Harry Kane returned to the summit of the World Cup Fantasy top-scorers list on Tuesday night as England booked a place in the quarter-finals.
The Tottenham striker now has six goals to his name, more than any other player at the tournament, and has the Golden Boot in his sights. His Fantasy popularity looks set to soar in the coming days.
We’ve got all the goals, assists and Fantasy talking points from the final round of last sixteen matches.
SWEDEN 1-0 SWITZERLAND
TOP-SCORING PLAYERS
- Emil Forsberg (£7.5m) – 8 points
- Andreas Granqvist (£5.2m) – 6 points
- Ludwig Augustinsson (£5.1m) – 6 points
- Robin Olsen (£5.0m) – 7 points
- Viktor Lindelof (£4.9m) – 6 points
- Ola Toivonen (£7.0m) – 5 points
- Mikael Lustig (£5.5m) – 5 points
Andreas Granqvist (£5.2m) continued to demonstrate his excellent Fantasy value as he kept a third clean sheet of the 2018 World Cup in Sweden’s win over Switzerland.
The centre-back now has an overall total score of 31, and remains the most valuable player with 5.9 points per million. He even had a chance to add to his six-point haul on Tuesday when Sweden were nearly awarded a stoppage-time penalty.
Martin Olsson (£5.0m) was pushed over on a later counter-attack by Michael Lang (£4.3m), who was sent off for the foul. Initially a penalty was awarded, which Granqvist would have taken, but VAR review showed the incident took place just outside Switzerland’s penalty box.
It was midfielder Emil Forsberg (£7.5m) who got the only goal of the match in an open affair. In the 66th minute Ola Toivonen (£7.0m) squared the ball to Forsberg on the edge of the box, his dip of the shoulder allowing him space to get round Granit Xhaka (£7.0m) and shoot. His shot was deflected by Manuel Akanji (£4.4m) to take it over Yann Sommer (£4.9m), but the goal was still accredited to Forsberg as his shot was on target.
Robin Olsen (£5.0m) made four saves in the match to earn himself an extra point.
Meanwhile, right-back Mikael Lustig (£5.5m) picked up a yellow card in the 31st minute and will now miss the quarter-final match.
SWEDEN XI (4-4-2): Olsen; Augustinsson, Granqvist, Lindelof, Lustig (Krafth 82’); Claesson, Forsberg (M Olsson 82’), Ekdal, Svensson; Toivonen, Berg (Thelin 90’).
SWITZERLAND XI (4-2-3-1): Sommer; Rodriguez, Akanji, Djourou, Lang; Xhaka, Behrami; Zuber (Emobolo 73’), Dzemaili (Seferovic 73’), Shaqiri; Drmic.
COLOMBIA 1-1 ENGLAND (3-4 on penalties)
TOP-SCORING PLAYERS
- Harry Kane (£11.2m) – 8 points
- Yerry Mina (£5.8m) – 8 points
- Juan Cuadrado (£8m) – 4 points
Harry Kane (£11.2m) scored his sixth goal of the World Cup on Tuesday night as England emerged victorious from a gritty battle with Colombia.
The Three Lions were the better side going forward in the first-half but Jose Pekerman’s South American outfit still carried threat on the counter-attack.
England were awarded a penalty in the 57th minute when Carlos Sanchez (£4.3m) bundled Kane over in the area. Colombia’s players spent a total of three minutes protesting the decision, tampering with the penalty spot and crowding the referee, but Kane still dispatched the kick with characteristic aplomb.
As England were trying to see the game out, Colombia came alive in the last five minutes. A fierce 30-yard wonder-strike from Mateus Uribe (£5.4m) in stoppage time was athletically turned round the post by Jordan Pickford (£5.5m), arguably one of the saves of the tournament so far.
He was beaten a few moments later, though. The resulting corner, taken by Juan Cuadrado (£8.0m) was met by Yerry Mina (£5.8m) and despite Kieran Trippier’s (£5.6m) best efforts, it nestled in the corner. That was Mina’s third goal of the tournament, all of them coming from his head, his overall Fantasy total score good enough for second place, behind only Kane.
After a nervy extra-time period, where Colombia largely looked on top, it went to penalties.
Jordan Henderson (£6.4m) was the first not to score, his effort to the right well-saved by David Ospina (£5.6m).
However, Uribe subsequently hit the bar and Trippier dispatched his spot-kick to level things up.
Pickford saved Colombia’s fifth penalty, reaching up to stop Carlos Bacca (£7.8m) from scoring and Eric Dier (£5.8m) rounded off the win by finding the bottom left-hand corner.
COLOMBIA XI (4-3-1-2): Ospina; Mojica, Mina, D Sanchez, Arias (Zapata 116’); Lerma (Bacca 62’), Barrios, C Sanchez (Uribe 79’); Quintero (Muriel 88’); Falcao, Cuadrado.
ENGLAND XI (3-1-4-2): Pickford; Maguire, Stones, Walker (Rashford 113’); Henderson; Young (Rose 102’), Alli (Dier 81’), Lingard, Trippier; Kane, Sterling (Vardy 88’).
World Cup Data
We’re delighted to offer World Cup data as an early addition to our regular season offering to help those playing Fantasy games over the summer.
We’ve secured Opta data, not only for the tournament itself, but also from the Qualifying Rounds for Europe and South America and for international friendlies involving the participating nations. This includes all the matches played right up to the tournament kick-off.
Just to stress, this World Cup offering comes packaged with the regular Fantasy Football Scout membership.
Check out this new trailer detailing the World Cup content below…
McDonald’s FIFA World Cup Fantasy
Join our McDonald’s FIFA World Cup Fantasy league ‘FantasyFootballScout’ using the code: HEWJPVYR
Fantasy iTeam
Fantasy Football Scout is supporting Fantasy iTeam, a free World Cup game available on a number of mobile devices, including iPhone, iPad, iPodTouch and Android. We have an official Fantasy Football Scout League open to UK users only, with a £1000 of Amazon vouchers to give out, split between the top three performers. There’s also the small matter of £10k worth of prizes available in the main competitions: Overall World Championship and Manager of the Gameround.
Click here for details and here to sign up.
Our League name is Fantasy Football Scout and the pin is 1887.
Please note, users must be over 18 and based in the UK to join our league.
5 years, 9 months ago
Best Brazil midfielder after Coutinhou?
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