Euro 2024 Fantasy is less than a week away from starting – so it’s time for the first draft of our Matchday 1 Scout Picks!
We’ll be rolling out a weekly ‘Free Hit’ selection ahead of every Matchday during the European Championship.
And we’ll be finalising our picks for the opening round of games closer to Friday’s deadline.
Pre-tournament friendlies and a whole host of press conferences will no doubt further influence our thinking and maybe change our minds.
Until then, however, here are our initial thoughts on the best players for Matchday 1. The ‘bus team’ XV and our captaincy schedule are also included at the foot of this article.
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THE LIKELY LADS
All bar Spain of the group favourites have favourable fixtures (on paper, anyway) in Matchday 1, along with Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands. Players from these sides will make up the bulk of many Euro Fantasy teams, as well as our Scout Picks.
The chess pieces are still being moved around the board as the inevitable ‘template’ creeps closer to being realised. But one immovable in many drafts is Maximillian Mittelstadt (€4.0m).
The budget Germany defender wasn’t even capped before the March internationals but seems to have secured the left-back berth, even scoring against the Netherlands in his second appearance for his national team. A half-time withdrawal in the Euro 2024 hosts’ final pre-tournament friendly is a slight concern, but at least we’ll get to see the teamsheets on Friday if the worst-case scenario does happen.
Speaking of ‘template’, you’ll see many a Fantasy squad deploying an expensive forward line of Kylian Mbappe (€11.0m)., Harry Kane (€11.0m) and Romelu Lukaku (€9.0m). Our ‘bus team’ is no different.
A combined 31 goals were plundered during qualification, with each striker hitting double figures for big chances. Only Cristiano Ronaldo (€10.0m) finished clear of this trio for xG among forwards in qualifying. All of them are on penalties, too.
The one drawback, other than funds, is that Lukaku and Mbappe both play on the same day, so we can only captain one of them.
There is plenty of debate to be had about the rest of the XV but two players we’d struggle to see us going without are Bruno Fernandes (€9.0m) and Federico Dimarco (€5.0m).
Dimarco looks very underpriced. We’ve seen him hit double figures for attacking returns in Serie A this season and while there was only one assist in qualifying, there were some strong underlying numbers: a minutes-per-shot average of 53.1 was one of the best posted by a defender.
Fernandes, meanwhile, created more chances and big chances (37 and 11) in qualifying than any other player. He also scored six goals. As we discussed in a recent article, he should be good for ball recoveries, too.
IN CONTENTION
