Diego Godin (£5.5m) remains the most popular World Cup Fantasy asset for a third successive Uruguay match, but Denis Cheryshev (£5.5m) is not far behind the Atletico Madrid man.
Their two nations meet today at 3pm BST to decide who will win Group A, while Saudi Arabia and Egypt play out a dead rubber concurrently.
25.1 percent of those playing McDonald’s FIFA World Cup Fantasy have Godin in their squads while Cheryshev’s latest scoring exploits have pulled him up to 19.7 percent ownership.
The Villarreal midfielder was the most transferred player ahead of Gameround 3 earning 175,000+ new owners. His three goals in two matches have made him the most valuable player in World Cup Fantasy averaging 3.6 points per million so far.
There remains interest in Cheryshev’s midfield team-mates too. 12.4 percent Fantasy managers have opted to cover Russia’s attack with the budget-priced Yuri Gazinksy (£4.5m) while 10.9 percent upgraded to the more expensive Aleksandr Golovin (£6.5m), only to see him left out of the starting line-up.
Godin’s popularity stems from Uruguay’s consecutive clean sheets in Russia but also as a result of his sureness of start. Oscar Tabarez is set to use today’s fixture to experiment with a new 3-5-2 formation after 4-4-2 has made his side look laboured in attack thus far.
Jose Gimenez (£5.5m) and Guillermo Varela (£4.5m) have both missed out due to the switch.
Despite combining for 29 goal involvements in qualifying Luis Suarez (£10.5m) and Edinson Cavani (£9.5m) have found the net just once between them at the World Cup. Accordingly the Fantasy punters have largely stayed away, Cavani with just seven percent ownership and 6.2 percent invested in Suarez.
Just two players have attracted interest in Egypt’s match with rivals Saudi Arabia. Mohamed Salah (£8.5m) is the more fashionable of the two with 12.8 percent ownership, while 10.1 percent have opted to include Ahmed Hegazy (£4.5m) in their squads.
THE STARTING LINE-UPS:
SAUDI ARABIA XI (4-3-2-1): Al-Mosilem; Osama Hawsawi, Al-Burayk, Al-Shahrani, M Hawsawi; Al-Faraj, Hatan, Otayf; Al-Mogahwi, Al-Dawsari; Al-Muwallad
EGYPT XI (4-2-3-1): El-Hadary; Abdel Shafy, Hegazy, Gabr, Fathy; Hamed, Elneny; Trezeguet, Said, Salah; Mohsen.
URUGUAY XI (3-5-2): Muslera; Coates, Godin, Caceres; Laxalt, Torreira, Bentancur, Vecino, Nandez; Suarez, Cavani.
RUSSIA XI (4-2-3-1): Akinfeev; Kudryashov, Kutepov, Ignashevich, Smolnikov; Gazinskiy, Zobnin; Cheryshev, Aleksey Miranchuk, Samedov; Dzyuba.
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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.
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