Here’s my McDonalds World Cup fantasy team tips with my first draft team. It wasn’t easy. There’s a ton of choices and very little cash to get them with.
McDonalds World Cup fantasy team tips – A first draft team
So this is a culmination of my rules article plus my rankings articles for Defenders/GKs and midfielders plus forwards
The team
Difficult Decisions
This is the first time I’ve done a team and the first thing that strikes you is how many options there are and how little cash there is to get the players you’d like.
So I would have preferred Neymar to Jesus and Suarez to Cavani and I also would have liked to have got James Rodriguez in there as well as England and Belgium cover but its just not posssible.
Structure and hard choices
So I decided on 3 quality strikers and Jesus and Cavani seemed reasonably good options. There was never going to be no Messi.
Funds only permitted 2 premium midfielders. Spain’s Isco was just too good value not to have. I also went for Muller as a top midfield goal scoring option.
That meant I had to cobble together 3 midfielders for funds purposes and went for Trezeguet and Honda with Onazi no more than a funds provider
In defence I kept a ceiling of £5.5m for funds purposes and went for the best clean sheet prospects of the 3 premium teams. I then went for Sabaly of Senegal as a £4.0m option and then the best £4.5m defender I could find in Hegazy of Egypt.
I was pretty much convinced on cheap GKs. Romero’s injury has meant Caballero for all his faults is a cheap option for an Argentinian GK.
Japan seemed the next best value for defence so in went their £4.5m GK.
Formation
The formation in some ways is a bit irrelevant as the substitutions mean you can keep changing players and formations as you go. I started off by structuring the team in terms of premium options and then filled the gaps as best as I could. My first draft was £7.0m over so out went Neymar and James Rodriguez to fund it.
It’s worth having a time line in mind. You can make changes at the beginning of day but I thought it was worth putting my team out in the order they played so I can substitute players as and when I think it’s worth it.
Here’s the rule:
After all matches on a single day have finished and before the next Round of matches start, you can replace any player (unless they were sent off) with one from your bench whose team is yet to play.
I don’t believe from that above that you can substitute a 1pm player or captain who’s played for a player who will play at 7pm on the same day although the rule could be drafted better
I’ve got Miranda on the bench although I would be shocked if he doesn’t come on
Captains
My captain arrangements aren’t great. Too many players playing on the same day in round 1 means that I don’t have maximum substitution options. This may need more thought. If you are willing to force your selection to maximise captain options then a captain option each day would be useful. That would mean a far bigger spread of teams so you have an option each day. That could include defenders too. At the moment I haven’t maximised this.
As I said above, I don’t believe you can substitute a 1pm player or captain who’s played for a player who will play at 7pm although the rule could be drafted better
Here’s a link for a chronological time line from the evening standard. I thought it was laid out quite usefully.
The Chips
Here’s a reminder about what I said in my rules article. I haven’t advanced my thoughts on this so far.
Wildcard
I guess the best time for this will depend on your team at the time. Before Round 3 looks an option if you think there is going to be lots of players rested for Groups already decided. Alternatively prior to the quarter finals when teams reduce from 16 teams to 8 teams and there are only 3 transfers to deal with it.
Bench boost
This is a tricky one. I don’t think you could use it at the off due to selection unknowns. Before round 2 would give a decent amount of lineup knowledge and if you get your team right there’s the chance for some good fixtures. Alternatively before the round of 16 where you can set up your team through unlimited transfers.
Maximum captain
For me this is either round 1 or 2 of the Group rounds where there are decent fixtures so you could bank on a decent captain score in there somewhere. Or the reverse say the semis where you have less chance to make good your erroneous captain choice.
It’s a First draft!
This is just a first draft so if you’re going to comment then please go easy. It was just so I can see the challenges I’m up against and they look substantial! More to come.
Geek World Cup Leagues
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