Matchday 1 of UEFA Champions League (UCL) Fantasy kicks off on Tuesday evening – so it’s time to nail down our Scout Picks ahead of the deadline.
Remember, these selections are for the upcoming Matchday in isolation. UCL Fantasy also allows manual substitutions from calendar day to calendar day, so it’s a strong squad of 15 we want and not a mere starting XI with unusable bench fodder.
For everything else to help you get off to a fast start in UCL Fantasy, check out our complete guide here.
UCL Matchday 1 Scout Picks
BENFICA TRIPLE-UP…
Six of our 15-strong squad ply their trade in Portugal.
Three are from Benfica: goalkeeper Anatoliy Trubin (€4.5m), defender Nicolas Otamendi (€5.0m) and forward Vangelis Pavlidis (€7.0m).
While Benfica are a decent outfit (they reached the Champions League round of 16 in 2024/25), it’s undoubtedly a fixture-led triple-up.
Opponents Qarabag are one of the tournament’s rank outsiders, given only a 0.9% of progressing to the knockout rounds directly by the bookies. The Azerbaijani champions came 36th out 36th in their UEFA Europa League campaign last season, losing seven out of their eight group matches. Their defensive frailties were even exposed in their victorious Champions League 2024/25 play-off round, when they squeaked past Ferencvaros 5-4 on aggregate.
Benfica are the bookies’ second-favourites for a clean sheet in Matchday 1.
While we may be looking at a six-point ceiling for Trubin and hoping for some ball recovery points to supplement Otamendi’s likely shut-out (the former Manchester City man was good for those last season), there is hope that Pavlidis can bag a double-digit haul.
Benfica’s main man up top was a hit in the Champions League last season, scoring seven goals and assisting a further three in 11 starts.
He should have a greater share of penalties now, however, after Angel Di Maria departed in the summer.
…AND SPORTING TRIPLE-UP
There’s only one team that the bookmakers fancy less than Qarabag: tournament debutants Kairat Almaty.
The minnows from Kazakhstan had to overcome a 2-0 loss to Finnish side KuPS in the second round of Champions League qualifying, relying on penalty shootouts to progress in their next two ties – one of which saw a dismal Celtic side eliminated.
As if they didn’t have enough on their plate, Kairat also have the long-haul flight to end all long-haul flights in Matchday 1. The easternmost team to ever qualify for the Champions League group stage will break the record for the longest trip in UEFA competitions, travelling over 7,000km to Portugal!
Sporting provide the opposition and indeed the next three of our Scout Picks.
Geovany Quenda (€5.0m) is classified as a defender in UCL Fantasy but likely to play in a right-wing role on Thursday. He has three assists already to his name in the league this season.
Further forward, we’ve gone with the corner-taking Pedro Goncalves (€6.5m) and the budget-friendly striker Luis Suarez (€5.0m) – not that one.
Goncalves has produced four goals and three assists in just five league matches this season, while Suarez has netted three goals and two assists. The cheap forward is on penalties, too.
FLYING FULL-BACKS/WING-BACKS – AND A £4.0M ‘KEEPER
After that dalliance with some new faces, we return to some old favourites to round off our defence.
Denzel Dumfries (€6.0m), Achraf Hakimi (€6.0m) and Alex Grimaldo (€6.0m) were staples of many UCL Fantasy squads this season, delivering lots of attacking returns from full-back/wing-back.
Despite witnessing a change in manager this summer, Dumfries is still a marauding wing-back – and he has scored or assisted in three of his previous four games for club and country.
Hakimi was UCL Fantasy’s leading points-scorer last season, delivering four goals and five assists – tallies an attacking midfielder would be proud of – en route to PSG’s long-awaited triumph.
Grimaldo already has four attacking returns in as many league and cup games for Bayer Leverkusen in 2025/26. With Erik ten Hag gone (rightly or wrongly), there’s a bit more of a spring in the Bundesliga’s side under Kasper Hjulmand.
Ajax, Atalanta and Copenhagen are no Kairat and Qarabag, but neither are they formidable opposition.
A word too on our second goalkeeper. With Olympiacos’ Kostas Tzolakis ($4.5m) suspended, dirt-cheap understudy Alexandros Paschalakis (€4.0m) looks set to come in – and his fixture against Pafos gives him, according to the bookies, a third-best 52% chance of a clean sheet in Matchday 1.
MADRID PAIR + RAPHINHA INCLUDED
Three representatives from the Spanish league need little introduction.
Kylian Mbappe (€10.5m) is UCL Fantasy’s joint-most expensive pick, and indeed its most-owned.
He is off to a flying start in La Liga this season, scoring four goals and assisting another in the opening four matches.
He’s scored in each of his last four France caps, too.
Real Madrid are at home to a Marseille side who had a bit of a wobbly start to 2025/26, conceding in all three of their opening Ligue I games and losing two of them.
We’ve doubled up on Mbappe with Arda Guler (€6.0m), therefore.
Guler has two goals and an assist to his name from four La Liga matches so far in 2025/26, and indeed has started every league match to date under new Madrid boss Xabi Alonso.
We were tentative about including too many Barcelona players, as a trip to Newcastle United is never easy – just ask PSG in the 2023/24 campaign.
But Raphinha (€9.5m) is a special case.
The Brazilian scored 13 goals and provided nine assists in 14 Champions League appearances last season, leading Barcelona to the semi-finals. It earned the Brazilian set-piece taker 137 points, by far the most of any player.
He was also top for expected goals (xG) and assists.
PREMIER LEAGUE DUO MAKES THE CUT – BUT NO HAALAND
There’s been plenty written about Mohamed Salah (€10.5m) over the last few weeks, with the Liverpool man fairly quiet and amassing just 0.31 non-penalty xG in Gameweeks 1-4 of FPL – that’s less than Jefferson Lerma has managed…
But there he still is, in the top five of the FPL midfielders’ points table despite what many of us would describe as a very below-par opening to the season.
Being a 90-minute man has paid dividends with his recent stoppage-time heroics, and with Alexander Isak (€9.0m) potentially eating into Hugo Ekitike’s (€8.0m) minutes in midweek, Salah is our go-to Liverpool attacker. Cody Gakpo (€7.5m) is listed as a forward by UEFA, incidentally, denting his appeal.
Atletico Madrid conceded in two of their three Club World Cup games (being thumped 4-0 by PSG) and indeed their opening three La Liga games, so all is not completely well at the back.
Speaking of Spanish sides who aren’t watertight, Villarreal conceded a whopping 51 goals in La Liga last season, qualifying for the Champions League in fifth.
Tottenham Hotspur’s relatively favourable run gets underway against the Yellow Submarine tonight, and we’ve plumped for the budget-friendly, corner-taking Xavi Simons (€6.5m) to round off our Scout Picks.
All of which means no place for Erling Haaland (€10.5m), although, in fairness, reigning Italian champions Napoli had the best defensive record in Serie A last season.
