World Fantasy: Group A analysis

What you need to know about the Group A of the World Cup


Group A of the World Cup has hosts Russia has its first seeded team. The other teams are Uruguay, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who came from pots 2, 3 and 4 respectively.


The first match of the World Cup will have Russia facing Saudi Arabia. The other game of the group is between Uruguay and Egypt. Since Russia will play Uruguay only in the third round of the group stage, it might be good to idea to bet on the Russians for the first two GameWeeks. Uruguayans might be good picks for all of the group stage, but if they under-perform against Egypt you should reconsider going with them.

Uruguay are favorites in Group A, with Russia and Egypt fighting for the other spot. Saudi Arabia is one of the teams of which less is expected in the World Cup. However, if we look at the FIFA ranking, Russia is surprisingly the second worst ranked team in the World Cup, sitting at the 66th place. Only Saudi Arabia has a worse ranking, even though they’re just one place below Russia, in the 67th. Uruguay is the 17th and Egypt the 46th.

Russia

Being the only team that didn’t participate in the qualifiers, we have to look at friendlies and other games the Russians played. In 2017, Russia played in the Confederations Cup, losing to Mexico and Portugal and winning against New Zealand. In the friendlies, they won only two — against Korea and Hungary — drawing four and losing two. In 2018, things didn’t get better: the Russians lost all three matches played so far, against France, Brazil and Austria.

Russia’s base XI has three at the back, two full-backs playing the whole wing, and diamond midfield and a target man at the front. Smolov (7.5M), the Krasnodar striker, is the team’s offensive reference, in which they put their hopes for goals. In the midfield there are several interesting options, like Dzagoev (7.0M), Aleksey Miranchuk (5.5) and Erokhin (5.0). The next friendly matches might give us some clues as to who will play. The full-backs should be Smolnikov (6.0) and Zhirkov (5.5).

As hosts, it’s expected that Russians will have extra motivation. With the supporters on their side, Russia will want to perform well and advance beyond the group stage.


Uruguay

Uruguay qualified for the World Cup with a second place at CONMEBOL’s qualifiers, behind Brazil. The PSG striker Edinson Cavani emerged as the top scorer in the South-American qualifiers, netting 10 goals. The Celeste ended with 31 points (3 more than Argentina and 10 below Brazil), thanks to 9 wins, 4 draws and 5 losses. In the two friendlies played in 2018, the Uruguayans won against Czech Republic and Wales.

The stars of this team, the two strikers Cavani (10.0M) and Luiz Suárez (10.0), are one of the most feared pairs in the tournament. Matías Vecino (5.5) and Rodrigo Bentancur (5.5) are two talented midfielders who will organize the midfield play. The two centre-backs, Diego Godín (6.5) and José Giménez (6.0), form a solid defensive pair, with the amazing advantage of being team-mates at Atlético de Madrid.

As the favourites in this group, Uruguay starts it’s participation playing against Egypt. With Salah still recovering from the injury suffered in the Champions League final, the South-American side becomes even more favourite. If they beat Egypt, they have a foot in the Round-of-16, because in GameWeek 2 they Saudi Arabia, where no one thinks Uruguay won’t win.


Egypt

The pharaohs qualified for the World Cup after winning Group E of the African qualifiers, staying ahead of Uganda, Ghana and Congo. With 4 wins, a draw and a loss (against second place Uganda), the Egyptians finished with 13 points, 4 ahead of Uganda. However, in 6 games they scored only 8 goals (5 of them by Salah). After that, they played three friendlies, with modest outcomes. They were beaten by Portugal and Greece and couldn’t go beyond a draw with Kuwait.

As we all know, Egypt’s main figure is Mohamed Salah (9.5M). The Liverpool star suffered an injury in the Champions League final and will probably be unavailable for the first game in the World Cup. This can be a huge setback for the Africans: if Liverpool felt orphaned without his star, in Egypt the impact might be bigger. Elneny (5.5), the Arsenal midfielder, is the second most recognizable player.

Despite being above Russia in FIFA’s ranking, Egypt seems less a contender to the second place than the hosts. The first game is against the strongest opponent and it will be hard for Egypt to come out with a positive result. If Salah is fit, at least for the second GameWeek, the Egyptians may have a word to say.


