UCL Quick Look: Tuesday, September 15th
Welcome to a new season of the Champions League, where the best teams in Europe square up against one another to determine which league gets to hoist the magnificent trophy which is arguably the most prestigious in club football in all the world.
This year we get to start our Daily Fantasy experience with game one in the group stages on DraftKings, which kicks off at 2:45 EST and features eight matches all occurring at the same time. There are a few key things to take into account with Champions League soccer and I’ll break them down for you.
1) Check the Starting Lineups – The starting lineups for champions league games can be found on the UEFA page and/or twitter where the majority of the teams would have an online presence that tweets out the lineups approximately one hour prior to kickoff.
2) Roster the superstars – Yes, it’s easy to say to roster the expensive guys, anybody can do that, but the trick is to know which ones are worth rostering. Three things dictate whether an expensive player is on my radar, form, matchup and rest.
- Form is a term to describe how a player has been playing recently. For example, Cristiano Ronaldo has good form as he scored five goals for his team last weekend to open his goalscoring account in La Liga.
- Matchup is easy enough to describe as it relates to the opponent. When a team I’m not familiar with is on the docket, I like to look at the odds for the match (we’ll get to those later) and determine whether this opponent is a strong one or merely a minnow that will inevitably get hammered by their opposition.
- Rest is key for the UCL matches as squad rotation happens often, and some managers opt to rest their key players in European competitions in order to save the good performances for their home league. One thing to watch out for is how long of a trip did one team have to make; for example, I tend to avoid English teams traveling to Russia or any western European team traveling east as the long travel time can be exhausting to players as well as the time change.
3) Target the Home team – This is not a hard and fast rule, but it should be considered a general guideline and possibly a tie breaker if you’re stuck on two players and not sure which one you should take. Sticking with the home team is a good option in the Champions League. Last season, the home squads had a record of 49/26/20 (W/L/D) for a 72 Win-Draw percentage. While visiting teams came away with all three points a meager 27% of the time, while most of those were from elite clubs visiting small clubs. So needless to say, target the home squad.
4) Pay Attention to the Odds – Below are the current odds for this week’s matchups; you’ll notice a trend for home teams being favored with the exception of Manchester United and Atletico Madrid. Using the odds as a general guideline for this week’s matchups should put you in the best position to make some good decisions.
| Home | Away | Home odds | Away Odds | Draw Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Benfica | Astana | 1.2 | 21 | 7 |
| Galatasaray | Atletico | 6 | 1.72 | 3.6 |
| Man City | Juve | 1.8 | 5.5 | 3.5 |
| PSG | Malmo | 1.11 | 34 | 11 |
| PSV | Man Utd | 3.6 | 2.15 | 3.6 |
| Real Madrid | Shakhtar | 1.16 | 19 | 8.5 |
| Sevilla | Gladbach | 1.61 | 6 | 4.2 |
| Wolfsburg | CSKA Moscow | 1.9 | 4.2 | 3.75 |
5) Don’t Roster Players Who Are Not Good – As with any sport, rostering guys who aren’t good will lead to a bad time; obviously it’s a bit tougher for Champions League as you may not be familiar with all the teams, however, you can use some sites such as whoscored to see team performances in their local league and target guys who have been performing well.
And with that, here’s a list of players who are good, grouped by position.
Goalkeepers
Diego Benaglio (Wolfsburg, $3,100), Kevin Trapp (PSG, $5,600), Jan Oblak (Atletico Madrid, $5,000), Keylor Navas (Real Madrid, $5,600), Sergio Rico (Sevilla, $3,100)
Defenders
Ricardo Rodriguez (Wolfsburg, $4,000), Christian Trasch (Wolfsburg, $3,800), Dani Carvajal (Real Madrid, $3,900), Layvin Kurzawa (PSG, $3,500), Gregory Van Der Wiel (PSG, $3,900), Nelson Semedo (Benfica, $4,600)
Midfielders
Angel Di Maria (PSG, $10,000), Memphis (Manchester United, $9,700), Wesley Sneijder (Galatasaray, $7,300), Vitolo (Sevilla, $5,700), Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City, $6,500), Blaise Matuidi (PSG, $6,000), Andre Schurrle (Wolfsburg, $6,000), Olivier Torres (Atletico Madrid, $4,600)
Forwards
Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid, $12,800), Bas Dost (Wolfsburg, $8,900), Jackson Martinez (Atletico Madrid, $8,500), Anthony Martial (Manchester United, $6,000), Jonas (Benfica, $8,000), Fernando Llorente (Sevilla, $6,500), Andre Hahn (Borussia M’Gladbach, $4,200), Markus Rosenberg (Malmo, $4,000)