An Interview With FanTeam’s Most Successful Fantasy Manager So Far

He’s the man who won over €2,500 in fantasy football tournaments on FanTeam over last month, competing in almost all available leagues. He seems to be the guy you probably wouldn’t want to play Head-to-Head with. And he’s the most successful fantasy manager on our site up to date. FanTeam talked with ‘EventHorizon2’, giving you some insights about his fantasy background, how he’s picking his teams and what he thinks about Fantasy Sports in general.

You’re currently the most successful fantasy manager at FanTeam. Can you tell us about your fantasy football experience a bit more? Have you played season-long fantasy before or jumped straight into the DFS? Tell us about your fantasy football background.

I started out with fantasy football two years ago, playing the seasonal fantasy game, and really liking it. But I was new to the game, and it was hard to figure out all the tricks. So I ended up too far behind to have a chance, even with several months remaining in the league. Next season I focused on single round competitions. It just makes a lot more sense to me. It is easier to figure out. It is quick! You can bet on your team on Saturday morning, and if you win, you get your money on Sunday evening!

Before I started with fantasy football, I was doing sports betting for a couple of years, so I have been following football in general for 4-5 years.

As for Premier League, I have really only been following it for the last two years, as I was trying to succeed in the small leagues the years before that. Like the 2nd Dutch Division and Ligue 2 of France. Now I have settled on the Premier League. I love it!

Okay, now I see why you’re basically crushing the competition at FanTeam. What’s the main difference between playing DFS and sports betting in your opinion?

Well one big difference is that it is easier to win at! And the reason for that is clear: any time to play against “the house”, whether it is casino games or sports betting, you can be sure it will be very hard to win! In fantasy sports you bet against other players, that’s a better way to do it. Other than that, I find myself much more occupied on a “football player-level” now that I do fantasy football. I try to identify who are the good players on each team, and especially who are making goals and assists. So it is more on a detail level.

Very good point. In one of our recent EPL guaranteed tournaments you’ve taken three first places with completely different teams. That’s was spectacular to say least. How had you managed to do that, or was that pure chance? And also, how much time do you spend researching the players, match-ups and other factors?

Chance plays a part in this game like any other game. The best you can do is to try to pick the players you feel will get the most points, without doing compromises. If you are right, odds are you get a nice result. Getting the three top spots in the same round, however means that you got very lucky, in addition to probably making some good choices.

I do spend a lot of time on picking players. 5-6 hours every weekend, maybe more. I am focusing on the Premier League, but lately FanTeam have come out with many other leagues, so I try to enter some teams there too, because it is so much fun!

Speaking of different competitions. It seems you’re successful in most of the leagues on FanTeam, be it EPL, Bundesliga or Swedish leagues. How do you manage to be successful in so many different competitions? Do you follow all of the leagues?

I am not really that good in other leagues. Bear in mind, I do enter a lot of competitions and often more than one team, and because of that so it probably looks like I am better than I am. The Premier League is really the only league where I feel I have good control. I know a little bit about the other leagues because I still do some sports betting in many different leagues, but I am not an expert on Swedish Allsvenskan at all, or even Tippeligaen from Norway. My second best league is the Bundesliga, where I still lack quite a bit of knowledge. Probably, I will focus on PL and Bundesliga for the future, but still enter a few teams for small money in the other leagues, mostly for entertainment.

It’s great to hear that daily fantasy sports can be approached not only with the intention to win money, but also as a source of positive emotions. But we would like also to hear a couple of words about your line-up building approach. Are you trying to go against the void when picking your line-ups, predicting players that will have a lot of ownership and fail, or just sticking to the most secure options when building your teams?

At the moment, I am not placing a lot of weight on how much ownership a player has. This will probably be more important in the future, when fields get bigger. Right now I just pick what I believe to be the best players, the ones that can get most points.

I have some good, basic rules for picking players, if you want to hear them?

Of course!

1. Choose players from a team that fits with what you are trying to achieve. If you are looking for defenders or keepers, their team needs to be able to keep a clean sheet. If you are looking for midfielders or forwards, choose players from teams that are able to score many goals.