Saudi Arabia

The Saudis reached the World Cup after being second in the Asian qualifiers’ Group B. With 19 points, Saudi Arabia were just 1 point behind Japan and were even with third place Australia. Of the 17 goals scored by the Saudis, 15 were by Mohammed Al Sahlawi! The Arab squad played a lot of friendlies this year, and the results aren’t bad. They lost against Iraq, Belgium and Italy, draw with Ukraine and beat Moldova, Algeria and Greece.

There are no stars in the Saudi Arabia squad. Al Salahwi (5.5M) is the target man, as we can see by the percentage of goals he scored in the qualifiers. If the Saudis score in the World Cup, he’ll prabably be involved. Taiseer Al Jassam (6.0M) is the main creative force in the midfield. As for defenders, you should avoid them at all costs.

As we said earlier, Saudi Arabia has the worse FIFA ranking of all the 32 teams present in Russia. The group isn’t the toughest, they avoided the main candidates, but still no one would be surprised if they finished without points.


The 2018 World Cup has already begun at RealFevr!

Pick your team for the World Fantasy and aim for glory with our amazing prizes.


The European season is reaching its last days, with the Champions League final, but you won’t have time to long for great football. The 2018 World Cup is just around the corner and, as you might have guessed by now, RealFevr will offer you all the emotion of the planet’s biggest national competition, with our World Fantasy!

The launch of this tournament coincides with the RealFevr rebrand, which will make your experience playing the World Cup even better. Book your place in Russia and get your team ready for glory. Choose your squad of 15 and challenge your friends for a Private League. You can make unlimited changes to your squad up until the World Cup’s opener, so choose wisely and experiment with different combinations of players to come up with a squad that fills your needs.

In Russia, 32 national teams will seek a place in History. At RealFevr, you will have a much larger number of opponents. If you want to be the best among the best, the first thing you need to do is to follow our content closely. We will give you all the information you need to make the right choice at every phase. Get ready for our team and group analysis, put together your best strategy and try to get some of the amazing prizes we have for you.

We want to be the best in the World, and we’re counting on you! If you want to achieve the same, you can count on us.

START BUILDING YOUR TEAM AT REALFEVR.COM

RealFevr is growing and so can you

We are ready to move forward: to expand our global reach, across and beyond all Sports.


We’d like to start by thanking you, because without you none of this would be possible.

In just a couple of years we’ve grown to over half a million users, and we’re currently featuring some of the best football leagues in Europe and South America.

We’re proud of what we’ve accomplished so far but we want to keep taking RealFevr to the next level. That means new leagues, more sports, new game models and to expand our support to more geographies. Bottomline, we plan to continue enhancing the fantasy experience you have at RealFevr, and for that we have a plan, already in motion, and we think you’ll love the end result of it.

Now while RealFevr will always remain free-to-play (this is one of our cornerstones and one that we’ll never waive), special features within our platform will gradually become available (game models, custom leagues, preview packages, draft kits and lots more), that will not only further improve your fantasy experience but also provide you with all the tools to take you to the next level, fantasy wise.

After putting a lot of thought into it, we’ve decided that the best way to approach this was by a Virtual Coin on our platform, that will work as game credits for all the add-ons we plan on introducing, as well as, in the future, be used as a part of the prizes structure, for wagers with other users or even used to buy goods at a future marketplace. The sky is the limit!

As having a game credit working properly in our platform requires a lot transparency and security, we believe a cryptocurrency would be an ideal fit for this step forward, with the added value that our users will have the opportunity to securely invest in RealFevr’s success as a company, via the RealFevr ICO (Initial Coin Offering).

In fact, part of our plan is to reward the current RealFevr user-base by offering you a bonus for investing in our success. Soon, we’ll give you more detail about these rewards and also about cryptocurrencies, ICO’s, and why that’s a perfect fit for RealFevr. For now, subscribe to our RealFevr ICO social channels below, so you can keep track of what we’re doing and don’t miss out on this opportunity!

