Introduction to Fantasy Football Scotland 2021/2022

Fantasy Football Scotland, the most popular fantasy football game focusing on the 12-team Scottish Premiership, is back up and running for the 21/22 Season, complete with a host of new features which improve the depth of the game. 

Game Guide

The inaugural season (20/21) was played by over 40,000 entrants, and many of the core aspects of the game will be familiar to FPL users – you are gifted a budget of £60.0M to build your squad of 15 players, which must include 2 Goalkeepers, 5 Defenders, 5 Midfielders and 3 Forwards. A max of 3 players from any single team is permitted. You select one Captain and Vice-Captain each Gameweek whose points will be multiplied accordingly. A single free transfer is supplied each week and any additional transfers incur a 4-point deduction. However, the free transfer can now be rolled over to the next Gameweek – thus removing a significant strategic limitation from last year’s edition. There are also 4 Chips to play once each per season – the classic Wildcard (2x), Triple Captain and Bench Boost combination which FPL managers know and love so well.

Differences to FPL

Despite the similarities, there are a few slight nuances to the rules which the fantasy manager can employ to their benefit – the most notable of these are as follows:

• The aforementioned Vice-Captain will actively score double points on their clean sheets or goals in addition to the Captain, depending on whom is gifted the VC band – so a Goalkeeper or Defender will receive a 2x multiplier on Clean Sheet points (4pts), whilst a Midfielder or Forward will receive the 2x multiplier on Goals (5pts or 4pts respectively). All other points the VC scores will not be multiplied, but this little bit extra certainly softens the edges of the dreaded captaincy blank. Given Rangers monumental defensive record last season, this meant that many managers were often effectively benefitting from up to five Rangers clean sheets each week! All or Nothing indeed.

• Like FPL, we are required to select three players on our bench each week. However, in the case that one member of your starting lineup misses out, the highest-scoring player on your bench will be elevated into the First XI, regardless of whether you have placed them in position 1, 2 or 3. To capitalise on this, many actively elected to feature a ‘non-playing’ player in the starting eleven knowing that the best bench score would be added to your total. Trick or Cheat? Well, that’s a matter of opinion. 

• One such frustration in picking a starting squad for FPL is the potential for a player to be sold before the close of the transfer window (IRL), leaving your 15-man squad a player down. But there is no such concern for FFS managers, because if a player is sold or loaned out of the league then all owners of the player will receive a ‘bonus’ free transfer to replace said player.

Break the Template – Pricing and Routes to Points

One criticism that could be fairly levelled at the game last season is that the ‘template team’ became extremely rigid from the mid-part of the season onwards. This owes in part to the inevitable tendency to gravitate towards 3 options from each of Rangers and Celtic, coupled with the fact that Defenders were somewhat under-priced across the board, despite the fact that clean sheets (5) were worth 1 point more than a goal (4) last season. This is no longer the case – both types of return are now valued at 4 points and the price of Defenders, especially elite options such as James Tavernier (Rangers, 6.5m) and Borna Barišić (Rangers, 5.2m), have been recalibrated to match their counterparts at the other end of the pitch. 

For comparison, proven strikers such Odsonne Edouard (Celtic, 8.0m), Alfredo Morelos (Rangers, 8.0m) and Kevin Nisbet (Hibernian, 6.2m) have retained similar high prices to last season, meaning that managers will need to be creative in building their optimal squad. 

Of course on the field matters exacerbated this fact last year, with Celtic suffering an uncharacteristically poor season and Rangers triumphing with an invincible campaign – one would expect both sides’ performances to be closer aligned this season.

However, to reiterate the point, the undisputed template picks from last season (image below) now cost a staggering £35.2M from our £60.0M budget, and the value of premium Forwards from the Old Firm remains up for debate – meaning that the selection landscape will be much more varied this time around.

New Rules

So where are we going to get our points from I hear you cry? Well, the Fantasy Football Scotland team have not been afraid to make adjustments to the core mechanics of the game and have introduced the following additional routes to points:

• 3+ Shots on Target (All Players) = +1 point

• 3+ Interceptions (All Players) = +1 point

• 3+ Tackles (All Players) = +1 point

• 40+ Passes (Midfielders) = +1 point

• Bonus Points (All Players) = +3/2/1 point

[A full breakdown of point scoring is available on the app.]

This could prove to be a game-changer and vastly increase the pool of viable options, particularly by improving the season-long point scores of tackle-monsters such as Alex Gogic (Hibernian 3.2M) and Jeando Fuchs (Dundee Utd, 3.4M) and pass-masters such as Callum McGregor (Celtic, 5.8M), Ryan Jack (Rangers, 4.5M) and Charlie Adam (Dundee FC, 4.1M). Bonus points are allocated according to Opta Match Ratings. 

For those unfamiliar with the above names, in ‘FPL money’ these types of players could be profiled alongside Wilfried Ndidi, Mateo Kovacic and James Ward Prowse, (Don’t laugh at the back, all things are relative), meaning that the ‘glue guys’ in our squads can come from anywhere.

Potential Top Players

To finish this introductory guide, I have had a quick look back at the top performing players from last season and attempted to convert their on-field actions into a points total based upon the new points scoring system.

Number crunching is not my forte and the below does omit potential bonus points, but I have been a touch generous on the pass/tackle/interception/shot bonus points to compensate for this.

Community

As a quick note, I would like to thank you for reading this article – it is my intention to return later in pre-season with a round-up of interesting players for consideration in your Gameweek 1 squads. You can find me on Twitter under the handle @FPLHaggis.

I would also like to point you in the direction of a few members of the community who provide useful information and commentary about the game throughout the season:

@FantasyHalf: Podcast and organiser of the #HHFPCUP

@FFS_Scout: Host of @FantasyHalf Podcast and Team News Articles

@Gunnar_FPL: Host of @FantasyHalf and Threads

@Suttyshow: Fixture Ticker

@FplMaz: Fixture Ticker and Threads

@HoofballPod: Podcast

@FitbaPod: Podcast

FFScout League

The link to sign up for Fantasy Football Scotland is here and the code for the FFScout League is mSp8x