With Matchday 2 of UEFA Champions League (UCL) Fantasy nearly here, it’s time to consult our all-new UCL Fixture Ticker for a look at the best match-ups.
We’ll also cross-check with the bookies’ odds.
By assessing fixture difficulty, we hope to give you a good idea of the players and teams to target with your transfers ahead of Tuesday’s deadline.
BEST FIXTURES: MATCHDAY 2 IN ISOLATION
There’s only one place to start with the Matchday 2 ties.
Real Madrid‘s trip to Kairat Almaty is the headline act. Some bookies are as short as 1/25 (an implied probability of 96%) for Xabi Alonso’s side to triumph.
The Kazakh minnows were battered 4-1 by Sporting in Matchday 1, conceding the second-highest number of xG (3.7) in the opening week.
Not far behind Real in the bookmakers’ market are Bayern Munich. The Bundesliga giants are also on their travels – this time at Pafos.
The Cypriot outsiders gained a creditable draw at Olympiacos last time out but Bayern are not just a step up in class, they’re an entire flight of stairs. Again, their implied probabilty of victory in midweek is near the 95% mark.
According to the odds-makers, Arsenal are the next Matchday 2 bankers. The aforementioned Olympiacos visit the Emirates.
The Greek champions aren’t quite Kairat-level minnows; they boasted the best defensive record in the UEFA Europa League group stage last season. A 1-0 win away at Porto was a high.
Still, the bookies fancy the Gunners have an 85% chance of prospering this week.
Elsewhere, and fresh from excellent-to-decent Matchday 1 results, Qarabag and Copenhagen have favourable fixtures – but they’re both against each other! Making them both seem normal size…
Excellent and unexpectedly comprehensive opening-day wins for Bruges and USG make Atalanta and Newcastle United‘s tasks seem not as straightforward as originally assumed. Indeed, both ‘favourites’ are only around evens for their ties.
By contrast, Liverpool and Manchester City are away at teams that were thumped in Matchday 1: Galatasaray and Monaco. Both English clubs are well odds-on to win.
BEST FIXTURES: LONGER RUNS
In this section, we’ve put together longer runs of favourable(ish) fixtures that various teams embark on from Matchday 2 onwards.
This is to help UCL Fantasy managers bring in players who they can hopefully ‘set and forget’ in upcoming Matchdays, rather than just one-week punts.
The rest of this article below is completely free to read but requires a Fantasy Football Scout user account for access – you can get yours at no cost here
