Portugal v Morocco is the first of today’s trilogy of World Cup matches, with all eyes on the £12.0m forward who breached the Spanish defence three times last Friday: Cristiano Ronaldo.

Almost as if he was irked by Fantasy managers overlooking him in Gameround 1, the Real Madrid star duly delivered the only hat-trick of the World Cup so far and was the most bought player in McDonald’s FIFA ahead of the second set of group fixtures commencing.

Around 132,000 new Fantasy managers have paid top money for the Portugal captain ahead of their meeting with Morocco, who will become the first nation to be eliminated from the World Cup if they lose their 1pm fixture in Moscow.

Ronaldo, who sat in just 8% of Fantasy squads before Portugal’s 3-3 draw with Spain, is now owned by almost a quarter of those playing the McDonald’s FIFA World Cup game: the five-times Ballon d’Or winner’s 24.2% ownership means he is by far the most popular Fantasy asset on show in this lunchtime Group B encounter.

Bernardo Silva (£8.0m) and Pepe (£6.0m) are the next most-owned Portuguese assets who are set to play this afternoon, though with ownerships of less than 4% they are very much in the differential bracket.

Goncalo Guedes (£7.5m), the only other Portugal player to deliver more than just appearance points in that thriller with their Iberian rivals, is now owned by 1.8% of Fantasy managers after his assist for Ronaldo’s second goal.

One caveat to gambling big on Portuguese attacking assets: despite scoring on three occasions in their first group fixture, Portugal ranked joint-bottom for shots taken inside the box (three, the same total Tunisia managed in their loss to England).

It’s win, draw or bust for Morocco, meanwhile, but their two most-bought players are defenders: Mehdi Benatia (£5.0m) and Achraf Hakimi (£4.5m). The pair are owned by 4.3% and 3.5% of Fantasy managers respectively, though their ownerships have unsurprisingly dwindled since that disappointing opening-match loss to Iran.

Portugal XI: Patricio; Cedric, Pepe, Fonte, Guerreiro; William, Moutinho, Joao Mario, Bernardo Silva; Guedes, Ronaldo

Morocco XI: Mohamedi; Dirar, Da Costa, Benatia, Hakimi; El Ahmadi, Boussoufa, Belhanda, N. Amrabat, Ziyech; Boutaib

World Cup Data

We’re delighted to offer World Cup data as an early addition to our regular season offering to help those playing Fantasy games over the summer.

We’ve secured Opta data, not only for the tournament itself, which begins on June 14 but also from the Qualifying Rounds for Europe and South America and for international friendlies involving the participating nations. This includes all the matches played right up to the tournament kick-off.

Just to stress, this World Cup offering comes packaged with the regular Fantasy Football Scout membership.

Check out this new trailer previewing the World Cup content below…

McDonald’s FIFA World Cup Fantasy

Join our McDonald’s FIFA World Cup Fantasy league ‘FantasyFootballScout’ using the code: HEWJPVYR

Fantasy iTeam

Fantasy Football Scout is supporting Fantasy iTeam, a free World Cup game available on a number of mobile devices, including iPhone, iPad, iPodTouch and Android. We have an official Fantasy Football Scout League open to UK users only, with a £1000 of Amazon vouchers to give out, split between the top three performers. There’s also the small matter of £10k worth of prizes available in the main competitions: Overall World Championship and Manager of the Gameround.

Click here for details and here to sign up.

Our League name is Fantasy Football Scout and the pin is 1887.

Please note, users must be over 18 and based in the UK to join our league.