With the round of 16 coming up in UCL Fantasy, tipster Alex shares his funny take on the matchday 7 games.

A short intro, because why not?

Welcome everyone to a new congress on how to take the poorest fantasy decisions! In today’s meeting, we will discuss the return of the Champions League, a new series of how all the in-form players as soon as they will be part of your team will start blanking. Exciting! And masochistic! Enough with the clapping, guys, Diogo Costa (POR) can’t concentrate on saving another penalty.

Current position & our ambitions

As my father used to say while checking my fantasy football homework “not too shabby, my dear boy, but you’re still not in the top 1000, start everything from scratch and stop crying!”. Trauma is such a vague concept. So, with minimal knowledge and divine luck, we will try to push into the top 1000 overall members. Let’s have a look over future fixtures, must-have and punty players from each team, and lastly form some possible teams together.

UCL Fixtures

Milan – Tottenham, Tue 14 Feb

Milan has been just plain awful since the end of the World Cup. Now they are just unlocking side quests at “how terrible could you play”, 15+ years. I will pick no player from their side.
The data shows a big possibility of attacking returns for Spurs, therefore my first choice will be Kane in the attack. He’s in-form, consistent, and still not speaking proper English. Punty ideas from their midfielder: Kulusevski (creative and involved in most of their actions) or Højbjerg (just loving those points from defensive actions & he tends to get the odd assist).
To avoid: any defensive asset, Lloris just called in sick and their past xGI does not look great.

PSG – Bayern, Tue 14 Feb

PSG has not been in the best form since Messi and Mbappe played Qatari checkers a couple of weeks ago. Poor build-up and xA and xG stats. Hakimi would disagree with my statement. And also with my fashion sense. He’s been in buzzing form, so he’s a must-have for me. If I would like to defend in case of a great PSG offensive, I would also go for one of Messi or Mbappe.
Bayern has been pretty solid with numerous offensive options. On my “Tasty beside their beers” list I have Cancelo, Kimmich, Sane, and Musiala.

Dortmund – Chelsea, Wed 15 Feb

My big money is on Dortmund keeping up their domestic form and surprising a pretty average Chelsea. I also have it in crypto, so don’t trust me completely. A full-attacking full-back would-be Guerreiro. So many dashes and assists. He’s a must-have. Now for the other options – I would choose from Bellingham, Brandt, Reyna, and Haller.
Chelsea’s playing Monopoly by themselves and still losing somehow. No player under 110 million euros is to be considered for our team.

Club Brugge – Benfica, Wed 15 Feb

Brugge from UCL stardom to domestic stand-up comedy. We’ll limit ourselves only to Belgian chocolate.
A similar case to Dortmund, Benfica are in form domestically, with four clean sheets in their *you guessed it* four games, scoring goals for fun. João Mário and Grimaldo are must-haves. Punty options: Guedes and Neres.

Frankfurt – Napoli, Tue 21 Feb

Frankfurt has been pretty solid and consistent since the end of the World Cup. If they were not playing against Napoli, I would have chosen Kolo Muani or Götze as premium punts.
They have amazing pizza, mafia-inspired stories, Maradona murals, and an amazing team this season. An amazing player with a great price/quality ratio is Kvaratskhelia. Kvara how his friends and the entire globe call him. Our second must-have is Osimhen. I would not go for any defensive asset as I think that Frankfurt might score the odd goal in their matches.

Liverpool – Real Madrid, Tue 21 Feb

One team is sitting in the 10th position, way above Brighton and Brentford. This sounds mean, re-phrase… One team has just lost 3-0 to Wolves. Nope, still sounds wrong, last try… The Beatles are one of my favorite bands! Go listen to them while avoiding Liverpool assets for now. Maybe Salah returns to his form in the future, but we won’t make choice on distant possibilities.
Real Madrid has not been great, struggling offensively. I would go only for Vinicius Jr as he can truly exploit Trent’s defensive slump and register either a goal or an assist.

