Following hot on the heels of the release of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) Fantasy game is the equivalent of the Asian Cup.
Unlike the AFCON version, however, this is an official game and features on the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) website.
In this introductory piece, we take you through the basics of the game.
A bit of jargon-busting before we kick off: ‘Matchday’ is the equivalent of a Gameweek, while a ‘Gameday’ is an individual calendar day within a Matchday.
PICKING A SQUAD
Head over to this page to enter a team.
After hitting ‘Create Team’, you can either hit ‘Auto Complete’ at this early stage or you can create a first draft. Either way, unlimited transfers are allowed before the Matchday 1 deadline.
There are the following FPL-style rules for picking a squad:
- A budget of 100m (this will increase to 105m in the knockout rounds)
- A squad of 15 players, made up of two goalkeepers, five defenders, five midfielders and three forwards
- A starting XI in any of the following formations: 3-4-3, 3-5-2, 4-3-3, 4-4-2, 4-5-1, 5-3-2 or 5-4-1
- A captain nominated from your starting XI
The limits of players per nation depend on the stage of the tournament:
- Group Stage: 3
- Round of 16: 4
- Quarter-finals: 5
- Semi-finals: 6
- Final: 8
You will then be promoted to nominate a captain and enter a team name.
CREATING AN ACCOUNT
At this point, you can either log in using your existing AFC account details, use Apple/Twitter/Google to sign in or create an account.
Once you have an active account and verify it, you can begin tinkering with your squad via the ‘My Team’ tab – just like FPL.
MANUAL SUBS/CAPTAINCY CHANGES
Whereas AFCON Fantasy is a bit more hands-off, Asian Cup Fantasy very much follows the UEFA Champions League model.
Between individual gamedays (eg Friday, Saturday, Sunday), managers can tinker with their teams and make manual substitutions/captaincy changes:
SCORING SYSTEM
The scoring system is mostly identical to FPL.
The usual array of points is on offer for goals, assists, clean sheets and appearances.
And there are familiar deductions for cards, own-goals, missed penalties and goals conceded (for goalkeepers and defenders):
As for the key differences, scoring a goal from outside the box gets an extra point.
Fantasy assists are essentially covered in the six lines that come below the own-goal row in the graphic above, with rewards for penalties and free-kicks won or rebound shots in the event of a goal.
TRANSFERS
As mentioned earlier, you can tinker away to your heart’s content until the Asian Cup curtain-raiser on January 12.
After Matchday 1, you’ll be awarded the following free transfers per round:
| Number of free transfers allowed | |
| Before Matchday 2 (group stage) | 2 |
| Before Matchday 3 (group stage) | 2 |
| Before Matchday 4 (round of 16) | Unlimited |
| Before Matchday 5 (quarter-finals) | 4 |
| Before Matchday 6 (semi-finals) | 5 |
| Before Matchday 7 (final) | 6 |
A maximum of one free transfer can be rolled over to the following week.
Each additional transfer will cost you minus four points, as in FPL.
The daily deadlines are two hours before the first kick-off.
CHIPS/BOOSTERS
There are two familiar-sounding chips (or ‘boosters’, as they’re called here) to play, namely the Triple Captain and the Bench Boost.
JOIN THE FANTASY FOOTBALL SCOUT MINI-LEAGUE
You can join our just-for-fun Asian Cup Fantasy mini-league via this link here.
The token, should you need it, is JSLYHS9E.
