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.
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Join our Leagues:
eurofantasy.uefa.com/en/fantasy16/leagues
FF247 league code – 02049WBX
Potty’s league code – 011427DN
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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)
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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.
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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,
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[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,
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[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
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[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
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[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,,,
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[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
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Courtesy of Jamie @fplbet
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Thanks for reading Euro 2016 Fantasy Football – Intro, Rules and Fixtures. This article was written by Andy
Please vote on our Poll as to who you think will win Euro 2016
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oki doki – the countdown to Euro 16 begins as Andy takes us through the basic concepts of the game. Big thanks Andy for kicking us off mate, great info in there, including a tracker and friendly dates for all the teams.
Please remember everyone to sign up for Fanager and enter the FF247 & Potty leagues. A summer of fun awaits!
FPL finally leaves us alone and boom, shit loads of other games open. There’s just no end to it eh? Started with your Euro teams yet mate? I did one draft, seems pretty handy to get a strong team.
I’ve done a squad mate, but limiting it to players who play or have played in the PL.
Interesting. Is that so you stick with players you defo know about, or to make things a bit harder / more interesting?
To be honest mate, my knowledge of euro football is incredibly poor as I hardly watch it, so my natural laziness dictates me not bothering to learn every Kusic, Perisic and Wotsit!
Thought so, i remember you saying that before but thought you may be mixing it up a little too. Not gonna go too mad with the tinkering until the group articles are all done but i like draft 1.
I have Long, Giroud & Shaqiri up front at the mo
Anyone who doesn’t beat me is going to receive endless abuse from me.
D’oh. Team..
I’d be surprised if Giroud starts all the games. Martial, Griezmann and Payet up front i think. Matuidi, Pogba and whoever in the middle.
Griezmann will play wide according to my frog sauce. Payet or Martial on the left.
source, not sauce
Haha
Typical Frenchies. Why on earth would anyone play Giroud ahead of one of those three? Doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever. I’d play Griezmann down the middle, leave Martial on the left and stick Payet wide right. Lethal front three.
I’m sure frog sauce exists too
I need Giroud playing so sssshhh – you already put me off Ronaldo 😉
On that note, i’m off for some frog sauce, the dinner variety before the comments start!!
Heh heh, enjoy.
If the Portuguese punishes me the first time i don’t pick him in one of these international games i will literally flip the lid. Flip like never before
Nothing is set in stone until after the friendlies. You slagging the Pork n Cheese is reminding me of you slagging West Ham at the start of the season 😉
Always an odd one in these is Ronnie. Clearly the best player in the tournament but with Portugal behind him and not Madrid it’s a slightly different story. No offence DMC! You know what I mean, and it usually proves to be the case.
Exactly init. I’ll probably keep Fonte as they’re okay at the back sometimes but there’s no way i’m spending 12m on Ronaldo when the best partner he has is still bloody Nani! Atrocious.
Cookie, i have no idea what you’re talking about. Carry on 😉
He’s on about the Portugeuse and of course your mate Bilic 😉
I’ll probably still pick Ronnie mate.
I know, i was attempting to fob it off like nothing happened. Oh well 😉
As terrible as his record in tournaments for Portugal is i still wouldn’t be one bit surprised if he kicked off. It is Ronaldo after all. Just cant see that Portugal team doing well against most anyone, i fancy Iceland to beat them!
Late I arrive to this discussion. What a shame, it would’ve been fun. Anyway, it’s simple, Cristiano will score two In each of he’s first two games. He will then rest his knee, or his whatever odd muscle that always seems to bug him late on the season. That’s If atletico’s kind boys allow him to feature at all. If so, then Luis will assist him, courtesy of NIN. Iceland cant win a game given that they only have two inhabitants; that’s eidur gudjohsen and Bjork !! Enjoy that frog now, with sauce!
I really needed this article. Now I can plan accordingly. Who you guys think will go all the way?
Iceland, surely, Chris.
My thoughts exactly
And so it begins! Nice start to the summer fun there. Cheers Andy that must have taken quite a while to put together. Great stuff.
Now to sit back and wait to be told who to pick
Took IT 8x longer to post it than Andy spent writing it! #sistine #apologiesforthedelay
Haha, the wind down, eh?
Pretty sure it’s not that. If we were waiting on IT doing their actual jobs we’d all still be picking GW5 Captains right now mate :hippo:
Cheeky fecker… I taught you all you know 😉
#PlusSomeOfUsHaveJobsWhereWeActuallyHaveToDoWork
I do more before you even arrive at work than you do in a whole day son!
Quality not quantity Boss
Not if it takes you 48 hours to do 20 minutes work! #bindaknows
Not sure where you got 48 hours from but I will leave you to it as you clearly have a lot more spare time than me
Many thanks Andy for kick starting the summer fun. You lead last summers admirably and looking forward to much of the same again. Including winning it
You won last summer? You never mentioned it mate.
I’m sure I did 😉 If not then I can walk you through it all again if you like?
Hahaha, i remember that
I’m in the Macau league again mate! Just me and Kevin again I hope
All over this Euro shit! It’s distracting me from narrowly missing out on my ML!
That’s its intention Rosco!
Like a salve to my wounded soul!
Forget about last season now Rosco. Come and get beat at the Euros by us
Thank you very much Andy. Great article mate.
I’m excited by the Euros and I’m so well prepared that I applied for three half days from work today to cover the three 1400 kick offs including England v Wales.
Yup, act now and don’t let that one sneak up on you.
We’re off then, good luck to all who join up, I’m pushing the boat out and going for upper mid table, I think I’ve managed bottom in all other FF247 leagues this year so far
Andy, you can’t just change your grav you’ve had for years!
It’s me seasonal change, gives me a chance to start over pretending I actually know how to play fantasy games.
Can’t wait to get beat off you guys init! I love looking at my team before the first game thinking ‘yes I’ve got this in the bag’ … Only to realise 1 game in I’ve picked all the wrong players .. Again! It’s character building!