UCL Fantasy Semifinals: Tips, Captain & Team for Matchday 11

UCL Fantasy Matchday 11 – Semifinals 1st Leg is almost here and there are just 5 games left in the 2023/24 Fantasy Champions League season.

That is not much room to gain a lot of fantasy points.

Teams of all UCL Fantasy managers will look very similar in the semifinals.

So, let’s look at UCL Fantasy semifinals tips, and let’s show you how to make the most of matchday 11. We will discuss strategy, best picks, captain, odds, team selection and more.

1. UCL Fantasy Semifinals Tips & Strategy for Matchday 11

If you have more than 5 players that have been eliminated in your team, our advice is:

1. One playing goalkeeper is enough for the semi-finals. Do not waste your transfer for GK if you don’t have to. There is much better value in, for example, defenders with similar prices who are often recovering balls (like Hummels or Schlotterback for example).
2. Focus on having a playing XI, take hits only if you are not able to field a full XI with 5 free transfers. There are just two matches, to be played, so there will not be a big amount of fantasy points around, so hits will not be worth it. Basically, do not use hits to bench players.
3. Transfer out your most expensive eliminated players first. You do not want to have expensive dead weights in your fantasy team.

There is a very narrow pool of players in the semi-finals, so it will be very difficult to move in rankings because a lot of fantasy teams will be very similar.

2. Transfer tips for Matchday 11

a. Who to transfer out in Matchday 11?

Let’s quickly discuss who you should transfer out in Matchday 11. Of course, you should get rid of eliminated players. But what to do if you have more than 5 players eliminated?

• Get 11 starters at all costs – use even -4 points hit to get 11 starting players (and in valid formation).
• But try to avoid taking additional -4 hits to get more than 11 starting players.
• Prioritize transferring out the most expensive eliminated players in your fantasy team – that way you can maximize the budget with the starting players
• Keep suspended players on your bench

b. Do not go all-in in two teams in the semifinals.

In the UCL Fantasy R16 and in the Quarterfinals, we always emphasized that you should focus on players from teams that will likely go through. Well, not anymore.

The situation in the 1^st leg of the semifinals is not the same. We have already published the probabilities of progressing to the final, and we saw that bookies favor PSG and Real Madrid to go through.

However, we have seen how unpredictable the Champions League could be when it gets so deep in the tournament as it is now. Real Madrid going through Manchester City is an example of that.

We cannot really predict who will go to the final. So, what should you do in this case?

The answer is diversification…

c. Diversification

Yes, before the start of the semifinal’s 1^st leg, you should use diversification to spread the exposure in your UCL Fantasy squad to all 4 teams, but you could put a little bit more weight on teams that are more likely to advance to the final or on teams who are more likely to score goals in Matchday 11.

Let’s bring back the probabilities of progressing to the final from our previous UCL Fantasy article for the semifinal’s first leg.

Team	To Qualify Odds
PSG	68.47 %
Real Madrid	61.6 %
Bayern	38.4 %
Dortmund	31.53 %

Tip:

Your biggest advantage over other UCL Fantasy managers can be if you start preparing your teams for the Champions League Final right now. That way you will not have to take unnecessary -4 point hits after the semifinals. But that does not mean you should go all in into two teams… 

So, let’s look at how to do it.

Here is how you could potentially spread spots in your squad:

• 4 players from Real Madrid
• 4 players from Bayern
• 4 PSG Players
• 3 Dortmund players

Worst case scenario: 8 of your players get eliminated, 7 players will remain for the final, and you use 5 transfers to get to 12 starters in the Final (where we cannot use subs, so it doesnot matter that you will have just one player on your bench). And we did not even count 3 transfers we get between the semifinals.

This will help you to get perfectly set up for the Fantasy Champions League Final round – it will help you maximize your chances of having at least 11 starters in your UCL Fantasy squad in the final (regarding the probabilities) no matter which team will go through.

d. What to do after UCL Fantasy Matchday 11

After the 1^st leg of the semifinals is over, probabilities of progressing to the final will change for all teams.

Based on the 1^st leg results, there likely will be two teams that will have gained an edge in the semifinals 1^st leg, so they will have a higher chance of progressing to the final.

