Sweden take on Switzerland in Saint Petersburg this afternoon with over a fifth of Fantasy managers banking on the Swedes’ penalty-taking central defender.

Andreas Granqvist (£5.2m) has already scored twice from the spot this summer and now finds himself in 20.5% of McDonald’s FIFA squads ahead of his country’s last-16 tie with Switzerland at 3pm.

A record-breaking 27 penalties have been awarded in the 2018 World Cup so far at a rate of one every other fixture.

Granqvist’s wife is due to give birth to the couple’s second child today, but the centre-back nevertheless starts and leads his country out.

Granqvist’s goal threat extends beyond spot-kick duties: the 33-year-old stopper has had four other attempts on goal from inside the opposition area, while Gerard Pique is the only defender to have had more penalty box touches than Granqvist (nine).

Owners of Ricardo Rodriguez (£5.4m) could have an explosive differential on their hands: the Swiss full-back is in just 2.1% of Fantasy squads, despite being on spot-kick duties for his country.

Joshua Kimmich is the only defender to have fired over more crosses than Rodriguez (21), who has also made four key passes and created one big chance without reward.

Stephan Lichtsteiner (£5.3m), Switzerland’s other attack-minded full-back, is suspended for today’s encounter, along with Fabian Schar (£5.3m).

With a goal and an assist to his name already, Xherdan Shaqiri (£8.5m) is the most-owned player in this Switzerland side (6% of Fantasy bosses have selected the Stoke City midfielder in their squads).

Viktor Claesson (£5.6m) recorded attacking returns in all three of Sweden’s group matches and the midfielder’s ownership has now broken the 10% barrier for the first time this summer.

Ludwig Augustinsson (£5.1m), who scored and kept a clean sheet in the Swedes’ 3-0 win over Mexico, is now in 5.1% of McDonald’s FIFA squads.

Sweden XI (4-4-2): Olsen; Lustig, Lindelof, Granqvist, Augustinsson; Claesson, Svensson, Ekdal, Forsberg; Berg, Toivonen

Switzerland XI (4-2-3-1): Sommer; Lang, Djourou, Akanji, Rodriguez; Behrami, Xhaka; Shaqiri, Dzemaili, Zuber; Drmic

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, 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 detailing 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.