With Uruguay and Ghana progressing to the Quarter-Finals, the focus for Fantasy Managers now turns to the task of predicting those sides set to join them in the last eight.
Having played the money market in McFIFA, it’s now about maximising the free transfers available to ensure that our lineups can grant us a decent number of available players, without the need to splash out on extra moves in the transfer market…
The emergence of Luis Suarez as a Golden Boot contender with his brace against South Korea may well tempt early tinkerings, while those in possession of the unfortunate Landon Donovan surely have themselves a clear like for like replacement in terms of price in the shape of the Uruguayan. Donovan produced the goods again with a spot-kick equaliser but his third goal of the tournament wasn’t enough and it was left to Ghana’s Asamoah Gyan to fire the winner and promote himself as a Quarter-Final budget option up front.
Those who had already invested in Ghana’s talents can count themselves unfortunate. While Fantasy owners of Andre Ayew and Kevin-Prince Boateng got their money’s worth in this round, they seem unlikely to enjoy continued profits. Ayew is ruled out of the Quarter-Final along with John Mensah after picking up a second booking against USA, while Boateng was replaced on 76 minutes with what appeared to be a hamstring injury. We await news on his situation leading up to the Quarter-Final on Friday.
Uruguayan investment seems more likely to pay off. The defence may have conceded their first goal of the tournament against the Koreans but Fantasy owners of keeper Fernando Muslera and the likes of Maximiliano Pareira in front of him will surely sit tight with the opportunity of renewed returns against the Africans in the last eight. If anything, with the allocation of players per team raised to six for the Quarter-Finals in the McFIFA game, I’d expect to see further investment coming the way of Uruguay with Jorge Fucile in defence and Edinson Cavani up front providing budget routes to last eight starts.
With uncertainty our greatest enemy right now, our best option is surely to reserve our judgement until the last eight takes shape further. Argentina go into their game with Mexico today as red hot favourites to seal a Quarter-Final place but the England vs Germany encounter is very much in the balance.
Today’s results will surely spawn a flurry of transfer activity as squads are flushed of redundant talent. Should England prevail, there will be thousands in the market with some big cash to spend in defence – Germany’s Philipp Lahm remains the most owned defender in the McFIFA game with over a third of managers welcoming the Bayern full-back to their squads. Teammate Mesut Ozil and Mexico’s Rafael Marquez and Giovani Dos Santos have also been popular targets in this round and should Argentina and England prevail, we’d see cash from their sales flood back into the market.
I am of course getting well ahead of myself here. There’s a tortuous 90 minutes and perhaps extra-time and penalties to go this evening before any of this really matters. Thousands of us will go into today’s matches with Lionel Messi sporting our Fantasy armbands, but while most of us will expect that faith to be repaid against the Mexicans, few of us can have any degree of certainty when it comes to the returns from the English and German contingent in our lineups. It’s a delicious prospect and I’m too nervous to eat already.
Enjoy the game. Somehow.