Here’s our the best World Cup Fantasy Teams 2026 article with Rob Reid’s final Team. Also with discussion around the selection changes the Boosters, transfers, captain changes and in round substitutions. LIVE notified Transfers, Captain Changes and Substitutions. Rob’s Last 6 FPL seasons 73k, 47k, 122k,29k, 66k & 12k
the best world cup fantasy teams 2026 – Rob Reid’s Final Team
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Every change LIVE, Captain Changes, Transfers, substiutions in will be noted in the comments of the Patreon version of this article and on Slack Live. The Patreon is only £2.00 per month and can be bought with just 2 months membership. No annual commitment. No You Tube Content Creator will be able to keep you up to date like this
Ok here we go then – I think this is my final draft and therefore team for Round 1, barring any last minute changes in the opening match. I’m still planning the same Chip Strategy in the Group stage form my last draft – 12th Man in Round 2 and Wildcard in Round 3. From the last draft, I’ve kept the players who I said I felt pretty much locked on. So these are: Cucurella, Kimmich, Wirtz, Musiala, Bruno Fernandes, Luis Diaz, Mbappe, Haaland and Oyarzabal.
This therefore left me needing the following: 2 goalkeepers, 3 defenders and a lower-priced midfielder. With these players, I’m trying to eligible for Scouting Bonus on the goalkeepers and defenders too, so hence why I’ve tweaked things around. A key part of this is that 2 of the cheapest players (Rangel from Mexico and Mojica from Colombia) are teetering at close to the 5% threshold. From experience from Qatar 2022, if players were around 4.8% on the afternoon of the tournament then there was a chance they might tip over 5% by deadline.
I’ve therefore gone for the following.
Goalkeepers – Crepeau and Vargas. This covers 2 different fixture days and they have 4 reasonable fixtures across Rounds 1 & 2 between them. I have to confess to not being 100% sold on the Canada defence (especially without Alphonso Davies and Bombito) but Jesse March teams are heavily system based so I suspect the replacements should slot in ok. I like the 2 fixtures too – Bosnia up first is the trickier one, but they are a robust physical team rather than high flair one. Qatar second though is a great fixture and looks a good chance of clean sheet. Don’t forget both fixtures are at home too. For Vargas, I wanted to keep my Colombia defensive cover as I like their 2 fixtures too plus I get a bonus option at the end of the Round should Crepeau not keep a clean sheet in his games.
Defenders – I’ve stuck with Vasquez and Ordonez from my previous draft. I like having Mexican cover in defence with them being at home and at altitude with a good opener. Ecuador were very lean at the back during qualifying and although fixture 1 is tougher vs Cote d’Ivoire, Round 2 vs Curacao is much better. I’ve changed Mojica to Rodriguez from Switzerland for the last pick. I get the same opening pair of fixtures as my Canada keeper just in reverse, so get that nice one vs Qatar first. There’s a bit of debate about the Swiss defence – Akanji and Elvedi look the most nailed, but Rodriguez is reckoned to be fairly secure too and does offer attack threat too. All these 3 picks sit comfortably below 5% ownership.
Midfield – the 5th spot. I found this one tricky. I left myself a budget of £6.5 for this one (I’ll explain why in a bit) and pickings are a bit leaner here. In the end I’ve settled on Xhaka – he looks the most nailed of the Swiss midfielders, might have penalties (it’s still up in the air if it’s him or Embolo) but he might also sneak a Scouting Bonus purely through tackles. If he makes 6 tackles and doesn’t get booked then that gets it. The other 2 options I considered were Araujo of Uruguay and James Rodriguez. I quickly discounted James Rodriguez (though he’s an amazing talent still – fond memories of 2014) as I’m set on owning Luis Diaz and didn’t want the double up. It then came down to as whether I wanted any Uruguay cover and in the end their patchy form and lack of warm-up matches left me too much uncertainty about their line-up so I defaulted to Xhaka.
Here’s the team then and this draft leaves me £0.6m in the bank and I’ll explain why I’ll need this in a bit.
I’ve showed it with the players’ fixture dates rather the actual fixture as this should help to explain my Captain switching strategy. As you can see I now have every day of the Round covered. My Captain plan will be as follows:
11th June – Vasquez
12th June – Crepeau
13th June – Xhaka or Rodriguez
14th June – Kimmich or Musiala
15th June – Oyarzabal, possibly Ordonez as an option too
16th June – Mbappe the Haaland. This is the tricky day as if the France game is delayed by a storm for example I may just have to put it straight on Haaland.
17th June – Bruno Fernandes
18th June – Luis Diaz
As a general rule in this game, if my Captain hits 2 returns I tend to stick. That’s why I like some defenders as Captain options at the start of the Round – if a defender scores and nails a clean sheet for example you’ve got a great differential haul early on.
As for the £0.6m I have in the bank, the plan with this is to use it to help with my Round 2 transfers. My Round 2 transfer plan will be to do Haaland to Vini Jr and either Wirtz or Musiala to Raphinha – this leaves me the funds in the bank I need for this. I’d then play the 12th Man Chip on Olise.
I hope that all makes folks. My plan is to post directly into the World Cup Slack Channel (link above) each day with my planned changes so keep an eye on this for updates. Otherwise, good luck and enjoy the games!
