Dec 14

Euro Fantasy Final Tips & Strategy

Share post on:
The finalists are confirmed (France vs. Portugal), the date is down (Sunday 10th July) and the stage is set (Stade de France) - this is the 2016 European Championship finale. But enough of the dramatic build-up, we're here to provide Euro Fantasy Final Tips & Strategy to help you construct a squad capable of bursting through the finish line and hopefully to mini-league success. Making use of the bookies odds, we take a look at the best strategy heading into the final in terms of transfers, formation and player selection. First of all, let's check out the bookies odds - always a great source for unbiased information.

Bookies Odds

Provided by SkyBet & converted into an implied chance percentage.
Team To Win Clean Sheet 2+ Goals
France 50.00% 50.00% 42.02%
Portugal 23.09% 30.77% 22.22%
As you can see from the chart, France are the outright favourites in all areas coming into the final. This comes as no surprise as they found the net twice and kept a clean sheet against the World Champions in the Semi-final. Furthermore, being the host nation is an advantage in itself. Portugal recorded an identical scoreline in the first Semi-final, comfortably defeating Wales in a one-sided encounter. Their defence was rarely tested, conceding just three shots on target and there was signs of improvement in their offensive play, with a total of 19 attempts. Euro 2016 Final: Fantasy Strategy Two main strategies seem to have emerged for the final fixture, these being the France defensive stack (4-3-3) and the predictable mixture of in-form players from both sides (3-4-3). We're going to take a look at both in more detail:

4-3-3: The France Defensive Stack

This strategy is born from the theory that it's pretty unlikely Portugal will win to nil. If you expect Portugal to overcome France to nil, then you should put your money where your mouth and adopt this tactic in reverse with five Portugal defenders. France have averaged 2.16 goals per game this competition, so it's unlikely that Portugal defenders will be receiving clean sheet points and if Ronaldo & co manage to nab one then it'll be zero clean sheet points for defenders all round. This makes the tactic of stacking defences significantly less risky than usual. Your defence would line up similar to this: Lloris; Sagna, Umtiti, Koscielny, Evra This would leave you with three more France players to choose from (max 8 players from each team). Based on competition form, Payet & Griezmann are seemingly must-haves and for your final slot you'll likely find yourself choosing between Giroud and Pogba. We're opting for Giroud, based on his advanced position within the side and again, his competition form. Lloris; Sagna, Umtiti, Koscielny, Evra; Payet, POR, POR; Giroud, Griezmann; POR. It's a battle of Ronaldo and Nani - who have both scored three goals this competition - for the Portugal striker spot. This decision can be largely based around your mini-league goals, if you're leading or narrowly behind, then make your choice depending on who your rivals have. If they all have Ronaldo, then owning him too to block out their points makes sense. If you're trailing behind a need to make up some group of 15/20+ points then opt for Nani, he could easily steal the limelight from Ronaldo and help close the deficit. In the midfield, Sanches has proved his worth over the last couple of matches with a 33.3% goal involvement. Meanwhile, Joao Mario has been just as active in front of goal with an average of two shots per game and also finds himself responsible for 50% of Portugal's corners. This leaves us with our final team: Lloris; Sagna, Umtiti, Koscielny, Evra; Payet, Sanches, Mario; Giroud, Griezmann; Ronaldo.

3-5-2: The In-Form Mixture

This strategy is going to be the most common because it doesn't require you predicting a result and shaping your entire team around it. It's also very easy to incorporate a few differentials into without potentially compromising your whole team. Lloris; Sagna, Guerreiro, Koscielny; Payet, Pogba, Sanches, Mario; Griezmann, Ronaldo, Nani If you're holding a lead then this is the safest way of maintaining it as it contains all of the in-form players and therefore the ones most likely to pick up a good point haul. If you are less than 10pts away from your mini-league leader, then adopting this template and adding in the odd differential could help you close the gap. Pepe missed the last fixture due to injury but is expected to make his return for the Final. He posses their biggest threat from defence and could easily pop up with a goal from a set-piece. Matuidi impressed during the International friendlies scoring four times and assisting twice. He's proved himself as a player that can score decisive goals and with Portugal showing how they can mark key players out of fixtures, it could come down to somebody like Matuidi finding a gap. Although statistics are a good resource to base your shrewd team selection choices around, it's also important to remember that football is unpredictable and you're always a Ragnar Sigurdsson goal away from being eliminated from the Euros. With this in mind, Sissoko and Silva are expected to line up in attacking roles for their teams playing just behind the forwards. Both players have failed to deliver this tournament and have no statistics that justify their inclusion, so if you want a huge differential that will be involved in attack, these are your two main men. My fingers are crossed for you.   We hope you've enjoyed our coverage of Euro 2016 and hope to see you all again soon in the run up to Fantasy Premier League 2016/17.  

Thanks for reading our Euro Fantasy Final Tips & Strategy. Why not check out our Euro Fantasy Final Captain Tips.