How soccer is nothing like Barbies (tm)

Yes, I admit it, I played with Barbie dolls when I was a little girl. It was hard not to, because she was the status symbol of all the girltoys. If you didn't have a harem of Barbies lounging in the DreamHouse, you were the shame of your classroom. I wasn't much on dressing the Barbies up -- my family didn't have a lot of money, and the clothes were bloody expensive, so my mom, bless her, made Barbie clothes. Like me, my Barbies wore homemade clothes. I took my Barbies on little "when I grow up, I'm going to do this" adventures, all over the house. Remember the age when the couch could stand in for Paris?

But the point really isn't to play with Barbies, it's just to have the Barbies. You just want to have the Model Barbie, the Malibu Barbie, the My Perm Barbie.

I realized that with my fantasy MLS team, I had approached the issue with the same outlook. I just wanted to have the guys I wanted to have, and while that didn't fare to badly as a strategy -- I have a lot of good guys that I wanted to have -- it's definately hurt me competive-wise. I realized that you really shouldn't have three strikers from a single team that only ever plays two men up front.

OK, I decided, I need to find strikers from other teams. But dammit, I want those guys in my little soccer harem.

It's becoming quite the Sophie's Choice for me, to pick between actually competing and just enjoying.