RB Leipzig – Manchester City, Wed 22 Feb

Great attacking numbers, but the butter and bread are shared by the whole family. Here are my famished siblings: Werner, Andre Silva, Poulsen, Forsberg, and Szoboszlai. Nkunku is a proud father. I would not play this roulette against City.
About roulettes, Pep entered the room. Followed by Premier League Financial Fair guys, they just heard something about a roulette. You can never predict City’s starting line-up and they have been quite poor after the break. Their numbers are not bad, but not exciting either. I would choose Haaland, but he’s not one of my must-haves, more of an “I would like to have four forwards” type of approach. I think that Mahrez and KDB have a lower value price/outcome than many other options discussed above.

Inter Milano – Porto, Wed 22 Feb

Inter has been great at keeping clean sheets, so maybe go for the vintage Dumfries pick. A more neo-classical choice would be Lautaro Martinez, he’s been in a much-improved form since Qatar.
Porto has been great domestically, scoring goals while being extremely solid defensively. One must-have option for me would be Joao Mario, having a finger in all pies and an assist in all scoring opportunities.
For me, this game is more of an immovable object that meets another immovable object – not many goals and a great chance of a clean sheet for each team.

UCL Fantasy Draft Teams

Team A

Team B

Team C

You can find UCL Fantasy resources for the 22/23 season here.