Until next time,
The RealFevr Team

World Fantasy: managing the budget

Tips on how to spend the 100M


The World Cup is getting closer! The kick-off is little more than two weeks away. There’s not much time left, but enough for you to tune your squad. And we’re here to help you.

When it comes to building a squad, there are multiple ways of looking at it. We’re going to walk you through some of these different approaches, so you can weight the gains and losses of each strategy.

First and foremost, you need to know that the 100M will have to afford the 11 starters plus the 4 substitutes. You can go with four cheap players in the bench and maximize the value available for the starters. Or you can spread the budget more evenly in order to have safe bets for every position. You can also tip the scale in favor of defense, midfield or attack, according to who you believe will have the most impact in the tournament.

Before you choose a path, you must think how will you play this fantasy. Will you have a fixed 11 and a fixed captain, counting on auto substitutions (read our previous article for more on this), or will you manage your team during the GameWeek, using all your players and changing the captain accordingly?

All-in for the Starting XI

When you want to bet heavily in the starting XI, the best way to start building your squad is by picking four cheap substitutes. It’s best if these players are starters in their squads, so you have a safe net if one of your starters doesn’t play. For a low-cost bench, your best options are a 4.5M goalkeeper, two defenders between 4.0 and 4.5M, and a midfielder between 4.5 and 5.0M. You can spend only 17.0M on the bench and save 83.0M for a stronger starting XI.

To choose this bench players you must look at the more modest teams: Australia, Egypt, Iceland, Morocco, Nigeria, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Korea and Tunisia. We won’t tell you exactly the players you should pick. Analyze the groups, see what teams among these underdogs have more chances of winning or scoring goals, and pick your four bench players from these teams.

If you pick these substitutes, you’ll have a starting XI in 3–4–3 that you can fill with players from the top nations. You won’t be able to have all the stars, but you’ll build a team that will inspire fear in your opponents.

Balanced squad

To build a balanced squad you’ll need to pay attention to more teams. You can avoid the modest ones we mentioned before and focus on the ones that stand a chance to advance in their groups. You won’t be able to have the best player in each team, of course, but you might be able to have three stars with a price tag around 10.0M.

Then, you have to fill your squad with good players with lower prices. There are some interesting ones in the title contenders, but you should also look at some second tier nations like Colombia, Croatia, Denmark, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Sweden, Uruguay, who are able to advance beyond the group stage. Even in the title contenders, it’s a good idea to consider the player immediately after the star: e.g. Mbappé instead of Griezmann, Gabriel Jesus instead of Neymar.

With a balanced squad, you’ll have to prepare the starting XI considering each GameWeek. If you use auto subs, you should leave on the bench the players with tough matches and go with the ones with higher chances of winning. Your tactics should be adaptable, don’t force a formation, just use the best players for the GameWeek. And beware of the calendar: teams like Spain and Portugal, who play each other in GW1, have much better odds for GW2 and 3, when they play against Morocco and Iran.

Managing your squad

During a GameWeek you already know what to do. With manual subs, everyone counts for your team and everyone can be captain; with auto subs, the bench is your safe net. But what should you do with the free transfers between GameWeeks?

Before each new GameWeek, you are able to adjust your squad with transfers. Likely, you’ll have to use transfers to adjust to some backlashes like injuries, bans or simply some players you thought would be starters but turned out differently. But you should also use the transfers to adjust your squad to the calendar. You can start without Spanish players, for instance, and buy them only on GameWeek 2.

There’s also the WildCard. When used, it allows you to make unlimited transfers for the next GameWeek. It might seem early, but if you have a slow start on GW1, you should consider using it for GW2. The third round is a also a good candidate: with some teams already qualified, managers may give some rest to their stars. Besides, you’ll have 16 free transfers for GW4.

Conclusion

The right strategy is the one you choose. There’s no right and wrong answers. Take a moment to think about what we told you and what best suits your needs. Remember that, until the World Cup starts, you have unlimited transfers. Study the groups, test several squad combinations and go with your instinct. The competition is a short one, be sure to look at the big picture.


World Fantasy: Rules and strategy

Your road to World Cup glory starts here.


