FPL: Does Rank Matter?

I won't share my team just yet. I'm quite pleased with the way it's looking, but with a week to go there's still a fair bit that could change. So I thought I'd talk about rank. A topic that seems to pop up quite frequently these days.

Is Rank Important?

I would say 100% YES. -- and I'll explain why below ..but first a little caveat.

FPL in the grand scheme of things isn't that important. Compared to life's bigger issues football and fantasy football are not serious things to worry about. So fpl in general (including rank) isn't that big a deal when you really think about it.

Plus of course different people invest different amounts of time in it. Some people play casually, others may start a team then lose interest. Some (like myself) put hours of thought into it each week. So what importance there is will be different for different individuals.

However ..saying all that, if you are someone that does put a lot of time and effort into fpl, then yes - rank is important.

It's the whole point of the game. It's the whole fun. That element of competition. The reason we spend hours researching or listening to podcasts each week is in order to make decisions that will get us more points than the other people that are playing.

Gambling vs Safety

The debate about rank seems to be a debate between: "playing it safe" to get a "respectable rank"; and playing "your own game" and "not caring about rank".

Essentially gambling or playing safely.

Now I don't think either of these things are right or wrong. In fact, my own style is probably a combination of the two. My main issue is that both styles "care about rank".

For example: Let's say it's near the end of the season, there are only a few weeks left and you're around the 100k mark. You can either play safely and consolidate that rank, or you can gamble. Hoping you can have a few amazing weeks and climb up into the top 50k, but accepting that you may tumble down another 100k or so if it goes wrong.

Now if you play safe you're doing that because you care about rank - you want to cling onto that semi-respectable finish.

However, if you gamble you're doing that because you want an even higher ranking. You're not content with 100k, you want 50k. So you're also doing that because you "care about rank".

So I think when people say they "don't care about rank" I think they're being a bit dishonest.

And I should say I don't mean that in a nasty way -- I don't think they're lying or being deliberately deceitful in any way. I just mean dishonest with themselves. It's a little comfort blanket so someone can think "Well, I would've had a better rank ..if I'd took it more seriously."

A bit like when a child tries something (takes a penalty say) and gets it wrong, and then says "No, that wasn't my proper go !"

You gambled. You would've enjoyed the rank boost and the good vibes had it paid off, so you have to own the fall when it doesn't.

Consistency or Brilliance

The more interesting discussion beneath all this is whether it's better to be consistently above average or occasionally brilliant.

 - i.e. is it better to have nine awful finishes but win it once; or ten top 10k finishes and never win it at all.

This is a truly interesting debate ..but it's still a debate about rank, and which set of rankings is ultimately better.

You might prefer the former, you might prefer the latter, but either way you're caring about rank. If you didn't you wouldn't care about this debate at all.