Monday 18 June 2018, 14:00

Fantasy Round 2 preview: Transfers, captains & boosts

  • ​The Round 2 deadline is 20:00 CET on Tuesday

  • Should you play your Maximum Captain, Bench Boost or Wildcard?

  • Our Fantasy scout highlights six players you should consider signing

Transfers

Deadline 20:00 CET on Tuesday

How many transfers can I make? You can make one transfer for free. Any additional transfers cost you four points.

Round 2 Fixtures

Fixtures

Day 7 Portugal-Morocco Uruguay-Saudi Arabia IR Iran-Spain

Day 8 Denmark-Australia France-Peru Argentina-Croatia

Day 9 Brazil-Costa Rica Nigeria-Iceland Serbia-Switzerland

Day 10 Belgium-Tunisia Korea Republic-Mexico Germany-Sweden

Day 11 England-Panama Japan-Senegal Poland-Colombia

Playing your boosts

There should be more points scored in the group stage than the knockout phase, so using your Maximum Captain and Bench Boost in Round 2 or 3 could be advantageous.

Maximum Captain In one of the seven rounds, you can play your Maximum Captain chip. In that round, you don’t select a captain. Instead, whichever of your 11 players scores the highest points delivers double for you. Let’s say you hadn’t fancied Cristiano Ronaldo to thrive against Spain in Round 1, and therefore hadn’t selected him as captain. Had you played your Maximum Captain for Round 1, it’s Ronaldo, provided he was in your starting XI, who would have scored double points for you.

Bench Boost For one round, all 15 of your players – rather than just 11 – will score you points. Does your 15 for Round 2 look trong?

Wildcard You can make unlimited transfers for one round. Use this in Round 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 or 7 because in Round 4 you already have unlimited transfers.

Highest-scoring players

Full list

Cristiano Ronaldo (16 points), Denis Cheryshev (13), Alexsandr Golovin (13), Jose Giminez (12), Andreas Granqvist (12) Aleksandar Kolarov (12), Diego Costa (10), Harry Kane (10), Romelu Lukaku (10), Hannes Halldorsson (9), Guillermo Ochoa (9).

Players to bring in

Ilya Kutepov (€4.5m) – Very cheap for a starting defender, the 24-year-old centre-back gave an assured performance against Saudi Arabia. Next up for Russia are Egypt and Uruguay, who scored only one goal between them in their opening outings.

Nacho (€5.5m) – The 28-year-old only got his chance due to Dani Carvajal’s injury, but took it with a spectacular goal in the 3-3 draw with Portugal and, therefore, should star against IR Iran, who Spain will expect a clean sheet against. Jordi Alba and Sergio Ramos cost €1m more than Nacho.

Denis Cheryshev (€5.5m) – The former Real Madrid winger came on for the injured Alan Dzagoev midway through the first half, and responded with a brilliant brace against Saudi Arabia. Dzagoev has been ruled out of the remainder of the group stage, so Cheryshev should be unleashed upon Egypt and Uruguay.

Thomas Muller (€9.5m) – Germany’s plan was likely to wrap up first place in Group F in their first two games and rest key players in their final game. After a shock 1-0 defeat by Mexico, however, Joachim Low’s defending champions will have to go all out for goals against Sweden and Korea Republic. Muller has a habit of getting them in the World Cup.

Harry Kane (€11m) – The 24-year-old bagged a brace against Tunisia. England will be trying desperately to thrash Panama, whom Belgium beat 3-0, knowing the race to win Group G could go down to goal difference.

Cristiano Ronaldo (€12m) – Lionel Messi and Neymar were consequentially more popular choices than the Portugal No7 in Round 1, presumably as Fantasy coaches felt the latter would be stymied by defensive specialists Spain. Well, you saw what he did against David de Gea, Sergio Ramos and Co. What do you think The Best FIFA Men’s Player holder, fuelled by his insatiable thirst for goals, will do against Morocco and IR Iran?