UCL Fantasy Matchday 5: Tips, Captain, Picks & Team Selection

With Matchday 5 we are approaching the second half of the Fantasy Champions League group stage now. There are still plenty of opportunities how to boost your ranking before the beginning of the Round of 16.

So we prepared for you UCL Fantasy tips for Matchday 5 in order to help you find opportunities to climb up the ranking before the elimination rounds begin.

We will focus on the best captain, best picks, fixtures to target, balls recovered, and our own scout team selection.

Let’s quickly dive in.

Do you want to get better at UCL Fantasy? Read our article about Essential Tips for UCL Fantasy Success.

1. Strategy and tips for UCL Fantasy Matchday 5 and onwards

Note: Matchday 5 could be a good matchday to use limitless as a majority of good heavy hitters you want in your team plays on the Day 1, which prevents substitutions headache – but still make sure you have at least 4 players playing on Day 2

Your fantasy football strategy for MD5 will depend on the number of chips you have available and when you plan to use them.

a) You used all your chips

If you already used your wildcard and the limitless wildcard, you just need to focus on fixtures in the bigger horizon when doing transfers. So try to bring in players that have good fixtures in, MD5, MD6, and perhaps even MD7 and MD8 as well.

b) You plan to use limitless in MD6-MD7

If you plan to use your limitless wildcard in MD6 or MD7 (we do not recommend MD8 as you cannot exploit heavy hitters substitutions), look at it as your “free hit” team as well. Basically, you can use your limitless in a matcdhay, when majority of your current players how tough fixtures.

c) If you have BOTH chips available, limitless and classic wildcard as well

If you have both chips available, we prefer using them both in the group stage.

However, you could consider leaving the classic wildcard to the elimination round, but it might not have a big effect there, as we all have unlimited transfers after MD8 and MD10. and then 5,3,5,3, etc free transfers before each round.

But definitely use limitless in the group stage. In the group stage, we have fixtures where strong teams play against whipping boys = a great source of fantasy points.

We also get a budget increased by 5m in R16, which makes the limitless chip less effective in the elimination rounds too.

Our preferred strategy in this scenario would be:

1. Matchday 5,6 or 7: Limitless wildcard (MD6 allows to load up on Liverpool, Real Madrid, Bayern, Milan, Arsenal players, MD7 on Atalanta, Juventus, Dortmund, Real Madrid, Inter, Arsenal)
2. Matchday 8: Classic wildcard – to exploit the fact we will know all lineups before deadline, and have 4 cheapest 4m players on the bench.

However, you could also use regular wildcard sooner (for example now in MD5), especially if you have many injured players or our team is in terrible shape.

Strategy for everyone

1. Focus on players that are good at balls recovered. Their points output is stable due to the balls recovered and score 4-5 points for you even without an attacking return.
2. Target easy fixtures. Focus on premium players who are likely to haul and who play against very easy oppositions nad how good fixture run in next 3 fixtures
3. Alongside these few heavy hitters focus on cheap players who have stable output in balls recovered.
4. Pick defenders that have a high chance of a clean sheet
5. Make sure you have 2 great captaincy options, one for each day
6. Make sure your goalkeepers play on different days so you can use subs on them
7. Have around 8 players for Tuesday and around 7 players for Wednesday to use subs efficiently

2. Transfer Targets and key players to own in Matchday 3

Key players to own

• Lewandowski, Raphinha
• Cubarsi/Kounde – if you are not on Barcelona attacking triple up
• Wirtz – has amazing form, a captaincy candidate
• Frimpong/Grimaldo – Leverkusen wingbacks could be an amazing source of points, fixture do not matter, you want one of them until the end of the league phase. But Frimpong is on 2 yellow cards.
• Haaland – he still could do well
• Man. City defending coverage – Rico Lewis/Gvardiol – although it is very hard to predict who of their defenders will start
• Gyokeres – it is almost impossible to sell a player in this form
• Guirassy – if fit- your backup captain, so try to pick one of Gyokeres, Guirassy
• Dortmund defender for good fixtures with clean sheet potential

Son, in your front three, try to pick 3 from these 4 forwards: Lewandowski, Haaland, Gyokeres, Guirassy