The kick-off for the 2018 World Cup is nearing. At RealFevr, you can start building your squad already! We will have articles previewing the groups and available players but, before that, we thought it would be useful to give a quick round-up of the rules and basic strategy. This does not exempt you from reading the complete set of rules at RealFevr — consider yourself warned — but it should serve as a quick guide on how to play, if you’re new around here.

When you create your fantasy team, you’ll have a budget of 100M to build a squad with 2 goalkeeper, 5 defenders, 5 midfielders and 3 attackers. In the group stage and the round-of-16, you can have a maximum of three players from the same national team. In the quarter-finals the maximum rises to four, in the semi-finals it’s six and in the last gameweek (the final plus the 3rd and 4th place match) you can have up to 12 players from the same national team.

Tactics

After completing your squad of 15, you can prepare your starting XI for the first gameweek. You can use seven different tactics: 3–4–3, 3–5–2, 4–3–3, 4–4–2, 4–5–1, 5–4–1, 5–3–2. To change your tactical formation you can simply substitute someone from your starting XI with a player from the bench. If you’re in 4–4–2 and change a midfielder with an attacker, the team changes automatically to a 4–3–3. If you use manual substitutions (more on this below), you can change your tactics during the gameweek.

Captain and vice-captain

For captain and vice-captain you should pick the players that you believe will have the higher scores of the gameweek. Your captain’s score will be doubled, so the greater the outcome of his performance, the more you’ll benefit. If your captain doesn’t play in the gameweek, the vice-captain will have his points double; otherwise, the vice-captain has no benefit. If you use manual substitutions, you can change your captain during the gameweek. In this case, the best strategy is to give the armband to the player who plays first and keep changing it for every game, until you have a captain with a good score. This means that every player — not just the stars — is a potential captain when you use manual substitutions.

Substitutions

By default, your team will have the automatic substitutions turned on. With this option, if a player in your starting XI doesn’t play (not even 1 minute), he will be replaced by someone from the bench who has played. As mentioned before, if your captain doesn’t play, the vice-captain will have double points. The order in which the bench players will replace the ones that haven’t played is the order in which you organized your bench. This automatic changes will only take place at the end of the gameweek.

In the manual substitutions mode, you’re in charge of everything. To activate this mode, you just have to make a substitution or change the captain. With manual mode on, you can change your captain in every game — but beware, once you change it, you can’t go back. You can give the armband only to players who are yet to play. You will also have the advantage of being able to take off the pitch someone who has already played. If you have someone with a disappointing score, you can replace him with someone from the bench. The substitute must be someone who hasn’t played yet. When using the manual substitutions, the best strategy is to leave on the bench the players whose matches will take place in the later days of the gameweek. You’ll give a chance to the ones who play first and replace them when they disappoint you. Beware: if a player is sent off with a red card, you won’t be able to replace him, nor can you remove the armband if he was your captain.

Transfers

For each new gameweek, you can transfer players to and from your squad. For gameweeks 2 and 3, the group stage, you can make two transfers. For gameweek 4, the round-of-16, you have sixteen free transfers. In the remaining gameweeks, you have eight transfers. If you don’t use all your available transfers, you can have 2 more in the next gameweek. Every transfer you make beyond the free limit will result in a 4 points penalty on your score.

WildCard

You have access to a WildCard that you can use in whichever gameweek you choose. When active, the WildCard allows you to make unlimited transfers for the next gameweek. You can change all the squad as many times as you want until the market closes (1 hour before the first match of the gameweek). When the market for a gameweek closes, you can start making transfers for the next one. (however, this is a bad idea: you should wait for to make transfers, because of late injuries and other problems that arrive).

Scores and criteria

RealFevr’s World Fantasy has a total of 15 statistics scored. To see the complete list and how many points each action earns, please check the Rules page inside the competition. You’ll also find there the criteria we use, so you can understand who receives the clean-sheet points and what is considered an assist, etc.

Conclusion

With this information, you are in possession of a basic kit to start your adventure at the World Cup. Stay tuned for our next stories in which we’ll give you valuable strategies and players to watch. However, you can start experimenting with your squad at RealFevr.com! You have unlimited transfers until the competition starts.

