UEFA U21’s Fantasy Football
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[/three_fourth]Just when you thought you were having a fantasy free summer we are here to reel you back in! If the odd fantasy cricket game or the madness that are MLS DGW’s aren’t quite quenching your fantasy thirst then we have good news for you. Starting on June 17th and climaxing on the 30th we give you UEFA U21’s Fantasy Football. This will be short and sweet but intense never the less. The rising stars of European football and some Englishmen will gather in the Czech Republic to do battle and we invite you to join us and them on the road to fantasy glory. We shall go over the basics here such as the rules, the point scoring, the teams themselves and the fixtures. And of course the all important fantasy league details.
The site itself is – UEFA U21’s Fantasy Football
FF247 League
The Official FF247 league is called ‘FF247 potty Party’ and the code for it is 1510540-686120 More on this later!
The Rules
The good news starts here as it’s all pretty much as you were for FPL as regards to point scoring. The rules are slightly different in relation to deadlines and substitutions but it’ll all be familiar to those that have played any previous World Cup or Euro’s competitions of this sort and we have noted the differences below…
Deadlines
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Transfers
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Substitutions
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Maximum number of players from any team
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The Teams
Group A
Czech Rep (4-2-3-1? No confirmed stats can be found)
Vaclav Kadlec will be the main man that the host’s will be pinning their hopes on to fire them through the group stages, he’s found the going tough so far in his Bundesliga career but a recent loan move back to Sparta Prague has seen the striker bag seven goals in five appearances so he should be brimming with confidence ahead of the big kick off on the 17th. Another loanee who has flourished away from his parent club is Chelsea’s Thomas Kalas, Boro should be kicking themselves that they didn’t extend the right back’s contract to cover the end of the season as he was part of a mean defensive unit alongside England representative Ben Gibson.
Don’t shoot the messenger but I think the Czechs might struggle in this group as they’ve failed to beat both Germany and Denmark at home in recent friendlies and although they were able to beat Portugal in their last outing they really do need to thank the crossbar for that result.
(I’ve read a report that Kadlec is suspended for the Czech’s opening game against Denmark but I can’t find a source which confirms it).
Penalties – ???
Free kicks – ???
Corners – ???
(No confirmed text commentary can be found).
Denmark(4-4-2)
In what looks like being a tight group, set pieces could be all important and at 6ft 6 centre half Jannik Vestergaard could prove to be the ace in the hole for the Danes, he’s the highest scoring defender I’ve come across so far with three goals to his name and the big guy seems to get amongst the free kick action. Another Dane that I’m looking forward to seeing (not that I couldn’t spot Vestergaard from a mile away) is midfielder Hojbjerg, he’s currently Bayern Munich’s youngest ever player and if you can break into that midfield I’d fancy my chances in putting you into my fantasy squad.
The Danes are one of the few teams who will be taking part in a pre tournament friendly and I’m hoping that both them and the Swedes will be taking this one seriously when they meet in Lyngby.
Penalties – Hojbjerg
Free kicks – Knudsen, Vestergaard, Thomsen, Hojbjerg
Corners – Thomsen, Knudsen, Bech, Hojbjerg, Norgaard
Germany (4-2-3-1)
Marc Andre Ter Stegen is the name that immediately jumps out at you from the German squad, the Barcelona keeper arrives fresh from a Champions League victory and would have to be favourite to be the man between the sticks but he won’t be joining the team until four days before the tournament kicks off as a result so prudence dictates that if you select Stegen in your initial squad your other keeper must be a nailed on starter. Just in case. The Germans have suffered a slight setback defensively with big Willi Orban pulling out (behave Andy! – ed.) of the squad and as they won’t be bringing in any replacements this could limit the CB picks to Ginter, Heintz and Knoche. That’s Ginter not Gunter, be careful with that one.
I’d loved to have seen this team play in the opening game as I fancy them to do well but there are a lot of 50 / 50 calls that will have to be made as to which mids are selected (and what role they are given) and the main striker role could go either way between Volland and Hofmann. (Serge Gnarby? Ha ha ha ha ha ha, no)
Penalties – Leitner, Hofmann
Free kicks – Geis, Leitner
Corners – Geis, Bittencourt, Leitner
Serbia (4-5-1)
The Serbian squad has been hampered by the main national teams poor start to the 2016 Euro’s qualification, the likes of Mitrovic (Anderlecht, forward) and Nastasic (Schalke, defender) will be sorely missed, particularly Mitrovic’s goal threat as all of the other forwards in the squad have a combined strike rate of one in four at this level and the Serbian under-21 wiki seems to have most of them listed as midfielder’s, really I’d be careful what you wished for if selecting a Serbian forward.
The Serbs did however manage to knock out championship holders Spain on route to this summers tournament so it’s not all doom and gloom and I’d expect them to be solid defensively behind the 4-5-1 formation.
Penalties – Kostic? (He takes every other set play.)
Free kicks – Kostic
Corners – Kostic
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Group B
England (4-3-3)
Gareth Southgate’s team are heading into this tournament as the in form side as Portugal, Czech Rep and Germany have all been swept away recently in friendly matches. Continuity has never been England’s strongest suit however as many of the current crop of ‘Yoof’ have been toing and froing between the under-21 and full England set up.
The English attack will be the main worry for all the other contenders in the group with Berahino being the top scorer through the qualifiers and Kane’s none too shabby record of eight goals in ten U21 appearance. A sneaky move could be Norwich City’s Nathan Redmond who normally starts as part of the attacking three but could be listed as a mid. (His goalscoring record is a far cry from the other two though.)
