World Cup quarter-final team selections and the tournament’s heroes and villains have hogged the submissions and hot topics generated by the community this week. Back home, the launch of Sky Sports’ Fantasy Game was also discussed, as was the Premier League’s potential hot prospects and weakest links for the season ahead. We recall the key contributions from the community over the past week, whilst also dropping in on the current crop of World Cup tournaments and competitions.

The Community Articles

Preparation for the knockout stages and the weekend’s last eight of the World Cup were the major focus of this week’s submissions. Balotellis Bib was in fine form once again, guiding the community on the key squad selection decisions. He was on hand to look at the major lessons learnt from the group stages and last 16 ties, whilst also provideding this excellent guide to navigating the knockout rounds in the Official FIFA Fantasy game.

Another of our most prolific writers, Daniel Levy 16, also came forward to offer sound advice for those scanning for a bargain in the Official game. His rundown of the best budget goalkeepers and defenders and midfielders provided essential reading as the transfer window swung open.

Each month, we have a £20 Amazon voucher on offer to the author of the best community article as chosen by you. We will launch a Hot Topic to gather your votes and remind you of some of the best of June’s community articles on Monday. The winner will be revealed in next week’s Round-up.

The Hottest Topics

With just the semi finals and finals left to play, many of the World Cup’s heroes and villains have already made themselves known. In answer to Irish Madrista’s call to name the World Cup’s most sensational surprises, DonaldDuckSnr has been impressed with the performances of the Algerian, Costa Rican and Greek outfits, while Siva Mohan was among many to nominate Colombian pair James Rodriguez and Juan Cuadrado as the tournament’s surprise packages.

Meanwhile, Heydudes13’s hot topic explored the best prospects available at the back in the Official FIFA game, with Holland’s Stefan de Vrij earning special praise. Germany’s last 16 goal hero Andre Schurrle is a favourite of Willis and gained a special mention in our look ahead to the quarter finals clashes.

Elsewhere, Gnu and A SquishyPotato looked at the villainous bunch who have failed to live up to their pre-tournament billing. In Gnu’s assessment of the tournament’s biggest flops, Juan Carlos nominated the entire England team, while Ginkapo placed Spain’s squad at the top of the flop charts. Sheep, meanwhile gave a long list of World Cup 2014 failures, including Wayne Rooney, Leighton Baines and Eden Hazard. ASquishyPotato’s World Cup disappointment XI included Steven Gerrard, as well as Ecuador skipper and United winger, Antonia Valencia.

For DHWizzo the entire Brazil squad have been a let down. In one of the week’s most popular posts, he explained his argument for avoiding their assets in the closing rounds, particularly their suspect defence. For those wanting to find more evidence of World Cup heroics and villainy, Jared Mason’s excellent player statistics for the Official FIFA Fantasy game will prove interesting reading.

The community was also in nostalgic mood this week, taking time out to look back and name some of their favourite ever World Cup goals. Maradona’s second strike against England in the Mexico World Cup of 1986 was the top choice for Aaron Ramessi among others. Meanwhile, our resident quizmaster The Fantasy Freak, looked back fondly at Papa Bouba Diop’s shock winner against France in 2002.

Domestic football issues are creeping into the community’s thoughts and this week saw us assess the field of the new Premier League recruits. Evs and D1sable were among those to predict a successful Premier League return for Chelsea’s new midfielder and former Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas. Sherlock Holmes, however, foresee’s a poor debut season for another new Chelsea arrival, Diego Costa.

This week also saw the early launch of the Sky Sports Game, which, this season, includes the addition of a new 3-4-3 formation, along with at testing player price list. Croatia Deserves More Mata and Zepinho were among those to find the player values restrictive. Gigging Order, who topped the Sky component of last season’s Iron Man community tournament, stated that, given the tough pricing, 3-5-2 may well be the formation of choice.

Finally, Irish Madridsta started one of our longest ever discussion threads when he asked for the community’s favourite movie-title and footballer crossovers. There followed an epic multi-page run of some of the most ludicrous movie based puns around, with Applebonkers’ The Quantum of Rod Wallace, Billy Gilmore’s Finding Neymar and Bubz’s 2001 A Space Odemwingie among the many highlights from more than a dozen pages of cinematic word play. The puns flowed at such a rate that The Fantasy Freak even had to abandon his regular pre-match quiz.

The Community Tournaments

Following the quarter final matches an impressive 22 of our Fox league members are in the top 50 of the overall rankings. With 425 points our league leader, Alba Esque, is third overall. Arvin United leads the Fox FFS Deadzone league, while Roscola continues to dominate the Fox moderators and contributors league.

Ceac90 tops the Scout League in the McDonald’s backed Official World Cup game: he also sits fifth in the overall ranks, just five points off the summit.

For the latest in the FFS UEFA World Cup team competition, which is using the Official FIFA Fantasy game, click here.