored 3 points, and Casey Townsend ($5.6M) showed up with 1 point.

Looking Ahead

This week is strange both in that there are five teams on bye (NY, PHI, RSL, SEA, SKC), and the round started this past Sunday and goes thru Wednesday the 19th. There are 9 games - 5 this Saturday, 4 next Wednesday - and 4 of the 14 teams that are active are playing twice (POR, COL, MTL, VAN). Colorado has a couple of matchups (SJ, @CHI) that could lead to good scoring (hello, Clint Irwin ($5.0M, 69 points)). Shuttleworth is also a good option at goalkeeper, as the Revolution face Vancouver away. Dallas is back in action, so their defenders, especially Michel ($6.0M, 89 points and Matt Hedges ($5.8, 78 points), are good options. Portland's Will Johnson ($8.9M, 73 points) is one of the only consistent high scoring midfielders playing, and if you want to gamble on a low cost guy, the aforementioned Teibert is $5.4M and has scored 31 points in 4 games. Get Marco Di Vaio (MTL, $9.1M, 63 points) back on your front line, and Diego Fagundez (NE, $6.4M, 56 points) is worth a look, while scoring just 2 points on Saturday, but 36 in the 4 previous games.