Penalties – Berahino, Kane
Free kicks – Kane
Corners – Carroll, Hughes, Garbutt, Ward Prowse
Italy (4-4-2)
Finally a team with what looks a settled side and surprise surprise it’s the Italians. Bardi will be the goalkeeper, Bianchetti will start at centre half and Andrea Belotti should start up front. There are seven players within the squad with fifteen plus caps at this level and it comes as no shock to find that Italy are the most successful team at UEFA U21 tournaments with five wins to date. Panucci, Cannavaro, Inzaghi, Totti and a certain mister Pirlo (who top scored) have all been privy to an Azzuri winning party.
They haven’t been in the best of form of late and since qualifying for the tournament they’ve only actually managed to beat themselves! Yes that’s right. The Italian Under-21 team beat… another Italian Under-21 team (match fixing rumours abound that the Italians threw this game to the Italians, Italy denies this profusely). They also lost to both the Danish and Serbian teams respectively.
Penalties – Bellotti
Free kicks – Viviani, Crisetig, Baselli
Corners – Viviani, Berardi, Bernadeschi, Crisetig
Portugal (4-3-3)
With the Under-20 world cup taking place in New Zealand it was feared that leading talents like Bernardo Silva would be unavailable to play in the Czech Republic but to the Portuguese credit it looks like the Monaco man will be lacing his boots at the Under-21 tournament instead and with six goals in the final month of the French Ligue 1 he looks like a man in seriously good form.
Portugal however have been struggling as of late and they’ve only managed to find the back of the net once in the last three games. They did manage to blast seven past the Dutch over the two legs of the qualifying play off and before their 0-0 draw with Denmark you’d have to go back to 2013 for the last time they drew a blank. (Nineteen games).
Penalties – Sergio Oliviera, Esgaio
Free kicks – Sergio Oliviera, Lopes, Neves, Silva
Corners – Sergio Oliviera, Silva
Sweden (4-4-2)
I like this team. Why? because they beat France and whenever the French meet their Waterloo I’m always a happy chappy. Vice captain Aleksander Milosevic will look to form the bedrock of the Swedish defence, he has rarely featured for new club Besiktas since joining in January but since he’s made only the two appearances he should be fresh and raring to go. He has been a nigh on ever present in the Under-21 squad only ever losing his place when called into the full national team.
Bypassing the midfield quicker than a Sam Allarydce team – Celtics John Guidetti will look to provide the creative spark upfront, the superhoop has a decent record of one in two at this level and if Sweden want to advance any further than the group stages he’ll have to keep this record up. Kiese Thelin will likely start alongside Guidetti and he seems to have the Midas touch when it comes to the under 21’s as he managed to bag six goals from six appearances, for no other team can Thelin boast of a goal scoring record like this as he’s even managed to pick up more yellow cards then goals for new club Bordeaux.
Penalties – Guidetti?
Free kicks – Guidetti
Corners – Hiljemark, Augustinsson, Guidetti, Khalili
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NB – disclaimer! All stats regarding formations, penalty takers etc are taken from the teams final five competitive games. Finding reliable text commentary from the friendlies is proving to be a bit of a nightmare (The BBC in its infinite wisdom can tell you who concedes a corner but not who takes it) and as there is a high turnover of players at this level it may not all be 100% accurate. We did our best!
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The Fixtures
Pre Tournament Friendly Games
9th of June
Czech Rep v Ukraine
11th of June
England v Belarus
Denmark v Sweden
12th of June
Italy v ?? (probably a youth team)
Obviously these games aren’t relevant to our fantasy scores however we may gleam some insights into possible starting line ups.
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Tournament Fixtures
All matches are staggered to kick-off times unless stated.
Match day 1 (Unlimited transfers until 16.45 GMT 17th)
17th of June
Czech Rep v Denmark
Germany v Serbia
18th of June
Italy v Sweden
England v Portugal
Match day 2 (2 Transfers available, deadline 16.45 GMT 20th)
20th of June
Czech Rep v Serbia
Denmark v Germany
21st of June
England v Sweden
Italy v Portugal
Match day 3 (2 Transfers available, deadline 16.45 GMT 23rd, no team sheets, gits – I would have WC’d!)
All matches kick off at the same time
23rd of June
Czech Rep v Germany
Denmark v Serbia
24th of July
England v Italy
Portugal v Sweden
Match day 4 (6 Transfers available, deadline 16.15 GMT 27th)
27th of June
Winner B v Runner up A
Winner A v Runner up B
Match day 5 (6 Transfers available, deadline 19.30 GMT 30th)
30th of June – The Final
Semi 1 v Semi 2
NB If England qualify for the Semi final stage an extra fixture will be added to the calendar, both teams that finished in 3rd place of the groups will play on the 28th of June in an Olympic qualifier, I can’t see this being added into the fantasy game but we mention it just in case. You’ll also notice the lack of colour for this summer’s competition, predicting this? No dice.
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FF247 League
We have left the league itself down to Potty to run and so our Official FF247 league is called ‘FF247 potty Party’ and the code for it is 1510540-686120
Potty will no doubt update us all regularly on here with progress and deadlines and he usually throws in some curve-balls with new comps along the way so it promises to be a roller-coaster as ever! Just hopefully not of the Alton Towers variety…
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BARCA AGREE POGBA DEAL
The problem hasn’t been getting Barca to agree. 😉