And you will have 3 transfers available. That will help you rebalance your squad and move from diversification to concentration. Let me tell you what that means…

It means, that you will use your three free transfers before the semifinals 2^nd leg (Matchday 12) to get rid of 3 three players that will have lost their 1^st leg match, and the probability that their team progressing to the finals will have decreased significantly.

e. Other Semifinals Tips

• Diversify your defense across all 4 teams
• Bring in players who are good at balls recovered

3. Fixtures to target in UCL Fantasy Matchday 11

Which fixtures you should target? We always use bookies’ odds to help us determine that. Let’s look at which teams have the highest chance of winning their match in the Matchday 11 and scoring a lot of goals in that game:

• PSG – 40 % to win, 23 % to score more than 2.5 goals
• Bayern – 40 % to win, 19 % to score more than 2.5 goals
• Dortmund – 35% to win, 19 % to score more than 2.5 goals
• Real Madrid – 35 % to win the match, 17 % to score more than 2.5 goals

Find 2.5+ goals odds for all teams in our article: Champions League Over 2.5 Goals Odds.

4. Key notes for UCL Fantasy semi-finals 1st leg

• Diversify your defense across all 4 teams
• Bring in players who are good at balls recovered (Hummels, Schotterback)
• Have attacking defenders in your team, as there might not be clean sheets at all (there was just one clean sheet in both legs of Quarterfinals combined)
• Try to have more (8-9) players who play on Tuesday, so you do not have a substitution headache on Wednesday
• Pick goalkeepers from both days if you can
• 5 points is our captaincy threshold (if our captain scores 5 or more points we will not change our captaincy)
• 4 points is our substitution threshold (if a player scores 4 or more points we will not sub him off)

Read more about our captaincy thresholds: UCL Fantasy Captaincy Thresholds: When to change captain?

6. What bookies say about MD11

What do bookies say about the Champions League semi-finals? We have already shown you the probabilities of progressing to the final. Now let’s check clean sheet odds and goalscoring odds.

Our probabilities are calculated from bookies’ odds using our Odds to probability calculator.

Clean sheet odds

There are just two matches so it will be very hard to guess clean sheets.

Byern (22 %) is the most likely to keep a clean sheet in the 1st leg of the semifinals.

However, the clean sheet odds are very tight for the first leg of semifinals, all teams have CS probability in the range of 17% to 22%. Just diversify your defense across all teams, and focus on attacking defenders and defenders good at balls recovered.

Based on these odds, bookies expect 0.77 clean sheets in the Matchday 11 of UCL Fantasy. So, there might not be a clean sheet at all in MD11.

You can check all MD11 clean sheet odds here: Champions League Clean Sheet Odds.

👀Here are Clean Sheet Odds for #MD11 of #UCLFantasy. pic.twitter.com/QgaBfkegQE

— Fantasy Football Reports (@FplReports) April 29, 2024

Goalscoring odds

You can check all MD11 goalscoring odds here: Champions League Goalscoring Odds.

🎯Here are Goalscoring Odds for #MD11 of #UCLFantasy. Do not forget, odds are valid only if player starts the match from the beginning. pic.twitter.com/pT2cAOtGa5

— Fantasy Football Reports (@FplReports) April 29, 2024

7. Best captain for UCL Fantasy Semifinals

We will keep the captaincy section very short. We think, there are two obvious  captaincy options for the 1^st leg of the semifinals.

We think that the best captain for UCL Fantasy Semifinals is Kane who is scoring in almost every game. If you want to be different, you could bet on Real Madrid and you could go for Vinicius as your Tuesday captain.

Our backup captain for Wednesday is Mbappe. If unsure about your backup captain, you could choose Hummels as your captain, which could bring you 3-5 points from your captain even if Dortmund concede.

8. UCL Fantasy Semifinals Team Selection – Scout Picks

Let’s finish our Matchday 11 tips with our UCL Fantasy scout picks for semifinals 1st leg. Kane is our captain.

9. Fantasy Champions League Tips

Find more tips, strategies, and picks for UCL Fantasy in these articles:

• Beginner? Read our guide: How to play UCL Fantasy?
• Confused about the rules? Read the Official guidelines of the game
• Do you want to get better at UCL Fantasy? Read our article about Essential Tips for UCL Fantasy Success.

Feel free to JOIN our UCL fantasy mini-league for the 2023/24 season using our league code 50U1FM5M03.

Good luck in UCL Fantasy Matchday 11 – Semifinals 1st Leg.