2. Choose players who play for teams that are underestimated by the bookmakers. The way the pricing works at Fanteam.com is this: Prices go up if the player is on a team that plays at home or plays against one of the bottom teams in the league. And vice versa, price goes down if the team has a tough task ahead of them. Interestingsly, this means that if you disagree with the bookmakers and feel that the odds on Stoke are too high, the prices on their players will be automatically be lower than they should be (provided that you are correct in your evaluation of the teams).

3. Be sure that the player you are considering actually will be in the starting line up. If it is only 50/50 if the player is going to start, I don’t care if it is Aguero, choosing him will not be a good choice. Even a 70% chance of starting is too low. So, don’t take chances with players that are doubtful starters.

This is very interesting indeed, thanks for sharing! We will not try to disclose all your strategies, so last tactical question from me. Strikers without any doubt are one of the top reasons of fantasy line-up success. How do you determine the striker is worth picking in a given gameweek?

Well, I look at how many goals he has scored in the past, I look at the opponent, if they tend to let in many goals, I try to determine if the striker is in good form, and finally if his team is underrated by the bookmakers, the price is probably worth it!

Good point. What would you say to a season-long player to try and get them to give daily Fantasy football a chance?

For me, once I tried the single round fantasy, there was no going back to the season-long game. The seasonal game just takes too long time, the prizes are few and almost impossible to win, and like I said earlier, I believe there are many “tricks” that beginners don’t know about (and it is hard to find information about them). I never felt like I was playing on an even playing field with the ones that had been playing for many years, but in single round competitions its 100% fair, easy and if you have a bad weekend, you still start off the next weekend without any handicap! Even though I really liked to play the seasonal game, moving on to single rounds made the experience many times better!

And also the substitutions! If you have forgotten to make them in season-long fantasy, your season may be already lost. Okay, my last question for today. What do you think needs to happen in the European Daily Fantasy Football industry for it to significantly grow? And do you see a bright future for DFS in Europe?

I think it is only a matter of time before daily fantasy football becomes really big in Europe. There is no reason it shouldn’t take off. Like American sports have done in the US. The product is just too good I think. As far as I know, there has not been spent a lot of money on marketing by the European sites, so I am guessing the majority of people have no idea DFS actually exists. With more marketing, this will change. I follow the numbers at Fanteam, and they are growing at a huge rate right now, so I believe by New Year the action will be 8-10 times bigger than it is now. I am really looking forward to that!

Thanks a lot for your time, it was really interesting to speak with you!

It was a pleasure!

Link: FanTeam

WooFBet becomes FanTeam: A new standard in Daily Fantasy Football is born!

WooFBet has been one of the most popular Daily Fantasy Football providers and some of the readers might be already familiar with the name. WooFBet has been re-branded to FanTeam over the summer, and the new website has been officially launched last week!

First of all: if you are an existing WooFBet customer, all your account information has been transferred to FanTeam. You can login with your existing username/password and find all your gaming history and funds are there. Second of all: FanTeam will be bigger, better and it will also look nicer! We go through some of the changes and features next, which should make you interested to go try your daily fantasy skills.

The biggest change is the expansion of leagues and countries. FanTeam offers now 12 different European top leagues, which no other daily fantasy football site compares to. UEFA Champions League is there of course and newcomers include Germany 1.Bundesliga and Spanish Primera Divison. Barclay’s Premier League is naturally included, and now FanTeam offers also English Championship which should interest many English football fans.

One important FanTeam feature is dynamic pricing. If Sergio Aguero has an away fixture at Stamford Bridge or a home fixture against Watford, the price should vary a lot. At FanTeam Aguero and every other player in every league is dynamically changed based on their current fixture. If they are more likely to score, the price also goes up aggressively. This makes the game more challenging and interesting for everyone.

FanTeam offers plenty of Guaranteed Prize Pools to each round and there is also always a big Freeroll each week. Today there are tournaments open to 7 different leagues and currently over €4500 EUR in prize pools. Saturday’s offers include:

PREMIER LEAGUE €500 GUARANTEED
BUNDESLIGA €250 GUARANTEED
LA LIGA €250 GUARANTEED
PREMIER LEAGUE €250 GUARANTEED

… and many, many more!

