Moving On Up

So the dreaded lag finally lifted and us newbies got to see our first world ranking. And now I don't remember it, but it was in the top 200, which caught me sort of by surprise. Midnight rolled around and it dropped to somewhere in the 210-220 range (214th, I see, now that it's back up), but I've been elevated in the news from "obscure" to "surprise package." Which you can take one of two ways: 1) I'm playing way over my head, and it'll all come crashing down soon enough; or 2) sticking with a youth movement is going to pay dividends down the line in the form of unexpected performance levels. Too soon to tell.

Seems like there's too much hitting of the post, own goals and awarded penalties in these games (I've played about 40-45), but otherwise gameplay has been relatively smooth. You have the occasional "goal on a missed offsides," as you should. It's the other items I cited that seem to be too frequent. Although when I checked my stats, I've only been awarded 5 PKs so far (and gone 4-for-5), so maybe it's a warped perception thing.

Since my first post, I've picked up some additional bodies, entered some additional cups, and tried to find games against some of the better teams. I scored a 3-0 win over a club ranked 50+ places ahead of me for the first time. I'm winning about a third of my games, losing a third and drawing a third. Itching for the season proper to start.