This article is part of our FanDuel Fantasy Soccer series.
The Champions League quarter-finals start Tuesday with Manchester City and Benfica as home favorites against Bayern Munich and Inter Milan, respectively. At this point in the competition, there are matchups that become somewhat toss-ups and the first leg provides less to worry about in terms of motivations of pushing versus protecting a lead.
MATCHES (ET)
- 3:00 pm: Benfica vs. Inter Milan
- 3:00 pm: Manchester City vs. Bayern Munich
For detailed stats and odds, check out the
FORWARDS/MIDFIELDERS
Erling Haaland, MCI vs. BAY ($24): Manchester City are the biggest favorite and on a two-match slate it's hard to fade the raw point floor and upside of Haaland. I know the price is high, but you almost just have to find the money to fit him in. I think that the Man City-Bayern game will be more open and fantasy friendly of the two, making me like him even more. If you want to pivot or stack Man City, you can look to Kevin De Bruyne ($20), who always has a strong floor with upside, Bernardo Silva ($13), who gives you much needed price savings, or Jack Grealish ($16), who has been on a tear over his last three starts.
Joshua Kimmich, BAY at MCI ($17): Kimmich will have a set-piece monopoly on the other side of this game and as mentioned, I think that this game is a bit more open than the other. Man City will likely control a lot of
The Champions League quarter-finals start Tuesday with Manchester City and Benfica as home favorites against Bayern Munich and Inter Milan, respectively. At this point in the competition, there are matchups that become somewhat toss-ups and the first leg provides less to worry about in terms of motivations of pushing versus protecting a lead.
MATCHES (ET)
- 3:00 pm: Benfica vs. Inter Milan
- 3:00 pm: Manchester City vs. Bayern Munich
For detailed stats and odds, check out the
FORWARDS/MIDFIELDERS
Erling Haaland, MCI vs. BAY ($24): Manchester City are the biggest favorite and on a two-match slate it's hard to fade the raw point floor and upside of Haaland. I know the price is high, but you almost just have to find the money to fit him in. I think that the Man City-Bayern game will be more open and fantasy friendly of the two, making me like him even more. If you want to pivot or stack Man City, you can look to Kevin De Bruyne ($20), who always has a strong floor with upside, Bernardo Silva ($13), who gives you much needed price savings, or Jack Grealish ($16), who has been on a tear over his last three starts.
Joshua Kimmich, BAY at MCI ($17): Kimmich will have a set-piece monopoly on the other side of this game and as mentioned, I think that this game is a bit more open than the other. Man City will likely control a lot of possession, per usual, but that doesn't mean there won't be opportunities for Bayern to strike on the counter. Kimmich gives you a slight discount from the top of pricing and you can also fit in a teammate or two for a game stack.
Goncalo Ramos, BEN vs. INT ($19): Ramos has been on a strong run for his club in league play, scoring six goals and adding two assists in his last six appearances. This is an important game for a strong Benfica team at home to ensure they don't travel to Milan down a goal or more. Most of the time, I like to only pick out the goals for Benfica as they are a bit tough to pin down for DFS production. However, at a cheap price, I am willing to take a shot on Chiquinho ($10) with his likely share of set pieces.
On the other side of that game, I have a hard time getting to anyone up front in terms of optimal building, but for GPPs you can try to pick out a goal with Romelu Lukaku ($16), Lautaro Martinez ($16) or Nicolo Barella ($13). I just don't like this matchup, especially away from home.
Leon Goretzka, BAY at MCI ($15): Goretzka gets you access to my favorite game of the two for a mid-range price. Albeit in much better matchups, he has been between 17 and 22 FanDuel points in his last five UCL starts. He gets it done in a multitude of ways and I wouldn't be surprised if he gets involved in a goal here. Thomas Muller ($15) is the same price, but he seems to be much more goal dependent. Sadio Mane ($17), Kingsley Coman ($18), and Leroy Sane ($19) are priced out for optimal building, in my opinion, but they can be mixed and matched in game stacks.
DEFENDERS
Gilberto, BEN vs. INT ($8): Most of the time, it'd make sense to focus on teammate Alejandro Grimaldo ($15), but for a $7 discount, I will side with Gilberto, who will be filling in for an injured Alexander Bah. There's little data to go off of, but when he has gotten starts, like in league play against Boavista in February, he has produced. These are the kinds of plays that will allow you to fit in higher-priced attacking options like Haaland.
Denzel Dumfries, INT at BEN ($13): Defender is pretty weak Tuesday and while I'm not high on Inter, I have them playing in a trailing script, which should benefit players like Dumfries from a DFS perspective. He gets much more forward than a lot of defenders and will provide a decent floor in the right game script.
Others to consider would be center-backs that provide a defensive floor since I don't see many defenders that have a lot of upside. Francesco Acerbi ($11) and Matthijs De Ligt ($12) both fit that bill as underdogs away from home.
GOALKEEPER
Odisseas Vlachodimos, BEN vs. INT ($12): Vlachodimos could be the most popular goalkeeper on the slate with Benfica having the highest clean sheet odds and solid win odds at home. He makes sense as the top play in all formats, especially since I expect both teams to score in the other game and at that point you are looking for save upside. You could pivot to Ederson ($13) in GPPs if you think Man City keep it clean unlike me, or just punt the position to either of the underdogs with Yann Sommer ($7) or Andre Onana ($8) and hope all four teams net a goal with their save upside carrying them. This position is highly dependent on your game script which you certainly need to have pinned down on a two-match slate.