Transfer targets

• Mittelstatd – good next 3 fixtures for Stuttgart
• Retegui/Lookman – but mix of fixtures for Atalanta
• Pulišič, Theo Hernandez – good fixture run for AC Milan
• Celtic players, Kuhn – Celtic have a good fixture run up to MD8
• Kim
• Boscagli – good at balls recovered, good fixture run for PSV

Yamal replacements

1. Wirtz, Raphinha – if you do not have them both yet
2. Kuhn – if you need a player who plays on Wednesday
3. Pulišič
4. Saka – if you can afford an upgrade and already own Wirtz and Raphinha

3. Fixtures to target in UCL Fantasy Matchday 5

Now let’s use our Odds to probability calculator to find out which fixtures we should target in Matchday 5 according to bookies odds.

Tuesday fixtures

• Barcelona vs. Brest: Barcelona 86 % to win, 59 % to score 2.5+ goals
• Man. City vs. Feyenoord: Man. City 82 % to win, 55 % to score 2.5+ goals
• Leverkusen vs. Salzburg: Leverkusen 81 % to win, 55 % to score 2.5+ goals
• Slovan Bratislava vs. AC Milan: AC Milan 79  % to win, 50 % to score 2.5+ goals

Wednesday fixtures

• PSV Eindhoven vs. Sachtar Doneck: PSV 68 % to win, 38 % to score 2.5+ goals
• CZ Beograd vs. Stuttgart: Stuttgart 59 % to win, 32 % to score 2.5+ goals
• Din. Zagreb vs. Dortmund: Dortmund 56 % to win, 31 % to score 2.5+ goals
• Celtic vs. Club Brugge: Celtic 47 % to win, 22 % to score 2.5+ goals

Find 2.5+ goals odds for all teams in our article: Champions League Over 2.5 Goals Odds.

5. Best captain for Matchday 5

Let’s look at who do we consider to be the best captain for UCL Fantasy Matchday 5.

Tuesday captain pick: Wirtz (SAL (H))

As it stands, we will captain Wirtz as we think he is the best captain option for UCL Fantasy Matchday 5. However, there are many other good options for captaincy, such as Raphinha, Lewandowski or Haaland.

Other captain picks for Tuesday: Raphinha, Lewandowski,Haaland.

Wednesday captain pick: Guirassy (DZG (A))

There are not many good captaincy options for Wednesday.

We have a tough decision to make, but in the end, we chose Guirassy as our Wednesday captain, if Wirtz fails to deliver at least 9 points (you can read our rules for switching the captaincy here).

Other captain picks for Wednesday: Salah, Dortmund defender

6. Bookies odds

As usual, we looked at what bookies think about the Matchday 5 of UCL Fantasy.

We checked the clean sheet odds to determine which teams are most likely to keep a clean sheet in the MD5 and goalscoring odds to determine which players are most likely to score a goal in MD5.

It can be very helpful when selecting the defense of your UCL Fantasy team or choosing your UCL Fantasy captain.

We used our Odds to probability calculator for converting bookies’ odds into probabilities.

Clean sheet odds for MD5

Bookies favor Barcelona and Manchester City to keep a clean sheet with with over 50% probability. AC Milan and Leverkusen follow. Bookies expect 8.59 clean sheets in Matchday 5. You can find the full Champions League clean sheet odds table here.

Goalscoring odds for MD5

Nothing new here. Haaland leads the goalscoring probabilities for MD5, followed by Lewandowski… Check Any Time Goalscorer odds in our article Champions League Goalscoring Odds.

7. Most Balls Recovered before MD5

• 41: Pacho
• 33: Alexsandro
• 32: Baidoo
• 31: Rouaultm, Pedro Henrique, Djiga, Singo, Lucumi
• 30: Kim
• 29: Boscagli, De Roon

8. UCL Fantasy Team Selection Matchday 5

Let’s finish our preview for the Matchday 5 of UCL Fantasy with our scout seclection. This is a good inspiration for managers on their wildcard (regular one). If you plan to use your limitless wildcard in MD5, check our limitless squad here.

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.

Feel free to JOIN our UCL fantasy mini-league.

Good luck in UCL Fantasy Matchday 5.