2022 World cup fantasy matchday one team & player picks: the best MD1 wildcard team

Well, so far we’ve been covering guides and sharing tips regarding how to play the 2022 World Cup fantasy game. We’ve also spoken about how to use and when to play the various boosters(chips).

In this article, we want to go right in and create our first matchday one 2022 World Cup fantasy team. We’d be looking at the groups, teams and players to target; after which we’d create several drafts and teams that would serve as inspiration for FIFA fantasy managers out there.

2022 World Cup Group stage

Well, before we go in and decide what players we want to target and add to our matchday one team, we want to first see what the groups look like and what countries have easy groups.

Now that we know what the 2022 World Cup groups look like, we now want to identify what teams we should be looking to target as we create our very first World Cup fantasy team.

What teams should you target for your FIFA fantasy world cup draft

From Group A, there are two teams that we’d be looking to target and that’s: Senegal and the Netherlands

Group B, we’d be looking to target: England

Group C, we’d be looking to buy players from: Argentina, Poland and Mexico

Group D is interesting, getting players from France and Denmark might just be the way to go there

From Group E, we’d be targeting Spain and Germany

Group F, we’ve got four really good teams that we could target and that’s Belgium, Croatia, Morocco and Canada

In Group G, you could also get in players from all the teams in there. So that’s another interesting group

And lastly, in Group H, you can still select World Cup fantasy players from everyone in that group. The teams there are all very good.

Here’s another really helpful way or tool that can help FIFA fantasy managers know and identify teams that have really good fixtures and it’s called a fixture ticker.

This fixture ticker was done by @UCL_Beercules, he takes his time to arrange and sort out each countries game by difficulty. So Countries whose fixtures are red, have tough games while Countries whose fixtures are green, have easier games.

🔥🔥🔥#WorldCupFantasy Fixture Ticker + FDR 🔥🔥🔥

FDR are objective and based on tipico odds. Feel free to use and share✌️ @TheLineUpBrazil @FPLReaction @fpl_austria @UCL_Fantasy @Linn_FPL @LetsTalk_FPL @uclfantasypod pic.twitter.com/7qtNZIK979

— Fantasy Beercules ⚽️ UCL Fantasy & FPL (@UCL_Beercules) November 7, 2022

What Countries have good fixture in the 2022 World Cup

From his fixture ticker, we can see that only seven teams have three games that are all green rated. France, England, Netherlands France, Brazil, Portugal and Argentina.

So when creating your first World Cup fantasy draft, it’d be nice to include players from these four teams. Now that we know the teams we want to target, let’s now create a couple of matchday one teams.

2022 World Cup fantasy team: going big at the back

This is our first World Cup fantasy team and in this team, we’ve tried to go all in and get really good defenders from some of the best countries in the game.

We have the likes of Dumfries, Luke Shaw(who is almost a guaranteed starter for England, since they have injury troubles at left back) and Joao Cancelo.

We’ve also decided to have a couple of cheap defenders in this one as well, and so we’ve gone for Sosa and Joakim Mæhle.

This is a really good FIFA fantasy team, and that’s because the defenders we’ve selected have the potential to get a couple of attacking returns.

We’ve targeted full backs and we know that full-backs have a high chance of getting assists and goals; most especially when they play for attacking sides.

Sosa and Joakim Mæhle are also really good picks regardless of their price. Sosa has registered a whopping 8 assists in 13 games for Stuttgart this season.

While Joakim Mæhle, in 9 world cup qualifiers, scored five goals. Overall in his Danish career, he has registered 9 goals and six assists in 31 games. He is a brilliant option at just 4.5 Million.

For a more detailed analysis on some of the best defenders you can pick for your World Cup fantasy team, then you can check out our: The best defender player picks for your 2022 World Cup fantasy team article.

In that article we have a list of nine pretty good defender picks, we’ve selected them based on clean sheet odds, fixture difficulty and form. Do check it out as there more options for you in there.

In midfield, we’ve got Belligham, Eriksen and De Brunye. Three midfielders that we expect to get us those key passes points, goal scoring points and tackles points as well.

Up top, we have Neymar, Nunez and Lukaku who is on the bench. Kostic, Hannibal and Diogo Costa make up the remaining part of the team.

If you don’t know how the point scoring works in the 2022 World Cup fantasy game, then you should check out our: How to play FIFA World cup 2022 fantasy | tips, strategy & thoughts.

It is a really good article and we’d recommend that you read it if you’re just starting out. So that you can understand why we’re selecting some of the players that we have in our teams.

2022 World Cup fantasy team: going all in on midfielders

Here’s our second World Cup fantasy team and in this one we’ve decided to go all in on midfielders. In order for us to do this, we’ve had to let go of some of our more premium defenders and attackers.

So the likes of Cancelo and Lukaku have been taken out of the team. We’ve now got Phil Foden, Eriksen, De Brunye and Valverde in our midfield, which is really solid.

Again, the midfielders that we’re trying to select, are midfielders that can score, assist win tackles and also make key passes in games. And that’s why we’ve gone for those four.

