UEFA Champions League Fantasy: Tips, chip strategy + captains

The 2023/24 UEFA Champions League (UCL) campaign begins on Tuesday – and so does the competition’s official Fantasy game.

We’ll have plenty of UCL Fantasy coverage in preparation for the big kick-off, plus regular articles throughout the season.

Here, one of our Pro Pundits, FPL Milanista (aka Obay), shares some expert tips on the game. Obay knows what he’s talking about, too, with finishes of 344th, 141st and 31st in the last three seasons.

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The UEFA Champions League is back and it’s time to finalise our 15-man squads for the official UCL Fantasy game. As usual, I’d like my first article of the season to remind managers – including newbies – of the main differences between this game and Fantasy Premier League (FPL), especially in terms of strategy and the importance of fixtures and chips.

This article will not dig into top picks but I will make sure that you get something from me before the first deadline that includes the teams I will be targeting and some juicy differentials.

UCL Fantasy has 13 Matchdays, as opposed to the 38 Gameweeks of FPL, therefore your initial squad must have the potential to go big. You will have to be an aggressive manager who focuses a lot on fixtures and the doubling- or tripling-up of certain teams.

DEFENDERS ARE KEY

One aspect that I would like to cover is the importance of defenders in UCL Fantasy, particularly when we move into the knockout stages where weaker teams have been eliminated and the number of goals drops significantly.

If we look into last season’s top five point scorers across all positions, there are three defenders, including centre-backs Alessandro Bastoni (€5.5m) and Ruben Dias (€5.5m). Ball recovery points play an important role. In fact, 17 of Dias’ 75 points (23%) came from these.

Added to an occasional goal threat, the resilience of elite backlines allows defenders to be the game’s most consistent scorers.