Stay up-to-date by following FanTeam in social media:
http://Facebook.com/FanTeamOfficial
http://twitter.com/FanTeamOfficial

Statistics Pro new features

Our Statistics Pro service just got couple of updates:

When you compare clubs from different countries (for example Champions League and UEFA Europa League games) you will now see separately previous games of clubs from those countries and national teams from those countries (including youth teams) playing against each other:

In this screenshot we compare PAOK Saloniki from Greece with Trnava from Slovakia.


Another new feature for all registered users: when you compare teams (H2H stats) there is now weather search and maps search buttons right below the team name (when we know the team’s city):

So, usually, just one click and you will see current weather and weather forecast for the game. You only need to be logged in to see these. It is free to create a user account to our site. You will get many benefits.

Server problems fixed

Update 26th May 2015 00:04 EET:

Our site is working again. We apologize for this downtime. We have added 2 days extra subscription time for all paying customers because of this server downtime.

Update 25th May 2015 21:59 EET:

Still fixing the server.

Update 25th May 2015 16:12 EET:

It will take approx. 4 more hours to get the server up.

Update 25th May 2015 14:14 EET:

We are having a server issue (again, sorry). It could take 2-3 hours to get it up and running (estimate). We are investigating if we need to replace some components.

Original post 7th May 2015:

We have now fixed the server problems. All paid customers who had active subscriptions today will receive +48 hours extra time for compensation.

Juventus have been waiting a Cup trophy for 20 years

Before the big Berlin finale of the Champions League, Juventus want to win their second trophy of the season in Rome

After advancing to the Champions League, Juventus have won all three points on Saturday at San Siro against Inter, even though Allegri’s team already secured the title. Juventus haven’t looked good at San Siro, which is no surprise since Marchisio and Morata were the only players from the standard starting line up, and it was them who used the home team’s gifts and scored to Handanovic’s net. Allegri was resting players on San Siro because his team has a Cup final ahead of them, that is a competition they desperately want to win in Torino because they haven’t done so in 20 years.

Juventus have already easily defeated Lazio twice this season, but Allegri is aware that they have a difficult cup game ahead of them:

– This will definitely be a different game because it’s the final, this is the game played for the trophy. I expect an even game that might not be solved in 90 minutes. Winning the Italian Cup is very important, and gives us a great preparation for the game in Berlin. 

The heroes of Juventus’ win over Inter, midfielder Marchisio and forward Morata, will not be playing in this final due to suspension. It is expected that Allegri will set the team up in the 4-3-1-2 formation with which they opposed Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-final, while the reserve goalkeeper Storari who substitutes Buffon in this competition on goal, and Sturaro and Llorente will replace the suspended players. The only player with injury problems at Juventus is the back Asamoah, but he has been absent for a while.

Even though Juventus are nominally the hosts of the final, the fact that it is played in Rome is in Lazio’s favour. Pioli’s team does not appear as convincing as it did at the start of the year, but the win over Sampdoria on Saturday still gives them the chance to win the second position in the Serie A which leads to the Champions League next season. Lazio are in for a hellish end of the season, after this game they will face Roma in the city derby for the second position in the League, and in the last round they have a difficult away game at Napoli who are still fighting for the third position. Juventus defeated Lazio twice this year, and, interestingly, the Romans earned their only three wins over the team from Torino in the last 13 years in the Cup in 2009 and 2013.

Pioli would like to crown his first season in Lazio with a trophy:

– We’re playing the finale of the Italian Cup, we earned our spot. We’re facing one of the best Italian teams, one of the best in Europe, but we deserved this finale and we want to outmatch them. Juventus are especially motivated because they are going after all three trophies. It is cleat that we need a so called perfect game, we’re playing in front of our supporters in Rome and we will give our maximum. We have the finale of our dreams ahead of us.

Midfielder Biglia will not play for Lazio because of a knee injury, but it is possible that center back De Vrij, who has been struggling with an injury, will return to the squad from the first minute. It is expected that Lazio will, instead of their usual 4-2-3-1 formation, play in the 4-1-4-1 system with Close in the top of the offene, and Felipe Anderson and Candrev on the sides. Besides Biglia, Lazio’s Cana, Ederson and Pereirinha have also been having some injury problems.

Preview by our partner BetPrepare

Click here for our superb head-to-head statistics Juventus – Lazio