International Tournaments in January & February 2015

International Tournaments in January & February 2015

Some of you will have read the header and thought Tournaments! There’s only the African Cup of Nations to contend with…. wrong answer boys and girls! There is also the AFC Asian Cup in Australia to deal with. It could mean that some Premier League players will be unavailable for 3-4 gameweeks. With FIFA regulations stating that “For a final competition players must be released and start to travel to their national team no later than the Monday morning of the week preceding that of the start of the relevant final competition, and must be released by their association the morning of the day after their last match of the tournament” this could have a huge impact on Fantasy Manager’s January Wildcards.
Now I bet some of you still think that these tournaments will not have an effect on your Fantasy sides, well to name but a few players, if you have the like of; Bony, Yaya Toure, Cisse, Sakho, Jedinak and Yoshida then you will be affected.

Let’s start off with the African Cup of Nations or ACON:
The African Cup of Nations is the international football championships for the African Football Confederation, (CAF) and will be taking place in Equatorial Guinea. ACON will take place between 17 January to 8 February 2015. Players can start reporting to their National Associations from the 5th January.
At present the 30 man squads are only available; this will be reduced down to 23 at a date to be confirmed. At present there are 20 Premier League players going to ACON. Here is the initial list of players by club, who could be going to the Tournament:

Crystal Palace- Adlene Guediora (Algeria), Yannick Bolasie (DR Congo)
Everton- Christian Atsu (Ghana)
Hull- Mohamed Diame (Senegal)
Leicester- Riyad Mahrez (Algeria), Jeff Schlupp (Ghana)
Liverpool- Kolo Toure (Ivory Coast)
Man City- Yaya Toure (Ivory Coast)
Newcastle- Mehdi Abeid (Algeria), Papiss Cisse (Senegal), Cheick Tiote (Ivory Coast)
Southampton- Emmanuel Mayuka (Zambia), Sadio Mane (Senegal)
Stoke- Mame Biram Diouf (Senegal)
Swansea- Wilfried Bony (Ivory Coast)
Tottenham- Nabil Bentaleb (Algeria)
West Ham- Alex Song (Cameroon), Cheikhou Kouyate (Senegal), Diafra Sakho (Senegal)
West Bromwich- Youssouf Mulumbu (DR Congo)

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Next up is the lesser known Tournament known as the AFC Asian Cup:
The AFC Asian Cup is the international football championships for the Asian Football Confederation. (AFC) The winner will qualify for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup. The Cup is taking place in Australia and will take place between the 9 January to the 31 January 2015. Players can start reporting to their National Associations from the 29th December.
Like ACON at present only the 30 man squads are only available. There are 7 Premier League players selected in preliminary squads for the Asian Cup. This Cup competition will impact Fantasy Premier League teams during Gameweeks 21-23. The initial list is:

Aston Villa- Chris Herd (Australia)
Crystal Palace- Mile Jedinak (Australia)
Liverpool- Brad Jones (Australia)
QPR- Yun Suk Young (QPR)
Southampton- Maya Yoshida (Japan)
Swansea- Ki Sung Yueng (Korean Republic)
West Brom- Jason Davidson (Australia)

It remains to be seen when players involved in this Tournament will be called up by their Associations. I would suggest to all you Fantasy Managers to keep a close eye on the squads and don’t get caught with you pants down! West Ham look like they could be effected the most by these tournaments losing Alex Song, Cheikhou Kouyate and Diafra Sakho. Some of the players involved are popular with many a Fantasy Manager, Wilfried Bony, Mile Jedinak and Yaya Toure being the main protagonists.
Plan your transfers carefully and remember the January Wildcard can only be used after Gameweek 20 starts until Gameweek 23 ends.

Thanks for reading International Tournaments in January & February 2015 – Fantasy Premier League 2014-15. This article was written by Eddy