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            <p>Fantasy Football Hub's Telegraph and stats guru <a href="https://twitter.com/DarkishJungle">Carl Weeks</a> outlines his Telegraph Fantasy Football World Cup strategy tips and exclusively outlines how he will go about planning his team for the group stages.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/telegraph-fantasy-football-world-cup-2022-tips-the-ultimate-guide"><strong>Ultimate Guide to Telegraph Fantasy Football World Cup: Everything you need to know, all in one place!</strong></a></li>
</ul>
<p>It’s hard to believe that the World Cup is just around the corner.</p>
<p>There is less than a week between the last Premier League games and the World Cup kicking-off. This will give limited time for research. Fortunately, the team at the Hub has been busy behind the scenes and in the Ultimate Guide above, you'll find lots of information, from team previews and predicted lineups to tips on the best players.</p>
<p>This article's main focus is about the strategy behind building teams for the Telegraph Fantasy Football World Cup game.</p>
<p>Hopefully, some of the evidence and thought process should help with other World Cup fantasy games too.</p>
<h2>Telegraph Fantasy Football World Cup rules and strategy</h2>
<p>Whichever game you play, it is important to understand your objective in the game and build a strategy that gives you the best chance of achieving your goals.</p>
<p>My aim is to try to win the game and hence go for high-variance strategy, which will either score highly or poorly.</p>
<p>The two main <a href="https://www.fantasyfootballhub.co.uk/how-to-play-telegraph-fantasy-football-world-2022-your-simple-guide-to-the-rules">Telegraph rules</a> are that you have 50 transfers, with a maximum of eight being used in each round of the group stage and 10 per round in the knockout stage.</p>
<p>You have unlimited transfers after the group stage and before the knock-out stage.</p>
<p>The rules seem to suggest that the only formation with five defenders is 5-3-2, yet the game seems to allow 5-4-1 as well.</p>
<h2>Carl's top Telegraph Fantasy Football World Cup tips</h2>
<h3>When to submit your team</h3>
<p>I won't submit my team until the kick-off of the first match in which I have a player.</p>
<p>This is because as soon as the first match starts, your team is locked and any transfers count, so if you find out you player isn’t starting you will get zero points or have to use a transfer.</p>
<p>Waiting until the teams are announced gives you certainty over players starting, with no disadvantages of missing points.</p>
<p>I will be entering one team now due to having to enter a team before the start of the tournament for the One League mini-league but the rest will come later.</p>
<h3>Block defences</h3>
<p>I will play with a block defence - a goalkeeper and four defenders from the same team.</p>
<p>Over a short fantasy format there is huge benefit in a block defence for high variance, as one team getting a clean sheet means you will get this for all your players, rather than having to rely on multiple teams for a clean sheet.</p>
<p>Points wise, a clean sheet is the same as scoring a goal, so selecting a clean sheet with a block defence is the same as picking five goal-scorers.</p>
<h3>Using transfers</h3>
<p>I will use my transfers to move from one block defence to another block defence.</p>
<p>Again, it's high variance but getting a clean sheet is like scoring a goal, so getting this right is like making five transfers on a striker with all scoring a goal.</p>
<h3>Gaining an advantage</h3>
<p>I will try to ensure all transfers result in an extra match. I always think of transfers in World Cups like a waterfall. You need players from the first few teams and to make transfers to teams slightly further down the list during each round of matches.</p>
<h3>Early use of transfers</h3>
<p>Use as many transfers as possible in each of the early rounds. This is mainly because there are more easier games to predict in the early matches than those in the quarter and semi-finals.</p>
<p>This results in 24 transfers in the group stage, 10 in the round of 16 and 10 in the quarter-finals, which leaves six for the last semis onwards.</p>
<h2>How to build and rotate a team for the group stages: Carl's plans</h2>
<p>Even though I will need to research players in depth before the tournament starts, I can start planning my team structure and transfers based on the points above - particularly the defences.</p>
<p>I have looked at some bookmaker prices and have estimated the expected number of goals a team is expected to score and based on this the probability of a clean sheet.</p>
<p>This gives the following table - I have highlighted in green where a team is expected to score more than two goals or has greater than 50% chance of a clean sheet:</p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;"> <strong>Need help planning the optimum Telegraph World Cup game? See Carl's plans below! </strong></span></p>
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