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.
Passionate about data-driven decisions and fantasy football.
Currently top 8k in Fantasy UCL and top 900k in FPL.