Our users love us because we win them their mini-league.* See a sneak peak of the Hub in our demo video.

Results, not features

Rebuilt from scratch. Faster. Smarter. Native. Start now and get it first.

A New App. Built to Win.

Rebuilt from scratch. Faster. Smarter. Native. Start now free and get it first.

Start climbing the ranks with a 7-day free trial - cancel anytime

<p>Who are the best World Cup Fantasy captain options &#8211; and what should be the strategy with giving players the armband?</p>
<p>The Hub&#8217;s <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisTanFPL">Chris Tan</a>, who produces our regular FPL captaincy article, delves into the FIFA World Cup Fantasy game to find out.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/world-cup-fantasy-2022-tips-the-ultimate-guide"><strong>The Ultimate Guide to everything you need to know about World Cup Fantasy 2022</strong></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">  </span></li>
<li data-stringify-indent="0" data-stringify-border="0"><b data-stringify-type="bold">Always one step behind your mates? It&#8217;s time to get ahead.</b> <b data-stringify-type="bold"><a href="https://fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/join?via=bigmanbakar"><strong>Join</strong></a> Fantasy Football Hub today to access game-changing content, and</b><b data-stringify-type="bold"><b data-stringify-type="bold"> claim 30% off! </b></b></li>
</ul>
<p>If, like me, you&#8217;re a fantasy football addict and can&#8217;t get enough then I&#8217;m sure you will be participating in the FIFA World Cup Fantasy game.</p>
<p>While this is an overview of the official FIFA game, however the majority of the content can still be applied to other formats.</p>
<h2><strong>Overview of the World Cup Fantasy rules</strong></h2>
<p>The Hub has produced a <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/fifa-world-cup-fantasy-2022-launched-how-to-play-guide">how to play guide</a> to the game.</p>
<p>But here’s an overview of the aspects that jumped out at me:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Captaincy </strong>– you can change this during the matchday, as long as you’re changing it to someone that hasn’t played yet. If your captain blanks, you have another opportunity. If they pick up a small return you can twist or stick. Once you change it, you can’t go back.</li>
<li><strong>Wildcard</strong> – it can’t be used for the round of 16 &#8211; this is because you will have unlimited transfers between the end of Matchday 3 and the start of the knockout stages.</li>
<li><strong>Power Captain</strong> – this automatically awards captaincy to the top scorer in your squad, this is a very valuable booster.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Overview of the scoring</strong></h2>
<p>Again, the full details can be found in the Hub&#8217;s guide.</p>
<p>The general scoring matrix will be familiar to anyone who plays Fantasy Premier League. The key differences are below:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Bonus points</strong> – there aren’t any. This is pure fantasy football where all the points generally relate to playing actions.</li>
<li><strong>Appearance</strong> – the player needs to feature for at least 60 minutes.</li>
<li><strong>Winning a penalty</strong> – this only receives +2 rather than +3 however it’s not conditional on the player scoring.</li>
<li><strong>Goals conceded</strong> – a goalkeeper and defender loses -1 for every goal conceded after the first. Avoid players from teams that leak goals.</li>
<li><strong>Goalscoring defenders</strong> – are rewarded +7 for a goal, that will be huge, especially if they combine with a clean sheet. Certain attacking defenders are captainable.</li>
<li><strong>Goals for attackers</strong> – a midfielder does not get any additional points over a forward for scoring a goal.</li>
<li><strong>Shots on target</strong> – a forward picks up +1 for every two shots on target. Those that are high volume (but accurate) shot takers like <strong>Cristiano Ronaldo ($10.0m)</strong> can easily boost their scores.</li>
<li><strong>Key passes </strong>– a midfielder is awarded +1 for every two key passes plus the usual clean sheet point. Players like <strong>Kevin</strong> <strong>De Bruyne ($11.0m)</strong> could easily hit this bonus.</li>
<li><strong>Tackles</strong> – a midfielder is awarded +1 for every three tackles, which isn’t great and doesn’t entice me to go for a defensive midfielder.</li>
</ul>
<h2><strong>Fixture Ticker</strong></h2>
<p>This is courtesy of our friend <a href="https://twitter.com/FFStuff3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@FFStuff3</a></p>
<div id="attachment_50892" style="width: 1007px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-50892" class="size-full wp-image-50892" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-fixtures.png" alt="" width="997" height="1176" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-fixtures.png 997w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-fixtures-254x300.png 254w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-fixtures-868x1024.png 868w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-fixtures-768x906.png 768w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-fixtures-610x720.png 610w" sizes="(max-width: 997px) 100vw, 997px" /><p id="caption-attachment-50892" class="wp-caption-text">Group-stage fixtures</p></div>
<h2></h2>
<h2><strong>Fixture Timings</strong></h2>
<p>Given that you can change your captaincy if the alternative has not played yet, I thought it would be prudent to create a view that shows you the fixtures by date and time:</p>
<div id="attachment_50891" style="width: 751px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-50891" class="size-full wp-image-50891" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-fixture-timings.png" alt="" width="741" height="1861" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-fixture-timings.png 741w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-fixture-timings-119x300.png 119w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-fixture-timings-408x1024.png 408w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-fixture-timings-612x1536.png 612w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-fixture-timings-610x1532.png 610w" sizes="(max-width: 741px) 100vw, 741px" /><p id="caption-attachment-50891" class="wp-caption-text">World Cup fixture timings</p></div>
<h2></h2>
<h2><strong>Team overview</strong></h2>
<p>I have to admit, the Premier League is my speciality and I’m no expert on a lot of the teams participating in this tournament, which is why I will be heavily reliant on the content from Fantasy Football Hub to keep me up to speed.</p>
<p>What I’ve done is look back at the World Cup qualifying groups and extracted the goals scored and conceded per game (weighted dependent on group difficulty) to try to identify which teams score a lot of goals and who the whipping boys are.</p>
<p>I’ve also added the FIFA ranking for an objective measure.</p>