Current team & Analysis

Player	Position	Price	Why keep?	Why sell?	Alternatives
Ward	GK	4.1	Cheap as a lemon when it comes to playing goalkeepers.	Sweet as a lemon too. Leicester has been in a horrendous state defensively in the post world cup era. Even Iversen is not sitting comfortably on your bench watching you play Ward as the main goalkeeper.	–
Ederson	GK	5.4	Well, here is a bitter-sweet choice. The sweet part: avoiding the Pep roulette (which has been in peak performance this season, goddammit). If they re-discover their form, they have great future fixtures for clean sheets.	The bitter part: one clean sheet in the past 6 game weeks. They are as leaking defensively as it’s your own personal data to the Google ads system. The silver lining: Ederson gives you 2 more points than Cancelo.	Pope, Ramsdale, Sanchez or Raya.
White	DEF	4.7	Well, wasn’t he having fun on your bench after the Spurs game? Or after Newcastle’s? Arsenal’s defense can keep a clean sheet against any team this season, so why not book a nice and comfy spot for the double gameweek 23? A bit too many rhetorical questions in this paragraph, am I right?	Not a World Cup minutes or bonus points magnet. You can’t be perfect, Benjamin!	Maybe Gabriel after he passes the yellow card hunger games.
Trippier	DEF	6.0	He’s our system reference for dead teams, bots, and “What if, after I buy him, he gets injured for the rest of the season?” skeptics. Under 32% of them.	Stop trippin’ boy and start trippier.	Don’t be silly
Shaw	DEF	5.2	From Mourinho laughing with his buddies about Shaw’s defensive abilities to being an essential part of Utd’s row of clean sheets and great performances is a sublime redemption arc. Furthermore, Utd might have a double gw22 – playing Leeds and Crystal Palace.	If Shaw will still play in the central position, keep a close look at Dalot’s attacking stats when he will be back. And on his hamstring too. But not that close, you creep.	Dalot
Castagne	DEF	4.6	I really tried to find a reason, but I will just drop a short paragraph from some history book: “Once every full moon, the Count was rising from his coffin, drank a Red Bull, and started creating mayhem everywhere he was going. Scoring Castagne’s crosses or running behind the defenders, he was looking for spilled blood and then putting it in his post-game bloody mary. You could never be ready for Count Vardyla’s rage”.	Without Maddison, Leicester is not able to keep control of the possession → teams can press and get in good attacking positions easier → sun’s rays block again Ward’s vision → say goodbye to Castagne’s clean sheet for me. In addition, one of the worst series of future fixtures.	Estupinan, Mee or Botman
Patterson	DEF		It’s your last position from your bench, I assume you have bigger fires to put out. Oh, you don’t? You’re in the top 1K and you’ve been rolling your FTs for the past 10 game weeks? Sure, go ahead, and switch him for Bueno.	Injured and playing in a Lampard’s tactical system …cheap low blow	Bueno
Kevin De Bruyne	MID	12.5	When he is not taking random road trips during training sessions, he is a pivotal part of the midfielder, a bit more protected in the Pep roulette than other attacking options. He can go back in form based on the next fixtures. A double game week with City, a love story that usually ends with a punch in your face.	Having KDB from the start of the season feels a bit like the “Game of Thrones” development. A masterstroke in the first part of the season, amazing returns and paired with Kal Erling, nothing could go wrong, right? Well, as the book’s material stopped, also the post-world-cup episodes became more and more disappointing. Maybe that budget can be used better to improve our midfield options.	Bruno or Mahrez
Rashford	MID	7.1	Great fixtures, possibly a double, is in-form, has great self-confidence in his abilities, the main offensive output for a great team.		Odegaard, Saka or Rodrigo
Martinelli	MID	6.8	Before the start of the game, Arteta takes a 3-faced coin (they exist, just trust the process), and flips it. That’s how it’s decided whose performance will be the best between Martinelli, Odegaard, and Saka. You for sure have the value stored in Martinelli and you can double on Arsenal’s midfield for the double game week 23 without transferring him out. The legend says that when the 3-faced coin will drop with Gabi’s smile, you will regret shipping him out.	With the transfer of Trossard and Emile Smith-Row’s return, he will start sharing some minutes with his lovely peers from the bench. Furthermore, his output stats are inferior to the impact that Odegaard and Salah have, therefore a transition to one of them might be for the best.	Odegaard or Rodrigo
Almiron	MID	5.9	Newcastle has great fixtures ahead and for his budget, getting a return once every two games is still great.	We might witness a drop in form as he has new guests at the “big chances conversion” table in Isak and Saint-Maximin. Furthermore, he was always outperforming his run-of-the-mill stats, so maybe the Paraguayan magic is starting to dissipate.	March, Mitoma or Bailey
Andreas Pereira	MID	4.6	If Nokia phone would be a player, that would be our great “first bench option” Andreas. He is playing offensively great within an attacking Fulham. He might become the first penalty taker if Mitrovic keeps shooting blindfolded.	In the current landscape, there are so many cheap alternatives to Andreas and you could switch to a 3-5-2 with Kane and Haaland leading the line and win your mini-league as fast as I can say “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis”.	March, Mitoma or Bailey
Haaland	FWD	12.2	He might be a robot and score from any chance.	He might be a robot with a 5% battery warning.	Short answer: none / Long answer: Welbeck
Kane	FWD	11.7	The second-best premium after Haaland. He is consistent in getting attacking returns and now with the return of Kulusevski, the creativity in the final third has been improved and he has fewer responsibilities in the build-up and more in the finishing. Great fixtures looking ahead, out of the yellow cards tension.	Good low-priced alternatives in Toney, Nketiah or Wilson. Also, with the return of UCL in February and Richarlison being a spoilt brat, the packed schedule might have an impact on his performance.	Toney
Havertz	FWD	7.8	I always like to target weak defenses, and playing against Liverpool and West Ham in his next couple of fixtures looks really tasty. He might not have such a high ceiling with Chelsea’s poor stats, but he might be a consistent 6-pointer.	Let’s see Potter’s new system and how the new signings will be integrated. What offensive responsibilities and final third positions will be assigned to Felix, Mudryk, and all the other 100+ mil. transfers done by Boehly in order to be competitive for the UEL places. A bit crowdy for a team scoring as much as Haaland.	Keep 3-4-3: Toney, Mbeumo, Wilson, Isak or Nketiah. Go 3-5-2: Ferguson

Fixtures

Future Strategy

In the next articles, we will discuss:

Hidden gems & punts for the next 5 game weeks.
Transfer ideas for the team – who to SELL, BUY, KEEP and AVOID.
We will discuss performances from the gw 21.
We will create together a Free Hit team for gw 22.
I can’t fully enjoy sunbathing in January, is global warming really a thing or just a political hoax?

Sarcastically yours!

Fantasy Premier League (FPL) tips | Fantasy Bundesliga

All posts by Alex

Sarcastic UCL Fantasy – A New Round of Poor Decisions Is in Front of Us