Champions League 2014/15 – Fantasy iTeam Rule Guide

As we revealed in the middle of last week, FantasyiTeam (FiT) is one of the first games to launch for the upcoming Champions League campaign. Having supported their popular World Cup game, we’ve joined forces again to cover Europe’s elite club competition as Carlo Ancelotti’s Real Madrid attempt to pick up the silverware for the second successive season.

A free Fantasy football app, FiT is available on a number of mobile devices, including iPhone, iPad, iPodTouch and Android. It’s free to download and play, so you can already go in and start drafting up your starting XI with unlimited transfers.

We’ll be supporting FiT throughout the competition and have an official Fantasy Football Scout League, with an iPad mini available to the winner. There’s also a VIP European Match Day Experience for two on offer for the overall winner of the FantasyiTeam Champions League game.

In our second article on the game, we take a closer look at the rules and scoring system and also analyse the principles involved when making transfers, monitoring price changes and maximising your squad for each Gameweek.

Team Selection

Similarly to their World Cup game, the FiT Champions League game hands Fantasy managers an initial budget of £75m to select our starting XI. In terms of formation, there are seven systems (4-4-2, 4-3-3, 4-5-1, 5-4-1, 5-3-2, 3-5-2 or 3-4-3) available to choose from – just like the Fantasy Premier League (FPL) game, you must have at least three defenders and no more than a trio of forwards in your line-up.
For the initial group stages and first knockout round, you can pick a maximum of four players from any side. This quota increases as the tournament progresses, though – rising to five in the quarter-finals and six in both the semi-finals and final.

Scoring Points

The scoring system is relatively straightforward. Any player who starts a game is awarded two points, though an appearance off the bench earns a single point.

Keepers and defenders both benefit from clean sheets. Providing they play 60+ minutes and the team doesn’t concede, they earn five points, though a single point is lost for every goal against. If a game goes to extra-time, a team will only register a clean sheet if they fail to concede over the entire 120 minutes.

In terms of goals scored, keepers and defenders are awarded seven points for finding the net, whilst midfielders pick up six points and forwards five. An assist is worth three points, regardless of position.*

Disciplinary-wise, a red card deducts five points from a player’s score, though yellows do not have any detrimental effect. Spot-kicks are also crucial – keepers earn five points for saving a penalty, whilst a missed attempt deducts three points from the taker’s total. This does not apply to penalty shoot-outs, however.

As in the FPL game, Captains earn us double points. A skipper can be set anytime, as long as it is 10 minutes before kick-off. You are however, only allowed one captain per Gameweek, but if the first captain you select doesn’t play AND is not on the bench, then you can choose another armband option in that Game Round.

When the games kick off, it’s worth mentioning that you can also follow the action via the Matchday Centre, with goals and assists updated as they happen.

*To elaborate on the official assist rules:

“Assists are awarded to the player who makes the last touch before the goal is scored and he must be from the goal scoring team. If after this last touch by a player of the goal scoring team, a player from the opposing team touches the ball inside the penalty area, altering the intended direction of the ball, the assist is still given. If a penalty is given, the player earning the penalty will receive an assist if a goal is directly scored, but not if he takes the penalty himself. This rule DOES NOW apply to players winning free-kicks. All assists are carefully reviewed, but remain provisional until verification is obtained. To avoid doubt, points awarded are subject to change until the Gameweek ends, at which point no further adjustments will be made.”

Transfers

The FiT Champions League game consists of 13 Game Rounds – six for the group stages and a further seven spanning the knockouts. Listed below is the breakdown of this season’s schedule.

Unlimited Transfers Until 7.35pm (BST) Tuesday September 16

Game Round 1 – two transfer credits with the option to buy a third
Game Round 2 – two transfer credits with the option to buy a third
Game Round 3 – three transfer credits with the option to buy a fourth
Game Round 4 – two transfer credits with the option to buy a third
Game Round 5 – two transfer credits with the option to buy a third
Game Round 6 – two transfer credits with the option to buy a third

Unlimited Transfers from Thursday December 11 Until 7.35pm (GMT) Tuesday February 17

KNOCKOUT STAGE 1 – ROUND OF 16 (maximum players of four per club)
Game Round 7 – three transfer credits with the option to buy a fourth
Game Round 8 – two transfer credits with the option to buy a third

QUARTER FINAL – (increase to maximum players of five per club)
Game Round 9 – three transfer credits with the option to buy a fourth
Game Round 10 – two transfer credits with the option to buy a third

SEMI FINAL – (increase to maximum players of six per club)
Game Round 11 – three transfer credits with the option to buy a fourth
Game Round 12 – two transfer credits with the option to buy a third

FINAL – (maximum six players per club)
Game Round 13 – three transfer credits with the option to buy a fourth

As you can see, we’re handed two free transfers per Game Round to restructure our side on eight occasions – essentially giving us 13 players per round – though there is also the option to purchase a third, “Additional Transfer” per round, it costs 100 FiT Credits to do so. Five of the Game Rounds hand up three free trades, however, with the option again of purchasing a further transfer.

Transfers do not roll over each Game Round – essentially, you use ‘em or lose ‘em. Once the group stages are over, we’re handed unlimited transfers to restructure our sides before the first match of the knockout stages gets underway.

Finally, it’s crucial that your trades must be made at least 10 minutes before a game gets underway in order for the transfer to go through. Basically, this rule is advantageous to the more active Fantasy manager, affording us the chance to monitor teamsheets and fine-tune our tinkering prior to kick-off.

Player Prices

Keeping an eye on the transfer market is advised. The iTeam game uses a PlayerDAQ index which changes every six hours in accordance with player popularity – like FPL, it’ll pay to keep abreast of the bandwagons and watch out for price drops in order to maximise our team budgets.

This could play a key part in how we assess our transfers. Due to the way the fixtures fall in each round, those players who prove popular picks on Tuesday night are more susceptible to decrease sharply in value after they’ve played due to the fact that many Fantasy managers tend not to wait on the next day’s line-ups before making their trades.

For example, in Game Round 1, Cristiano Ronaldo plays at home to FC Basel on Tuesday September 16. The Real Madrid striker starts the FantasyiTeam game at 10.1m but bearing in mind the identically-priced Lionel Messi hosts APOEL Nicosia the following evening, Ronaldo could drop to 9.8, for example, and Messi subsequently climb to 10.4 before the latter even takes to the pitch, if many, as expected, swap him in for the former United man. Bear in mind, though, that you retain the points accrued from any transfer out, so if Ronaldo bags a hat-trick, you still keep his points – there’s no ‘stick or twist’ scenario in the FantasyiTeam game.

The DAQ is based purely on popularity, so it doesn’t matter if Ronaldo scores five or gets sent off, this would still happen. Given that this significant fluctuation has the potential to affect many managers’ transfer plans for Game Round 1, it’s clear just how crucial monitoring the market is to the FantasyiTeam game.

FANTASY FOOTBALL SCOUT LEAGUE

We’ve already set up an official Fantasy Football Scout league for you to join, with an iPad mini on offer to the winner – the league name is Fantasy Football Scout and the pin is 11155.