With just under two weeks to go until the 2021/22 Fantasy Bundesliga season kicks off, our series of preview articles gets underway with a look at the best goalkeepers from the German top flight.
If you’re new to the game or just need a reminder of the rules, check out our ‘how to play’ guide below.
Most of the league’s biggest teams have seen managerial changes over the summer, with seven of last season’s top eight – except for surprise package Union Berlin – now under new management. This means we can expect some inevitable tactical changes and surprises.
It was recently announced that this season will have five unlimited transfers, or Wildcard periods, with the first arriving on August 29th, which follows Matchday 3 and precedes the first international break of the campaign.
This means we’ll only be looking at the opening three fixtures in this article, in an attempt to maximise points from the get-go.
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HOW GOALKEEPERS SCORE POINTS
Goalkeeper scoring in Fantasy Bundesliga is different to Fantasy Premier League (FPL).
For starters, goalkeepers only receive three points for a clean sheet, which is as many as they gain for just two in-game stops or a penalty save.
They also lose one point for every goal conceded, four for an own goal and two for conceding a penalty.
Like all other players, they gain one point for being on the winning side and lose one if their team suffers defeat.
The focus on save points means that Fantasy Bundesliga heavily favours budget goalkeepers.
Given that starting prices range from Manuel Neuer at 12.0m to newly promoted Manuel Riemann and Sascha Burchert at 5.0m, there’s a huge amount of saving that can be done across the two goalkeeper spots in your squad.
Last season’s top scorer was Arminia Bielefeld’s Stefan Ortega (8.0m), whose 234 points was nearly fifty higher than Neuer’s 186, despite Ortega finishing the season at nearly half the price of the Bayern Munich man (7.5m vs 14.3m).
Fixtures don’t matter as much for goalkeepers in this game, as a 2-0 loss can still mean big points if they have made multiple saves. However, losing by three or more goals costs all players two points.
THE GOALKEEPERS UP FOR CONSIDERATION
As discussed above, budget goalkeepers are the way to go in Fantasy Bundesliga.
With that in mind, we’ve highlighted some potential picks, with the most expensive being Ortega and Florian Müller, who will both cost you 8.0m.
The biggest issue with these goalkeepers is that, as most of them play for smaller teams, they tend to all feature in the 3:30 CEST slot on a Saturday afternoon, meaning you can only start one of them.
As a result, it could make sense to set up your goalkeepers like FPL, with one playing and one permanently on the bench, or structure your decisions around the few options with two or three games at different times across the first three Matchdays.
The three best goalkeepers to own to maximise the number of games you cover are Hertha Berlin’s Alexander Schwolow (7.0m), Hoffenheim’s Oliver Baumann (7.0m) and Union Berlin’s Andreas Luthe (6.0m), as these tend not to play in the 3:30pm slot, the German equivalent of the 3pm kickoff.
Luthe looks like the best option here.
The cheapest of the three, and also the highest scorer from last season (158 points), the 34-year-old is one of the key pieces in Union’s defence which conceded the fourth least goals in last season’s Bundesliga.
Luthe can be put in two possible 12.0m combinations, with Mainz’s Robin Zentner (6.0m) and Köln’s Timo Horn (6.0m).
Zentner has the better fixtures of the two, facing newly promoted Bochum and Greuther Fürth in Matchday 2 and 3 respectively as part of Bo Svensson’s resurgent Mainz side.
If you want to pick a goalkeeper combination for the opening three Matchdays, Luthe and Zentner present very attractive options, with plenty of chances for them to score big.
However, if you want to run with just one starter, then look no further than the three highest scoring goalkeepers from last season.
Ortega, Rafal Gikiewicz (7.0m) and Müller scored 234, 200 and 189 points respectively in 2020/21. They had the top three most saves and highest save percentages in the league between them, which suggests it pays to get behind an average-to-poor defence as a goalkeeper in Fantasy Bundesliga.
They all have middling fixtures to start the season.
Gikiewicz’s Augsburg are facing Eintracht Frankfurt and Bayer Leverkusen sides who will still be bedding in under new management, alongside a very up and down Hoffenheim side.
Müller and Ortega have similar fixtures, as VfB Stuttgart and Bielefeld are the first two sides to face newly promoted Fürth, who have had some of their key players sold since they’ve come up to the top tier.
Although Fürth were the second highest scorers in the 2. Bundesliga last season, they’ve lost key creator David Raum (9.0m) to Hoffenheim and strikers Branimir Hrgota (6.0m) and Havard Nielsen (6.0m) have failed to impress in previous stints in Germany’s top tier.
Ortega and Müller also both face Freiburg, while games against Frankfurt and RB Leipzig respectively are the biggest hurdle for those going with just one goalkeeper to face, although they could both be prime fixtures to garner plenty of save points.
This brings us to our last two options as Fantasy Bundesliga goalkeepers.
Riemann and Burchert are the starting goalkeepers from the two newly promoted sides, Bochum and Fürth. Having conceded 39 and 44 goals respectively last season, they are behind weaker defences than Ortega was when Bielefeld were promoted in 2019/20 (30 goals conceded).
However, they will undoubtedly face a huge amount of shots in the Bundesliga and this will inevitably mean saves. For their bargain prices as the cheapest starting goalkeepers in the game, you could pick a lot worse than these two, with Riemann especially known as a leader for Bochum, producing plenty of incredible and crucial saves for Die Unabsteigbaren last season.
Both sides have relatively easy opening fixtures and could be great early picks to save some funds and still score big.
HOW TO JOIN OUR FANTASY BUNDESLIGA MINI-LEAGUE
We’ve launched our very own mini-league, which we are delighted to announce will offer prizes to the manager of the month and overall winner and runner-up.
Click on this link here to sign up to our Fantasy Bundesliga mini-league. No password or pin is required.
