Strategy Clinic

2026 Strategy Clinic Week 7: Analyzing Matchups Using Expected Goals (xG)

By: The Fantasy Physician Week 7 Big Question – How do I assess matchups to pick players? Contextualize!  Yes, on Kickbase or any fantasy platform you can look at player averages and just pick the players with the best averages if you can afford them.  But that’s not that fun and misses a lot.  Soccer players do what they do …

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2026 Strategy Clinic Week 6: Home Field Advantage

By: The Fantasy Physician Week 6 Big Question – Should I favor players playing at home? We layer the muscles over the bones.  In our Week 4 and Week 5 articles, we highlighted the general value in the Kickbase scoring system of taking players from winning teams, seasoned with cautions about the impact of the CONCACAF Champions Cup schedule on …

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2026 Strategy Clinic Week 3: Figuring Out Who is Playing

By: The Fantasy Physician Week 3 Big Question – How Do I Know Which Players Will Actually Play? If you put a player on your squad in the new Kickbase MLS Fantasy game and he does not play, you get zero points.  Ignoring that bigger disasters in the game (negative scores are not infrequent in Kickbase) or in life can …

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2026 Strategy Clinic Week 2: Picking Goalkeepers in Kickbase

By: The Fantasy Physician Week 2 Big Questions – How Do I Pick Goalkeepers in Kickbase MLS Fantasy? Information Overload. Are you there with me?  It’s enough to wrap one’s head around a nascent MLS season as the whole footballing world careens towards the World Cup, but MLS fantasy sickos are also figuring out at least one (if not four) …

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2026 Strategy Clinic Week 1: Kicking the Tires on Kickbase

By: The Fantasy Physician Round 1 Big Questions – How Do I Navigate the MLS Fantasy Landscape After the Earthquake that Struck in 2026? Fantasy Strategy Clinic is back in 2026!  Now do you hear that Aladdin music playing in the background?  Well, on February 9 – twelve short days before the MLS’s season kickoff – we learned that everything …

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Fantasy Strategy Clinic Round 31: The Final Examination

By: The Fantasy Physician Round 31 Big Questions Where are the Goals? What are MLS Teams’ Goals? What are your Goals? The last leg of this marathon season is like no other you have seen.  What mentality – to use a word pro soccer players love – will you bring to FMLS as we make the final push?  Well, when …

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Fantasy Strategy Clinic Round 30: Maintaining Rank vs. Making Up Ground

By: The Fantasy Therapist Welcome back, are you ready for yet another mini DGW? Hopefully, you haven’t burned out through this long and crazier-than-usual season and are ready for the last push through the final two gameweeks. By the time I wrote this, Miami and Chicago have already played the first game of the week (on a Tuesday!), so you …

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Fantasy Strategy Clinic Round 29: Last Game Peril

By: The Fantasy Physician Round 29 Big Question – What problems may arise from a plan to take players in the last game of the week? Are you one of those people who likes the end-slices on a loaf of bread or are you more likely to feed those to the birds?  The ends of things are different, and that’s …

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