<div id="attachment_51025" style="width: 1213px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-51025" class="size-full wp-image-51025" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-A-to-D-1.png" alt="" width="1203" height="978" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-A-to-D-1.png 1203w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-A-to-D-1-300x244.png 300w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-A-to-D-1-1024x832.png 1024w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-A-to-D-1-768x624.png 768w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-A-to-D-1-610x496.png 610w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-A-to-D-1-1080x878.png 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 1203px) 100vw, 1203px" /><p id="caption-attachment-51025" class="wp-caption-text">FIFA World Cup Fantasy &#8211; Best Captain for the Group Stages &#8211; group overview (A to D)</p></div>
<div id="attachment_50894" style="width: 1213px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-50894" class="size-full wp-image-50894" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-E-to-H.png" alt="" width="1203" height="978" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-E-to-H.png 1203w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-E-to-H-300x244.png 300w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-E-to-H-1024x832.png 1024w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-E-to-H-768x624.png 768w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-E-to-H-610x496.png 610w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-group-overview-E-to-H-1080x878.png 1080w" sizes="(max-width: 1203px) 100vw, 1203px" /><p id="caption-attachment-50894" class="wp-caption-text">Group and player overview</p></div>
<h2></h2>
<h2><strong>Captaincy matrix</strong></h2>
<p>Based on my research I’ve taken the following things into account:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Scoring matrix</strong> – which actions are awarded the most points and which players are most likely to do well</li>
<li><strong>Fixture timing</strong> – so you always have an alternative to switch to if your captain blanks</li>
<li><strong>Fixture analysis</strong> – which teams score a lot of goals and who tends to concede a lot.</li>
<li><strong>Talisman theory</strong> – who hogs the goal involvement for their team</li>
<li><strong>Positional flexibility &#8211; </strong>with transfers limited you need players that are easy to transition to, ideally in the same position.</li>
</ul>
<p>Based on the above factors, I’ve come up with the following:</p>
<div id="attachment_50895" style="width: 952px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-50895" class="size-full wp-image-50895" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-matrix.png" alt="" width="942" height="419" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-matrix.png 942w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-matrix-300x133.png 300w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-matrix-768x342.png 768w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-matrix-610x271.png 610w" sizes="(max-width: 942px) 100vw, 942px" /><p id="caption-attachment-50895" class="wp-caption-text">Best captain for the group stages matrix</p></div>
<div id="attachment_50896" style="width: 452px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-50896" class="size-full wp-image-50896" src="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-player-prices.png" alt="" width="442" height="495" srcset="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-player-prices.png 442w, https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/FIFA-World-Cup-Fantasy-Best-Captain-for-the-Group-Stages-player-prices-268x300.png 268w" sizes="(max-width: 442px) 100vw, 442px" /><p id="caption-attachment-50896" class="wp-caption-text">Player prices</p></div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Basically, you want to select someone who tends to be in the early fixtures like <strong>Memphis Depay ($8.5m)</strong> &#8211; although it appears he is set to miss the first game &#8211; then have an alternative who tends to play in the later fixture like Ronaldo or <strong>Neymar ($10.5m) </strong>so you have the option to switch the armband to.</p>
<h2>Summary</h2>
<ul>
<li>Familiarise yourself with the rules and scoring.</li>
<li>Review the captaincy matrix and fixture analysis to give you an idea of who to build your team around and what your options to transition between different players are i.e. if you pick Ronaldo you can easily switch to any forward bar one.</li>
</ul>
<p>I hope you&#8217;ve found this useful and wish you the best of luck for any World Cup fantasy games you participate in.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h2>Check out more World Cup and Premier League fantasy coverage</h2>
<p>As well as the official <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/world-cup-fantasy-2022-tips-the-ultimate-guide">FIFA World Cup Fantasy</a> game Ultimate Guide, we&#8217;ve got coverage on <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/sky-sports-fantasy-football-world-cup-2022-tips-the-ultimate-guide-2">Sky Sports Fantasy Football World Cup</a>, <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/dream-team-world-cup-2022-tips-the-ultimate-guide">Dream Team World Cup</a> and <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/telegraph-fantasy-football-world-cup-2022-tips-the-ultimate-guide">Telegraph Fantasy Football World Cup</a> too.</p>
<p>And either side of the World Cup, we have <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/fantasy-premier-league-ultimate-guide-fpl-tips">FPL</a>, <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/sky-fantasy-football-tips">Sky</a>, <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/category/sun-dream-team">Sun</a> and <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/category/telegraph">Telegraph</a> covered in-depth on a weekly basis.</p>
<p>Coupled with all our other cool features, including our multi-functional <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/my-team">My Team</a> tool, <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/opta">Opta</a> <a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/opta/" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c="1" title="FPL Stats by OPTA - Player and Team Stats">stats</a>, <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/predictions">predicted points</a>, <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/fantasy-premier-league-live-rank">live rank</a> and <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/tools">more</a>, Fantasy Football Hub is the place to be if you want to win your mini-leagues.</p>
<h3></h3>
<h3><strong>Follow the Hub</strong></h3>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/FFH_HQ">Twitter</a> | <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ffootballhub/">Facebook</a> | <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/FantasyFootballHub/?sub_confirmation=1">YouTube</a> | <a href="https://www.instagram.com/FFH_HQ/">Instagram</a> | <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@FFH_HQ">Tiktok</a><br />
And view all our latest fantasy football tips on our <strong><a href="https://cms.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/">Homepage</a></strong></p>


The best World Cup Fantasy captain options for the group stages

Win at FPL

Community & tools