The RealFevr rebrand and Iker Casillas as our global ambassador

We have lots of new stuff to tell you about.


As people say, today is the first the day of the rest of our lives. RealFevr woke up today with a fresh face! If you’ve been following us, you’ve noticed the difference. If you’re new in town, a big welcome to you. RealFevr is known for its unwavering commitment to innovation. To get better every day is something that’s in our DNA. Every single day we try to be a bit better, so that on ones like today can come true: days in which we get a lot better.

Since the beginning we wanted to create the best, the most exciting and immersive fantasy platform. We wanted to give you a fantasy experience that no one else could give, based on the real-world events and that would reflect them perfectly. That’s why, today, we give you a new RealFevr, with a shiny new look-and-feel and with a major signing, a leading figure of the football world whom with his credibility and his way of living football will be the face of our project.

So you can figure out how busy we were with the rebrand, the World Cup and welcoming the newest member of our team, we didn’t even bother to take screenshots in English. Sorry!

Yesterday’s RealFevr is part of the past. We won’t bury it, we will never forget it, because what we are today is only possible because of what we were yesterday. And all of this is possible only with you by our side. It’s because of you and for you that today we see a new RealFevr rise up. It’s a new brand, cooler and more “high-techy”, more professional. If you haven’t thought, in the past, that we should improve our brand design, you’re probably thinking now that we look much better. It’s because we do not restrict ourselves to listening to your complaints and suggestions: sometimes we anticipate them.

This brand new design was created by and for people who love sports, technology and, above all else, people who want to add value to the world of sports, where sometimes values go AWOL in a blink. This goal is a RealFevr cornerstone and we work towards it every single day. Not only to offer you the best fantasy in the world, but also to help create a healthier environment in football and sports.

But to be the greatest, it’s not enough to get better every day. We need to have the best by our side. Because he shares our values, belief in technology, and because he has a unique way of living football and life, we are very excited and honored to present you Iker Casillas as the global ambassador of RealFevr.


The Spanish goalkeeper, World Champion with his national squad, is a leading figure of the football world. He is one the players with more titles won in the History of football and he is an icon for many people around the globe. Iker has the ambition of always wanting more, the ambition to improve every day. He always gives his best to reach further and so does RealFevr. That’s why we and Iker are a perfect match.

We believe that you have the same ambition. For yourself and for us. All that is left now is for us to invite you to explore the new RealFevr. Without you this wouldn’t be happening. With you, the best is yet to come.!

Welcome to your new fantasy home

We think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, between you and us.


This is the very beginning of our new content website The Call-Up. If you’re reading this, you can claim in the future that you were there from the very beginning. We will try our best, starting today, but there’s something we know for sure: in the future, we’ll all look back to this very first post and realize how bad we were. Not because we’re bad today — at least we’re trying to be as good as we can. But because RealFevr has something in its DNA that makes it want to get better at every step.

If you’re here, you probably know this already. Most likely, that’s why you picked us, why you chose to play with us. Because you know we are good at this and you know we will keep getting better. We listen to your demands and sometimes we even anticipate them. We never, ever, leave you without an answer. And when we make mistakes — because we’re human, after all — we don’t go to sleep until they’re fixed.

Today marks the beginning of The Call-Up. We believe you wanted this, you needed this. So here it is!

At RealFevr’s The Call-Up, you’ll find lots of valuable content to aid you as a fantasy manager. Actually, we believe our content will be valuable for all football fans (we’re talking about “soccer”, lads; that’s how we call it here in Europe), whether they play fantasy leagues or not. Of course we want you to play, we’re really good at making them, but if you’re here just to read, that’s fine.

We will deliver content made by our experts, guys who have performed really well in fantasy sports every single season, on multiple platforms (not just ours) across the globe. They are good, trust us. They’re the best. They will make team and competition previews, they will let you know where the hidden gems are, which players you should avoid and why. They want to make you as good as you can be; after all, they work for us, they aren’t eligible for prizes. But you are! And if you follow The Call-Up, you’ll have the holy fantasy book in your hands.

The choice is yours! Will you join us in this journey?

