Euro 2016 Fantasy Football – Intro, Rules and Fixtures

Euro 2016 Fantasy Football Intro, Rules and Fixtures

Bonjour and good moaning, welcome to this summer’s European fantasy odyssey – this year’s tournament has seen a revamp since the all conquering Spanish team won it back in 2012 so now there’ll be twenty four teams instead of the usual sixteen fighting it out to be crowned European Champions in France this July.

The teams will be spread into six groups with the top two qualifying automatically for the knock out stage along with the four teams who have the best record who finish in third place, so at this stage it looks like it could be harder to get eliminated rather than qualify but thankfully it looks nigh on impossible for Roy and his men to be eliminated after only two games this time around. It’s also worth noting that in the three previous tournaments in which this format has been used (World cups of 86, 90 and 94) no team that has finished third with at least a win and a draw has ever been eliminated.

The game is now up and running and the link to the site and our league codes are just below for signing up with but I’ll point out straight away that very few final 23-man squads have been announced so far so if you’ve just auto filled your team you might want to be careful that you don’t leave the likes of Theo Walcott/Leighton Baines in there come kick off time as word to the wise, they’ll be having this summer off.

[alert style=”1″]

Join our Leagues:

eurofantasy.uefa.com/en/fantasy16/leagues

FF247 league code – 02049WBX

Potty’s league code – 011427DN
[/alert]

[divider_1px]

Le Rules

I was going to do an in-depth column on the rules but then I remembered that this is a McDonalds ran competition and I thought what’s the point, they’re only going to change them somewhere along the lines anyway so let’s try to keep this as brief as possible for now and then we’ll see later on how the cards pan out, it’s all going to be very similar to this seasons FPL game so we’re off to a good start on that front for the time being.

We’ll have €100mln to construct our squads which must consist of :-

2 Goalkeepers
5 Defenders
5 Midfielders
3 Forwards

From that squad we’ll be able to select a Captain (For the double points) and a playing formation which for fantasy games is nominally the 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 but for those radicals still amongst us you could still select the 4-4-2 or even the 5-4-1 if you so wished because yeah that might work (it won’t). Despite the rule page reading, at best, ambiguous, we have spoken to the offical support team and they have confirmed that we can make changes during each Matchday.

Matchdays will be broken down into gamedays allowing us the opportunity to tinker with our lineups over the course of the matchday so it may just be prudent to try and fill out your squad with as many starters as possible rather than just selecting three or four budget players.
You can also change your captain throughout a Matchday, but only to a player who is yet to play.

There will be seven different matchdays over the course of the tournament which we will be allowed to make transfers for and these are all as follows :-

[table width=”100%” colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
Matchday,Date,Transfers
Matchday 1,10 June 21.00,Unlimited transfers (Group phase)
Matchday 2,15 June 15.00,One free transfer (Group phase)
Matchday 3,19 June 21.00,One free transfer (Group phase)
Matchday 4,25 June 15.00,Unlimited transfers (Round of sixteen)
Matchday 5,30 June 21.00,Four Free transfers (Quarter-finals)
Matchday 6,06 June 21.00,Six Free transfers (Semi-finals)
Matchday 7,10 June 21.00,Six Free transfers (Final)
[/table]

A wild card is also going to be available to every team which can be played at any time allowing us the option to make whole scale changes to our team without having to take a points hit for going over the free transfer limit, another thing to watch for regarding transfers is that a price change will be applied after the group phase which will be performance driven so if you think Lewandowski is expensive now imagine the price tag on him after he plays Northern Ireland.

The point scoring system is very similar to the EPL game with the main differences between being that you’ll automatically be given 2 points for winning a penalty and no assist will be given to a player who wins a penalty or a free kick which is then scored from, the bonus point system is also not going to be used in this tournament.

As always we’ll try and keep everyone as updated as much as possible regarding any future rules changes and fingers crossed we’ll be able to pick out some diamonds in the rough from the pre-tournament friendlies which will be taking place shortly, till then though here’s a fixture ticker which will cover the first three matchdays of the tournament and is always helpful when selecting that first squad.

[divider_1px]

[divider_1px]

Pre tournament friendly games

[table caption=”Group A” width=”100%” colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
Albania,France,Romania,Switzerland
Qatar 29/05,Cameroon 30/05,Congo DR 25/05,Belgium 28/05
Ukraine 03/06,Scotland 04/06,Ukraine 29/05,Moldova 03/06
,,Georgia 03/06,
[/table]

[divider_1px]

[table caption=”Group B” width=”100%” colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
England,Russia,Slovakia,Wales
Turkey 22/05,Czech Rep 01/04,Georgia 27/05,Sweden 05/06
Australia 27/05,Serbia 04/06,Germany 29/05,
Portugal 02/06,,Northern Ireland 04/06,
[/table]

[divider_1px]

[table caption=”Group C” width=”100%” colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
Germany,Northern Ireland,Poland,Ukraine
Slovakia 29/05,Belarus 27/05,Netherlands 01/06,Romania 29/05
Hungary 04/06,Slovakia 04/06,Lithuania 06/06,Albania 03/06
[/table]

[divider_1px]

[table caption=”Group D” width=”100%” colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
Croatia,Czech Republic,Spain,Turkey
Moldova 27/05,Malta 27/05,Bosnia 29/05,England 22/05
Iran 29/05,Russia 01/06,Korean republic 01/06,Montenegro 29/05
San Marino 03/06,korean republic 05/06,Georgia 07/06,Slovenia 05/06
[/table]

[divider_1px]

[table caption=”Group E” width=”100%” colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
Belgium,Italy,Republic of Ireland,Sweden
Switzerland 28/05,Scotland 29/05,Netherlands 27/05,Slovenia 30/05
Finland 01/06,Finland 06/06,Belarus 31/05,Wales 05/06
Norway 05/06,,,
[/table]

[divider_1px]

[table caption=”Group F” width=”100%” colalign=”left|left|left|left|left”]
Austria,Hungary,Iceland,Portugal
Malta 31/05,Ivory Coast 20/05,Norway 01/06,Norway 29/05
Netherlands 04/06,Germany 04/06,Liechtenstein 06/06,England 02/05
,,,Estonia 08/06
[/table]

[divider_1px]

Courtesy of Jamie @fplbet

[divider_1px]

Thanks for reading Euro 2016 Fantasy Football – Intro, Rules and Fixtures. This article was written by Andy

Follow @Fantasyfooty247

Please vote on our Poll as to who you think will win Euro 2016

[polldaddy poll=9423343]