Peawok’s Regular Season CGS Awards
Written By: Michael “Peawok” Fleming
With the 2008 Regular Season now in the books and the playoffs looming before us, I wanted to take a little bit of time to give the fans and players some awards.
Having several article series – including Hot or Not (partly), Peawok’s Predictions, and Week in Review – I had to follow this season very intensely. It’s pretty embarrassing when your memorizing statistics in your head, can tell you who won in a matchup on what day, who failed to or did clutch and who the top players of each division are. Not trying to “toot my own horn”, but I feel that out of the people who weren’t able to attend this CGS season, I am one of the few who can really select awards with strong factual information to back it.
I’m not saying I’ll be 100% “right”, if there is such a thing, but I think I’m awfully close. While some may be more opinionated than others, they are a pretty fair testament to who should receive these awards.
I added a few of my own personal ones to spice “Peawok’s Awards” up, but all the basic ones remain. Again, I’m not trying to shove my opinions on you, so please feel free to disagree.
Most Valuable Player
I’ve always had trouble finding an MVP for a team and this year was no different. While many would instantly select MASTER, I really wanted to make one hundred percent sure I chose the right guy.
There are very few others who match him in statistics. Dallas’s Source Team would be a contender but it’s near impossible to select one player from a team-oriented sport. Vanessa, in my opinion, is the only other person who can challenge MASTER for the MVP.
However, many placed MASTER at only average this season, while Vanessa was expected to go 12-0 or 11-1. His team also ended 9-3, two games above Optx. His impact on Dallas is obvious, while Vanessa’s impact was expected (and equally obvious).
Vanessa could have been and arguably should have been the MVP last season. However, the impact of JasonX and Ch0mpr for the Chimera Team showed just how valuable they were to their success. While Vanessa is valuable, I have to give a very slight edge to MASTER. Maybe another Itagaki Challenge to decide the MVP?
Rookie of the Year
To cut to the chase, many people have selected Eafra and I think differently. He got extremely lucky throughout the season, with many of his wins coming into shootouts. If you know anything about soccer (or football, depending on your country of origin), you have such a small chance of blocking a shootout goal. Having been a goalie for several years, I know that it’s a guessing game. You watch your opponent’s feet and right as he plants his foot you know where the shots going and you pray. That’s it.
While I’m not trying to take anything away from Eafra, I don’t think he deserves the Rookie of the Year. While he won most of his games to my and quite a number of peoples’ surprise, his impact wasn’t too huge in matchups.
Eafra is good, don't get me wrong. In fact, I think he's one of the best FIFA players, but did he make as large of an impact for Chicago as, say, Mustang or Brawwrski did for Venom's Source team?
My opinion is no. All luck aside, Eafra played well, but it still is not as much of an impact as Mustang and Brawwrski had on Venom's Source team.
One thing I look for in a rookie is their ability to change a team and improve on the prior year's performance in that given area. For instance, Perfect Legend played better than Swoozie, but he did not really impact the team all too much. Likewise, Eafra did better than Anomaly did last year. His impact on the team was felt because he consistently brought in a point or more.
However, I believe that Mustang and Brawwrski had more of an impact on a 3-9 team than Eafra did on Chicago. They rebuilt a pathetic Dallas Venom team into the top seed with an incredible 36 point differential.
In the end though, can I choose between the two? Not really, as Counter Strike: Source is a team game, and both had an impact. I can think of times where Mustang played exceptionally well, but I also can think of others where Brawwrski won crucial rounds. I'll leave it at that; Both made an impact on the team and share the Co-Rookie of the Year award.
Most Improved Player
I love this award. Why? Because it has several meanings. A player can improve on many things, including attitude, professionalism and sportsmanship, skill, record, statistics, and probably more. To really decide who your going to select, you need to also decide what were looking at.
The standard for "Most Improved Player" typically rests in their statistics and skill and that's what I choose for my "Most Improved Player". I also look at the entire season as a whole, not towards the end. That, unfortunately, removes Coolsvilla from contention. Coolsvilla played incredibly well her last five matches, going 20-2 in her four wins and 5-3 in her one loss to Vanessa. That's fantastic, but she did not improve on her statistics from last year.
A player you could consider is MASTER. In what seemed like an impossible division to predict, MASTER came out swinging and went 11-1. His only loss came from Offbeat Ninja, his toughest opponent. He also was projected to end only average, and was considered to be "washed up" and "done with". Well, he proved everyone wrong.
One player who did improve was Stermy. Stermy was fifth place last season with a 4-8 record. This season, he performed much better, finishing in second place with a 8-4 record. The Dallas Source team, too, has an argument. They went 3-9 last season and looked extremely bad, only to bounce back and be the best Source team in the league.
Looking at these players, and teams, you have to consider one thing. Who really "improved" in skill and statistics? I believe MASTER had the skill and just found it. I think Dallas's Source team performed well, but I have to give the edge to Stermy. He has only played FIFA for a year and a half, including switching to the new FIFA08. That's strong play, and fast learning. For that, I give him the award over Dallas.
Sportsmanship Award
Honestly, and don't call me biased, but it has to be the Los Angeles CompLexity. Who else could go 0-10, lose game after game, franchise match after franchise match - many of which were very close by the way - and still listen to Jake's endless "Go shake their hand"? The only way to tell, of course, is if they were in that position.
You have to commend CompLexity for that. While they may not win any other positive awards this year, they showed that even in defeat, they can be professional.
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