Compete for real prizes in the free-to-play Sorare Academy this weekend

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The Premier League may have been on a break last weekend but our Sorare Academy managers didn’t stop. We had 3,999 entrants, just a little shy of our busiest Gameweek ever, and our managers put together teams full of the very best players that Europe has to offer.

GET STARTED WITH THE FREE-TO-PLAY SORARE ACADEMY HERE 

Last gameweek

Our winning manager last Gameweek was Zvone39. Their team had a core of PSG players – Achrif Hakimi, Marco Verratti, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé – plus Thibaut Courtois in goal. That’s some team!

Altogether, the team hauled 405 points, putting Zvone39 just one point clear of the next manager – fine margins, indeed.

PSG players were a feature across many of the teams in the top ten and Messi was the only player to score 100 points last Gameweek, so the managers who picked him definitely had a head start.

Remember, all of our top ten managers take home a Sorare player card prize, which you can build a team around to compete for more prizes in the main game, or sell and take the money – it’s your choice!

Entering takes only a few minutes and you have a free hand to pick any player you want from a Sorare-licensed team in Europe’s top five leagues: a goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, forward and one extra outfield player.

Choosing the extra player is always an interesting dilemma. Our winners almost always pick either a midfielder or a forward for the extra slot, overlooking defenders. That’s an understandable choice to make: when you’re competing for the very top places you need the players who can make an explosive contribution to the game, like the hat-trick hero or the guy with a brace of assists.

Messi’s perfect 100 was partly due to that explosive contribution, wth 70 points coming from a goal and assist in PSG’s thrashing of Lille. The other 30 points were from his all-around contribution to the game, specifically for his passing and attacking play. When he’s firing on all cylinders, there’s barely anyone better designed for this game. But then, he’s the ‘GOAT’, right?

This gameweek

We’ve got some tasty fixtures ahead with strong fixtures for some of the big European teams. 

Liverpool, the main Premier League club available on Sorare, are away to bottom-of-the-table Burnley this weekend so that looks particularly appealing. Mohamed Salah should have shaken off his AFCON blues by then and who would bet against him making a solid contribution? 

German juggernauts Bayern Munich are up against struggling VfL Bochum, the second lowest-scoring team in the league. It could be a good time to pile on their defensive assets, or perhaps even stack the whole team if you really fancy them (there’s no limit on the number of players you can pick from the same team in the Sorare Academy)

In France, PSG have got a tricky-looking match against Rennes, so that might give some pause for thought. As an alternative, you may want to look at the AS Monaco team who are really flying at the moment. They’re at home to relegation candidates Lorient so I can imagine a few managers will consider lining up Wissam Ben Yedder or Aurélien Tchouameni in their teams.

The La Liga match-ups look a bit tighter but Atlético Madrid and Sevilla both have reasonably good games on home turf, so could be worth considering, although neither have any real standout players.

Likewise, in Serie A, some of the big guns are facing off against each other, with Milan and Lazio probably having the best fixtures of a difficult bunch; the Milinković-Savic–Immobile combo could be an interesting differential this week.

Making the final decision on who to pick

With so much choice, how do you narrow it down?

That’s a tough one, and you could spend hours agonising over who to slot into your teams but as a free-to-play game, you’re ok to go with your gut too and see this as a bit of fun. 

Personally, I look at three things (in this order):

• The player’s potential to hit explosive (+80) scores
• Fixture difficulty
• Player form

You can check the player’s scoring potential and form by looking at their last five scores on our site. Taking PSG as an example, you can see why our winning manager this week went for a core of their players:

Once you’ve pinpointed your perfect team, all that’s left to do is to figure out who to put the captain’s armband on for the extra 20% – for me, there is one obvious choice this weekend:

Don’t forget to get your teams set before the deadline at 11:00am UK time on Friday and please tell your friends about Sorare Academy, as the more people we can get playing, the more prizes we can offer. Good luck!

GET STARTED WITH THE FREE-TO-PLAY SORARE ACADEMY HERE 

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