In attack, we’ve got Nunez, Neymar and Mitrovic. Again, no Messi yet and that’s because we’re focusing on trying to have a pretty good midfield. In order to do that, we need to make some sacrifices.

On our bench we’ve got some of the best budget assets. Kostic a cheap midfielder who is priced at 6million, Cash a starter and a full-back valued at 4million, Alowais Saudi Arabia’s goalie and Sosa a pretty good full-back that’s valued at 3.5 million.

You can check out our best players for 2022 FIFA World cup fantasy -midfielder picks article, in that article we look at the best premium midfielder you can select and some mid-priced midfielders as well.

Do make sure to check it out if you’re looking to go all in on midfielders.

2022 World Cup fantasy team: going all in on forwards

The final World Cup fantasy team for matchday one is this one and in this draft, we’re investing heavily on forwards. We’ve got the likes of Messi, Neymar and Kane in this team; three players that have pretty good fixtures and know just how to find the back of the net.

And just like in previous drafts, in order to get in these premium forwards, we’ve had to make a couple of tweaks to our side. We’ve taken out De Brunye, Dumfries, Phil Foden, Nunez and Mitrovic.

We then went on to bring in Trossard, Sane, Bergwijn, Messi, Neymar and Kane. Well, there are so many forward options in the game and we can’t pick all of them.

In our three drafts so far, we’ve not included Mbappe or Benzema and that doesn’t mean their bad picks, they are good picks and would be nice alternatives to the forwards that we’ve got in our various teams.

Here are some more forwards that we think would be great picks and additions to your World Cup fantasy team: The best FIFA World cup fantasy forward player picks – Mbappe, Benzema, Kane, Messi

What to know who the best matchday one captains are, then check out our: The best World Cup fantasy MD1 captain picks: Mbappe, Messi, Neymar or Kane.

In our forward picks article, we go in depth and discuss about the best premium and mid-priced forwards that fantasy mangers should be looking to buy.

You must have heard about the chips(boosters) in the 2022 World Cup fantasy game, well we’ve written an article on these boosters and we’ve shared our thoughts on the best time to play these boosters. You can see all of that in the article below:

2022 World cup fantasy tips: the best time to use your chips & boosters

For those looking to activate their 12th man booster in matchday one, then feel free to check our list of 12th man player picks for matchday one: The best 12th man players for matchday one-World Cup fantasy

So far in our various drafts, we’ve picked so many players and these are the players that we’ve been targeting:

Defender picks for your World Cup fantasy team

• JOÃO CANCELO DEFENDER | PORTUGAL | $6M
• JOAKIM MAEHLE DEFENDER | DENMARK | $4.5M
• LUKE SHAW DEFENDER | ENGLAND | $5M
• BORNA SOSA DEFENDER | CROATIA | $3.5M
• MATTY CASH DEFENDER | POLAND | $4M
• DENZEL DUMFRIES DEFENDER | NETHERLANDS | $6M

Midfielder picks for your World Cup fantasy team

• KOSTIĆ MIDFIELDER | SERBIA | $6M
• ERIKSEN MIDFIELDER | DENMARK | $8M
• LEROY SANÉ MIDFIELDER | GERMANY | $9M
• STEVEN BERGWIJN MIDFIELDER | NETHERLANDS | $7M
• FEDERICO VALVERDE MIDFIELDER | URUGUAY | $8.5M
• PHIL FODEN MIDFIELDER | ENGLAND | $8.5M
• JUDE BELLINGHAM MIDFIELDER | ENGLAND | $7.5M
• DE BRUYNE MIDFIELDER | BELGIUM | $11M

Forward picks for your World Cup fantasy team

• MESSI FORWARD | ARGENTINA | $10.5M
• NEYMAR JR FORWARD | BRAZIL | $10.5M
• KANE FORWARD | ENGLAND | $11M
• R. LUKAKU FORWARD | BELGIUM | $9.5M
• MITROVIĆ FORWARD | SERBIA | $7M
• DARWIN NÚÑEZ FORWARD | URUGUAY | $8M

Some more FIFA fantasy wildcard team inspiration

Here are some World Cup fantasy drafts created by players that could serve as inspiration:

30 second draft pic.twitter.com/IkKsdjmR36

— FPL_Cody 🔻 (@FPL_Cody) November 14, 2022

pic.twitter.com/4OsvXOG98T

— Jack (@jackrwyld) November 14, 2022

Needs reviewing now the squads are finalized pic.twitter.com/X3odLTI8cU

— FPL Reaper (@FplGrim) November 14, 2022

We’ve finally created our complete matchday one guide, in the article we put together all the helpful world cup content we’ve created so far this week.

It would help you identify the best player picks, teams, captains and many other things. Do check it out: World cup fantasy MD1 guide: tips, player picks, rules, teams, boosters and captain picks.

For more draft tips, you can check out ALLABOUTFPL’S: Best 2022 FIFA World Cup Fantasy MD1 Drafts With Pros/Cons