Replays of the round of 16 in the Fantasy Champions League are here. Without further ado, let’s jump to our UCL Fantasy Matchday 12 (R16 2nd Leg) Tips, with our strategy, odds, best picks, captain, transfer targets, team selection and more.
Fixtures are the same as in Matchday 11, so if you set your team correctly with your unlimited transfers before the 1st leg of R16, you should have a solid fantasy squad for the 2nd leg, as well.
However, there are some important things we have to mention.
1. Fantasy Champions League Matchday 12 Tips & Strategy
a) Have patience on Matchday 12.
Do NOT chase the points from the 1st leg.
I mean, if some player did very well in the first leg and you did not own him, do not tear your team apart to bring him in for some player who did not do well in the first leg.
This time, it could be just the opposite and the player who did extremely well in the 1st leg of R16 can easily blank in the 2nd leg, and the player who blanked in the 1st leg can easily haul in the 2nd leg.
When you were picking your squad with unlimited transfers before the 1st leg, you had faith in your players.
Fixtures are the same in Matchday 12, so keep your faith in players you have picked before, and keep faith in your decision-making process.
b) Use all your free transfers, as you cannot carry forward any free transfer in the knock out stage
In the Champions League knockout stage, we can’t carry out free transfers to the next round, so do not forget to use all three of them.
So, plan ahead.
Transfer out players who probably will not make it to the quarterfinals and bring in players who probably will.
We used our Odds to probability calculator to calculate the probability of progressing to the quarterfinals for each team. Feel free to use them when deciding about your transfer.
You can find our odds of advancing to the Quarterfinals in the article: Probabilities of progressing to quarterfinals.
c) Have a captain for each day
Just as in Matchday 11, aim to have 2 good captaincy options for the Round of 16 2nd Leg – one for each playing day. More about captaincy later in the article.
2. Fixtures to target in UCL Fantasy Round of 16 2nd Leg
Which fixtures you should target? We always use bookies’ odds to help us determine that. Let’s look at which teams have the highest chance of winning their match in the R16 2nd leg and scoring a lot of goals in that game:
- Inter Milan vs. Feyenoord: Inter 71 % to win, 38 % to score 2.5+ goals
- Arsenal vs PSV: Arsenal 69 % to win, 36 % to score 2.5+ goals
- Barcelona vs Benfica: Barca 69 % to win, 49 % to score 2.5+ goals
- Aston Villa vs. Brugge: Villa 60 % to win, 33 % to score 2.5+ goals
Find 2.5+ goals odds for all teams in our article: Champions League Over 2.5 Goals Odds.
3. Key players to own in Round of 16 replays
- Raphinha, Yamal, Lewandowski – perhaps even all 3 of them given Barca attacking potential
- Mbappe/Vinicius – Real strong offensively as well
- If you can afford the luxury of transferring out your Real Madrdi attacker, you could bring in Lautaro Martinez next to Lewandowski and Guirassy
- Kim, Marquinhos – good at balls recovered
- Salah – try to fit him in
- Arsenal defender, we prefer Gabriel due to his goal threat
- Guirassy – unstoppable in UCL
- Inter defender, we prefer Dumfries/Sommer
Differentials and budget picks
- Morgan Rogers
- Nwaneri – 4.7m budget gem
4. Transfer tips for Matchday 12
We have 3 free transfers, but we cannot carry any of them to Matchday 13. So use them all to:
Transfer out:
- injured and suspended players
- players who lost the starting spot
- players who are likely to get eliminated, as they heavily lost in the first leg
- defenders whose clean sheets probabilities for Matchday 12 are not as good as in Matchday 11
Transfer in:
- good players who returned from injury
- best captaincy options, if you do not have them
- players who are highly likely to advance to the Quarterfinals
- defenders whose clean sheet odds improved for Matchday 12
5.Best captain picks for UCL Fantasy R16 2nd Leg
You need to make sure you have a solid captaincy option for each day!
And what is the magic number when you should be satisfied with the return of your captain?
Generally, we consider it to be 6 points. So, when your captain scores 6 points, you keep the armband on him.
And the captains? Well, we picked these four players as the best captain options for Matchday 12:
- Tuesday: Raphinha
- Wednesday: Guirassy
Read more about our captaincy thresholds: UCL Fantasy Captaincy Thresholds: When to change captain?
6. Odds and Probabilities for Matchday 12
Clean Sheet Odds for R16 2nd Leg
As usual, we converted bookies’ clean sheet odds into clean sheet probabilities using our Odds to probability calculator.
Inter and Arsenal have the highest probability of a clean sheet, so you might aim to get two defenders from each of those teams. Bookies also favor Barcelona and Aston Villa to do well defensively.
You can see all Champions League Clean Sheet Odds here.
Goalscoring Odds for Matchday 12
Odds are available: Champions League Goalscoring Odds.
7. Using chips in Matchday 12
The best time to maximally exploit the power of chips was in the group stage. However, if you still have some of your chips left, plan when you use them.
- Use limitless wildcard as soon as possible, while we have many teams and many players to choose from – that way you maximize the chances that you will catch a big haul. The fewer players we have in the game, the lower the points potential is. If you aim to use your limitless chip in Matchday 12, here is our draft for the inspiration: UCL Fantasy Limitless Wildcard Team. Big disadvantage of limitless this late in the tournament is that after limitless, your team reverts back to your pre limitless team so you might need to deal with a lot of eliminated players while loosing 3 free transfers. So only use limitless in MD12 if the majority of your team is likely to go through.
- Regular wildcard – Save it for a Matchday where more than 5 of your players get eliminated, so you cannot cover it with free transfers. You can play the game a bit riskier, and bet on teams who might get eliminated, and then get rid of those players with wildcard chip.
8. Team selection for UCL Fantasy Round of 16 2nd Leg
Now, when we mentioned all we wanted, it is time to look at our scout squad. Here is our UCL Fantasy Matchday 12 team selection (squad constructed solely for the round of 16 replays).
9. Fantasy Champions League Tips
Find more tips, strategies, and picks for UCL Fantasy in these articles:
- Beginner? Read our guide: How to play UCL Fantasy?
- Confused about the rules? Read the Official guidelines of the game
- Do you want to get better at UCL Fantasy? Read our article about Essential Tips for UCL Fantasy Success.
Good luck in UCL Fantasy Matchday 12 – Round of 16 2nd Leg.
