In the latest of our articles from our team of contributors, Zophar – who has eight top 10k FPL finishes to his name – discusses his Euro 2024 Fantasy team.
He also talks chip strategy and captaincy ahead of Friday’s Matchday 1 deadline.
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The start of the European Championship is only a few days away now and after a nice break after the conclusion of the Premier League, I am really looking forward to having live, competitive football on my TV screen again.
The timing of the matches is quite convenient for those of us living in India, with all three games kicking off after work hours. I’m looking forward to playing tournament Fantasy Football for the first time since 2010.
Chip Strategy Initial thoughts
The popular strategy going around is to play a chip in Matchdays 2 and 3. Many of the popular teams have a tough game in Matchday 2, while Matchday 3 might bring rotation with certain nations already qualified.
We get unlimited transfers the week after, so there is an opportunity here to essentially select four different teams for every matchday – which seems quite fun. I think the big gains will be in the early rounds with mismatches, rather than in the knockout stage, so this strategy makes sense.
My FPL Wire podcast cohost Pras has suggested an alternative strategy. Here, you don’t play a chip in Matchday 2 and save one for the quarter-finals in case there are any upsets in the last 16. That way, you can use the unlimited transfers in the round of 16 like a Free Hit, similar to how you would in the earlier strategy in Matchday 2.
I think this is quite viable, as well, so I am trying to be flexible and go back to the old FPL mantra of picking ‘good players from good teams’ who I would be comfortable fielding in Matchday 2. I think I would still be picking the likes of Kylian Mbappe (€11.0m), Harry Kane (€11.0m), Romelu Lukaku (€9.0m) etc anyway so I do see merit in Pras’s point.
There will be more discussion on this on the FPL Wire with my co-hosts Lateriser and Pras so I am open to being convinced on both.
Team selection
Defenders
I’m quite conflicted with how to set up my defence. There are so many cheap, good options available like Marc Guehi (€4.5m), Jonathan Tah (€4.5m), Maximilian Middlestadt (€4.0m) and Wout Faes (€4.0m) that you could conceivably make with a great defence with a max spend of €5.0m, alongside Federico Dimarco (€5.0m). But then the likes of Joao Cancelo (€6.0m), Theo Hernandez (€5.5m), Joakim Maehle (€5.5m) and Denzel Dumfries (€5.5m) are capable of huge hauls with their attacking potential, and they arguably offer much more than the €5.5m-€6.0m midfielders. I’ve tried to achieve a balance with Cancelo, Hernandez, Dimarco, Mittelstadt and Faes but downgrading one or two of them could allow me to spend more in midfield.
Midfielders
Thanks for reading!
We will be discussing Groups D, E and F, chip strategy, captaincy and thoughts so far on the friendlies on the June 13 edition of The FPL Wire.
We have already covered Groups A, B and C in an earlier episode, which you can check out here.
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GROUP A: Palmeiras | Porto | Al Ahly | Inter Miami
GROUP B: PSG | Atletico Madrid | Botafogo | Seattle Sounders
GROUP C: Bayern Munich | Auckland City | Boca Juniors | Benfica
GROUP D: Flamengo | ES Tunis | Chelsea | Los Angeles FC
GROUP E: River Plate | Urawa Red Diamonds | Monterrey | Inter Milan
GROUP F: Fluminense | Borussia Dortmund | Ulsan HD | Mamelodi Sundowns
GROUP G: Manchester City | Wydad Casablanca | Al Ain | Juventus
GROUP H: Real Madrid | Al Hilal | Pachuca | Red Bull Salzburg
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