Gameweek 25 — Nacional-Paços de Ferreira postponed

The following announcement is destined to clarify the implications of the postponement of the Nacional-Paços de Ferreira, part of Gameweek 25 of the Liga Portuguesa.

Since the game was postponed to 13/3, Monday at 6pm GMT, the game falls within the normal procedures of a fantasy gameweek, and Gameweek 25 will proceed as usual and the game will be taken into account for Fantasy purposes.

If further postponements are made to a date after 16/03, this game will not be taken into account for fantasy purposes, in line with similar situations in the past and with the announcementmade about anticipated and postponed games.

CHECK MY TEAM

New competition: Liberta Fevr

The only Copa Libertadores fantasy out there.


Now that the competitions in Spain, Portugal and in the rest of Europe are getting in the final stage we thought that it was time to spread this fever across the Atlantic. We are not talking about the Carnival, or of any Portuguese kings in exile, nor criminals looking for a tropical country with no extradition agreements, nor jokes about portuguese and argentinians, or bakeries, or codfish or olive oil. And definitely not soap opera actors. Nothing like that. It’s something much better than all of that. It’s something way better than all that stuff combined.

If you are reading this, and because you’re a smart guy, you probably already figured it out what we’re talking about. We are going to take fantasies to South America. And we’re going to begin with a competition that has been highly neglected in the fantasy space: Libertadores. Or, as we thoughtfully baptized it in our platform: Liberta Fevr. And this is just to warm up (it’s still summer in the southern hemisphere, after all) for what’s coming.

Pick your team and try not to get tempted to pick players that have already been in Europe. Ask around. As the Brazilians say, go check who is “mitando” (becoming a myth).

Check the competition format as well. This competition has the peculiarity of having overlapping game weeks. That made us develop a total new fantasy experience, different from any other in our platform. You will be able to manage the same team with different line-ups in different game weeks that will be running simultaneously. And with all the functionalities that you’re already used to: real time results, automatic and manual substitutions… The usual.

We’ve also slightly changed the scoring system for this competition. We’ve replaced the “Tackles Won” stat with “Blocked Shots”. Why? “Tackles Won” is highly distributed across defenses and mid-fielders. We went looking for a meaningful stat that happens more with defensive players and we concluded that “Blocked Shots” was that stat. This will be the first competition where we’ll use this new scoring system. In the next competitions that we will debut it is expected that these changes be present, as well as others. We are looking for the best soccer fantasy model ever. And when we believe we’ve found it we will just try to make it even better.

Enough said. Go create your team and get ready for a real competition. There’s only…

a few hours left

…until Liberta Fevr begins. And you will not want to loose points because you didn’t have a team since the first game week, will you?

Go play,

The RealFevr Team

Postponed game — Deportivo x Betis

The following announcement is destined to clarify the implications of the postponed game Deportivo — Betis, part of Gameweek 21 of the Spanish League/La Liga de los Ases.

With this change, this match will not be accounted for Fantasy purposes and the scores of the Gameweek it relates to. Given this, and to allow the needed adjustements in your teams, we’ll be giving two (2) additional free transfers for Gameweek 21 of the Spanish League

Until the end of the 2016/17 season, every game that is either anticipated or postponed will be treated this way, always with the necessary added free transfers to ease the absence of players from that match in your Fantasy teams.

These additional transfers will always take into consideration the maximum free transfers a manager can accumulate and will be adjusted for the respective gameweek. For instance, if you have 4 transfers “leftoever” from previous weeks, in this gameweek, exceptionally, you can make 6 transfers. If you don’t use it this gameweek, these will not acumulate for next week.

We know this isn’t he perfect solution. We decided to make this decision based on feedback we’ve got from our community and to provide our users the best possible experience. We are making efforts to change this reality in the 2017/2018 season, with players having double scores in the gameweeks where, chronologically, the affected match is inserted.

We also take this chance to renew the commitment we have with our community, to whom we thank the constant feedback, so that we can, together, make RealFevr the best fantasy leagues platform ever!

Thank you,

The RealFevr Team

Now that you know what’s going to happen in the next gameweek, go to RealFevr and pick your team:

PICK MY TEAM

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