The league phase of the 2025/26 UEFA Champions League (UCL) is set to begin on Tuesday, along with the competition’s official Fantasy game.
In this article, we look at the best UCL Fantasy forwards competing for a place in managers’ opening squads. There are eight in all, ranging from the most expensive to dirt-cheap.
It is worth noting that some players are unavailable after having picked up injuries recently. Napoli’s Romelu Lukaku (€8.0m), Ousmane Dembélé (€10.0m) of Paris St-Germain and Manchester City’s Omar Marmoush (€8.5m) are all expected to be sidelined for several weeks.
Others, like Serhou Guirassy (€8.0m) and Robert Lewandowski (€9.5m), will have parts to play in our UCL squads later in the group stage but trickier early fixtures see them omitted here.
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Erling Haaland (€10.5m)
Manchester City start off with a tricky home match against Napoli. But Haaland is arguably fixture-proof on current form and without Marmoush, there aren’t many alternatives to lead the City line.
The big Norwegian rattled off five goals against Moldova last week, to complement the one he scored in an earlier win over Finland. He also has five Premier League goals to his name already this season. So, that’s 11 goals in six matches already.
His underlying numbers are phenomenal, too. Despite not taking a penalty this season, he’s still registered over twice the xG as any other Premier League forward:
The three main arguments against Haaland are a) his price, b) Man City’s inconsistent form and c) the striker’s lack of assists (he has delivered only two in his last three Champions League campaigns). But this is still Erling the unstoppable goal machine we are talking about here.
City’s schedule is not too taxing in terms of difficulty level. Napoli will be the toughest test until Matchday 6; the Serie A champions had the best defensive record in Italy in 2024/25.
Viktor Gyökeres (€9m)
Arsenal finally answered the clamour for a No 9 by bringing in a player with an extraordinary record over two seasons in Portuguese football. The Sweden international returned 97 goals and 28 assists in 102 matches for Sporting Lisbon, including 11 goals and two assists in Europe.
Last season, Gjökeres’ six goals in eight Champions League matches proved he is well-equipped to deliver at this level.
Furthermore, with Kai Havertz (€7.5m) and Gabriel Jesus (€6.0m) out injured for the foreseeable, the 27-year-old has a heightened chance of starts for a team that reached the semi-finals last year and have a more benign schedule this time around.
Gjökeres has scored two goals in four Premier League matches so far, is on penalties and is a good bet to get off to a flyer as Arsenal’s Matchday 1-4 run is fairly kind.
It should be noted that Athletic Club and Atletico Madrid had the two best defensive records in La Liga last season.
But clashes with Olympiacos and Slavia Prague are caveat-free and, crucially, the Gunners are one of a handful of sides to avoid any Pot 1 team until Matchday 5 – making their players a good early pick-up for those not playing their Wildcard until halfway through the group stage.
Lautaro Martinez (€9.5m)
Lautaro Martinez is an icon at Inter Milan. Before last season, he scored more than 20 goals in three successive Serie A campaigns, but he was often criticised for not turning up in Europe.
That all changed last year when he racked up nine goals and two assists as Inter swept to the final. Martinez hit crucial strikes in both legs of the quarter-final against Bayern Munich and was also on target in their epic semi-final victory over Barcelona.
The Nerazzurri captain, who has two returns in three league matches this season as well as for Argentina against Venezuela, can thrive again this year as he has come of age in Europe.
He also couldn’t have wished for four more inviting opening league phase matches:
Strike partner Marcus Thuram (€8.0m), with three goals in as many Serie A outings this campaign, is available for €1.5m cheaper.
Harry Kane (€10.5m)
Kane’s goalscoring pedigree is simply too good to overlook. If he was very good at Tottenham Hotspur, he has moved on to another level at Bayern Munich, where he has broken all manner of scoring records. Kane has recorded 93 goals and 29 assists in 101 Bundesliga matches, including five goals and three assists in their three league two matches so far this season.
His 11 Champions League goals last season was his best return in the competition to date, indicating that he is only improving with age. The 31-year-old, who is benefitting from Vincent Kompany’s commitment to attacking football, featured highly on the stats for non-penalty shots on goal in the Champions League last season, coming fifth out of all players in the competition.
2024/25 Champions League – Top five players npShot
With Luis Diaz (€7.5m), Michael Olise (€8.0m) and Serge Gnabry (€6.5m) to provide him with the bullets, Kane, who was on target for England in the international break, might even shoot past last season’s tally.
Bayern have a tough opener against Chelsea, so there’s an argument to bring him in for Matchdays 2 and 3 if you’ve got the luxury of a free transfer:
Matchday 4 is a hopping-off point as Arsenal and PSG follow at that point.
Luis Suarez (€5.0m)
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