Hippos History in III.3
So, yeah, I've been stuck in my own little purgatory, also known as III.3, for 11 seasons now. It's not a bad little series- we have a little chatter going in the forum from time to time, depending on who cycles in and out of the series. I've always been good enough to stay up but never good enough to advance. I have finished 2nd thru 4th all but 2 of my 10 seasons here, with a 1st place finish my first season- lost my only ascending qualifier ever- and a 5th place season a few later.
Houston Hippopotami finished as number 1 in III.3 season 28
Houston Hippopotami finished as number 4 in III.3 season 29
Houston Hippopotami finished as number 2 in III.3 season 30
Houston Hippopotami finished as number 5 in III.3 season 31
Houston Hippopotami finished as number 4 in III.3 season 32
Houston Hippopotami finished as number 4 in III.3 season 33
Houston Hippopotami finished as number 2 in III.3 season 34
Houston Hippopotami finished as number 4 in III.3 season 35
Houston Hippopotami finished as number 3 in III.3 season 36
Houston Hippopotami finished as number 4 in III.3 season 37
Last season I was 4th, only by the grace of the standings gods. In the final week, we backed into 4th place with a 5-0 loss. However, 5th place Selma fell 3-2 and 6th place O.G. Kickers were edged 6-5 with the go-ahead goal scored in the 84th minute. Either team could have passed us if they had won their game.
Maybe it's been too long, but when I started out, my goal was to reach Div III and I've done that and then some. I've come up with new little goals and fun things to keep me interested along the way (wait until we get to my Youth Academy spreadsheet or flag chasing) and I'm quite happy where I am.
To give you an idea of how long I've been here, I'll try to again post the table that broke the forum earlier (or at least the top 10).
We've had a fair share of VIPs come through the series, as it's only a hop, skip, and a jump from the upper echelon of hattrick in the US. Here are some of our more "distinguished" members that have been in this series in my time here:
- Lathrop of Blue Wave - former US national coach caught us while he was retooling after a very long stay in II and lasted a season
- Farmboy of Clarion Taffurs - was on MLS at one point and a fixture in Div II for a long time
- joerg52 of Park Panthers EFC - he spent a couple of seasons in III.3 before getting all the way to the MLS the last 2 seasons
- hrudey22 of Jacksonville Tea Men - certainly last and definitely least- he slacked all over our series en route to MLS and then dismantled the poor USA U20 team as the coach (his response: "That's inaccurate. The USA U20 team was already in the crapper. I just didn't flush it well enough to stop it from being crappy again. Otherwise, pretty close!" Oh, and I had a lot of WTF wins")
Hippos Preview
I wish I could make this a "storybook" run at our series where the team stuck in III finally breaks free and promotes but that's fairly unlikely. We have a really tough series and I'm once again going to be in the middle of the pack.
The one thing I do have in my favor this season is that we have 2 essentially dead teams. Unfortunately, my schedule is not all that favorable as to when I face them as it's in back-to-back weeks so I'm at a disadvantage to those teams who have them more spread out. Not only that but I play them in weeks 3 and 4, when I get really no advantage from playing them except perhaps to help prolong my cup run. But even at that point, I should be enjoying pretty easy games in the cup.
Hm... I'm getting some ideas now that I'm hashing things out (I do have around $9M in the bank) but it's going to take a lot of luck with surviving week 2 and some other teams to fall... anyways, more on that later, if it looks good on paper. Unfortunately, the sketch isn't too promising
Series Preview
III is never easy and, even with a pair of walkovers, is going to be tough to get back to that top 4 I'm used to. Here they are, in rough order of expected finish:
- O.G. Kickers {stats} - Relative newcomer who is selling all of his players. He is the other bot.
- amblerabsbestos {stats} - long time team in III.3 but went bot last season after winning the series. As you can see from the above, he had been here a long time.
- Houston Hippopotami {stats} - I believe you've heard of us. I'll slot us in at 6th for now and see how things go.
- Bridgemen {stats} - one of two new teams. Looking at history, their ratings last year are all over the map, which is a little odd for a team that went 14-0 in IV just a season ago.
- T Hills FC {stats} - the other new team this season. They took the first game from Bridgemen on the road so I'm going to slot them ahead in the standings.
- Selma Sumorats {stats} - the next two are a tossup as they are similar in so many ways. They are capable of putting up the highest ratings in the series in any given week. However, they are also prone to the upset bug. Could finish anywhere in the series.
- Supra Supreme {stats} - the other SS team. Like Selma, they're a strong team. However, while they don't rate as highly, they make the most of their ratings and are good at winning close games.
- Wahoos {stats} -teams really start looking alike if you look solely at their ratings on this level, but I think they are the class of the series. He dropped down from II a couple of seasons ago and has gone 1, 1, and 2 in his seasons here. No reason to think he'll finish any different this season.
Well, there you go. You can see what we're up against and it's not pretty. We're going to need quite a bit of luck this season.
SI