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Another week, another record! A total of 4,818 of you entered teams last week, so we’re closing in on the big 5k.
To celebrate, together with our partners at Sorare, we are offering an additional five cards per week. That’s 15 cards up for grabs every tournament and it costs precisely zero to enter.
Perhaps even better, we have been able to upgrade our servers after the increased demand caused a slowing down. Last week was a much smoother experience, so I am told!
Enter a team now and try to get one of those 15 cards. It only takes a few minutes and it’s totally free.
GET STARTED here
Let’s look at last week’s winner and then turn our attention to the upcoming tournament.
Our Winner
Last week was tough. Our winner, Idiocrate86, was not far short of 500 points, which is a huge total. All of his players contributed very strongly.
He picked a squad of very obvious big hitters, which paid off. There is a risk, though: the two managers who came second and third picked exactly the same team.
The tiebreaker is that Idiocrate picked his team first. So, if you are going to go for five well-known big hitters, it’s better to get your team locked in on Tuesday or Wednesday rather than wait for the Friday deadline.
This is also why many people include at least one differential who can separate them from the pack.
Entering a team for this week
It’s a really easy game to play and, to make it even easier, I’ll share some team selection thoughts for the weekend.
Fixtures
Just like Fantasy Premier League (FPL), I tend to start with looking at the fixtures. I have a tool on my website for this:
The green column on the right is the algorithm’s prediction of the team’s chances of winning.
Inter have a great fixture and are generally not quite as heavily used, so their big hitters might be good to target this week, rather than the usual Bayerns and Manchester Citys.
Both of those teams feature on this list. The algorithm expects them to win comfortably but Manchester United and Bayer Leverkusen are not exactly pushovers.
Liverpool at home against West Ham United is promising, as all FPL fans will know already. Stade Rennais creep up there vs Angers – the algorithm is onto something there, as Rennes have scored eight goals over the last two games.
Lille and Barcelona round out the best of the fixtures, and both provide interesting options that will not be widely selected.
Form
The Academy makes it really easy to see how players have been doing recently. Hakan Calhanoglu has been on an average run knocking around the 50-point mark.
However, if you have been watching his recent games, you’ll note he’s been unlucky not to get a goal and/or assist. The recent scores are a quick guide and I often use them for this free-to-play Academy game. However, if/when you get more advanced in the main Sorare game, you’ll want to be checking out what really happened in recent matches to get an advantage.
I will look for something at Rennes given that juicy fixture. There is big differential potential. The in-form Martin Terrier could be a great shout. I used to follow Terrier in his time at Lyon a couple of years ago, where bad luck and injury really set his development back. It’s nice to see him finally kicking on – it’s four goals in six games for him.
Lille are promising, so defender Sven Botman and forward Jonathan Bamba would be my picks.
At Barcelona, wonderkid Pedri always looks good and he is in great form. Frankie de Jong is very consistent too. They haven’t been keeping too many clean sheets, otherwise I might have gone for Jordi Alba.
Liverpool, Bayern Munich and Manchester City all provide great options but it is fairly easy to see who they are just by looking at the Academy form guide.
The Final Cut
After last week, where lots of similar teams had to go to a tie-break, I’m going with what I think is a strong line-up of differentials. At least it was until I put it here on Fantasy Football Scout! Although, at least I have entered it first…
Remember the Friday deadline is at 11:00am UK time. And please share the league with your friends so we can hit 5,000 players!
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