Women’s World Cup – Fantasy Football run-in

Posted on July 1, 2019 in Features, Women's Football

The Women’s World Cup has reached the semi-final stage. Whilst we know the champion will come from one of four teams, it isn’t really that simple in the world of Fantasy Football. We’ve been playing ShePlays fantasy football and the OffsideRulePod league still has plenty to play for. Where are those last ditch points going to come from? Dave Black looks at the contenders to help you make some decisions.

For the semi-final stage, we have entered Transfer Window 5. That means you have three additional transfers and a team budget of $9.5m. Unless you are some sort of psychic, you will most likely have players in your team who are no longer in the tournament. You can make extra transfers at a cost of 5 points. A full breakdown of the rules can be found here on the ShePlays website.

Seeing as we are down to four teams we’ll be running you through each one to analyse where the points have been coming from so far and what to expect from the semi-finals. This round will cover the semi finals, the third/fourth place playoff and the final, so every team has two games to play.

England

The first team into the semi-finals on the back of a brilliant performance against Norway, England have won every game they have played so far. Is there an argument that they are coming into form at the right time? Ellen White leads the scoring charts with 5 and is a relative steal at $650,000. Star player against Norway was Lucy Bronze after lighting the game up with a tremendous long range strike. She’ll set you back $1,000,000 though although she does have two assists to add to her single goal so far.

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Outside of White, nobody has more than a single goal but England can boast an impressive four clean sheets. Steph Houghton has been immense but will set you back $900k so her partner Mille Bright might tempt you at just $650k. England do face the toughest task on paper of facing the holders USA so be wary of piling up on Lioness stars.

USA

There’s one player standing out above all others at the moment and it’s Megan Rapinoe. She has scored all four of the USA’s goals in the knockout stages and is joint top goalscorer in the competition. She shares that accolade with the aforementioned Ellen White but also team mate Alex Morgan, who hasn’t scored since netting five against Thailand. The Americans haven’t kept a clean sheet since the group stages though which makes their expensive back line less appealing. Abby Dahlkemper at $600,000 is probably the best value in that regard. In terms of assists, Sam Mewis has three (plus two goals) as well as being reasonably priced at $650,000.

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Netherlands

The Dutch have been efficient rather than flashy in getting this far. Vivianne Miedema ($900,000) is the top scorer with three whilst Lieke Martens ($1,000,000) has two. That doesn’t represent a whole lot of value but they will be heavy favourites to advance against Sweden. Sherida Spitse at $650k looks to be the bargain buy – she has four assists including two in the win over Italy. However, they have only two shutouts to their name which goes some way to explaining why the most expense Dutch defender is just $400,000. The European Champions may not have hit their top level so far but what has gone before will have little bearing on what is to come.

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Sweden

They may be the outsiders but let’s not forget they knocked Germany out and clearly have the tools to cause the Dutch issues. The good news from a fantasy football point of view is that the most expensive Swedish player is $700,000 so there are plenty of bargains around. Asllani and Blackstenius will both set you back $650k for their two goals so far. With only two clean sheets so far, other than price there is little encouragement to select from their back line.

OffsideRulePod League

Here’s the table as it stands with just four matches to go. Stained Glass Films are 11 points ahead thanks largely to captain Ellen White but also 22 point Lucy Bronze. Only Nym of the top three didn’t have Bronze which definitely contributed to a lower round 5 score. You would expect a lot of teams will be similar for the final round so it would be a shock if anybody outside of the top 5 won from here.