Champions League Fantasy Football

We touched on the elite defensive options in part one , along with some background info on how to think about defender value in the UCL game. For ease of viewing I am going to re-post the two viz's here, namely the balls recovered data, and the team goals conceded projections from 538. If you read part one, these will be familiar. Budget (4.0m-4.5m) There seems to be an unequivocal winner here in Jules Kounde (4.0m) , who looks like a lock in a very good Sevilla defense (ranked third above) and even posted solid balls recovered numbers last season which have improved further in the first handful of games this season. Unfortunately 30% of managers have also unearthed this gem which really dampens the appeal, but it's probably too cute to not pick him just because he's popular given how solid this pick is. The only other potentially viable 4.0m defender I can see is Jerome Onguene (4.0m) at Salzburg, though he doesn't appear to be completely locke...

One of the key differences between Champions League fantasy football and other formats (with FPL being the most prominent) is the importance of when a team plays in a given week (or "matchday" as the folks at UEFA have somewhat confusingly titled each two days of action). In FPL, for example, you might have a personal preference to not have your captain in the lunch time kick off, as a bad score can lower your feelings about the week, but there isn't any actual advantage either way. In UCL though, the ability to substitute players who offered little or no returns on Tuesday with someone playing on Wednesday is a huge advantage that needs to be carefully considered. Maximizing this strategy allows you to achieve a number of important advantages: If your captain options play on different days then you essentially get two shots at a big haul every week. You still won't always pick your actual top scorer (if your first option scores 8 points you will likely keep the armb...