Experience the thrill of the game

By Eduard Banulescu

If anything, the Nations League games add some much-needed excitement to international football, previously dominated by non-competitive friendlies. Nations League games are also part of the fantasy football competitions on FootballCoin.

With the 2024 group stage almost over, I looked at the stats and was unexpectedly surprised by what I found. Here are five things you can learn from fantasy football data from Nations League games.

Good indicator of a striker’s form

International friendlies no longer fully worked for UEFA and football fans. Football stars often seemed to feel this way. Everyone demands a level of excitement comparable to the Champions League at all times.

However, the 2024 Nations League games were a chance for strikers who wanted to prove themselves. This is proven by the analysis of fantasy football statistics and the best scorers.

The top striker was Erlng Haaland. The Norwegian scored 153 points in football after scoring seven times. In this balance in particular, Norway is at the top in a group that also includes Austria and Slovenia.

Younger and older strikers who need the football world’s attention have done well. Viktor Gyokeres from Sporting carried his good club form into international football. And Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo is also one of the top five strikers, despite the fact that most of his goals came from penalties.

It is always a good idea to have players like Bruno Fernandes or Florian Wirtz in your fantasy football team in Nations League competitions. These are stars who have proven their willingness to give their best in international games.

But the Armenian Eduard Sperstian and the Norwegian Antonio Nusa also showed good performances in their games. Yes, it’s true that they competed against teams that weren’t quite the same caliber as the aforementioned stars.

This should be of concern to fantasy football managers who simply want to score points.

Top teams can’t keep a clean sheet and goalkeeping results suffer as a result

The League A groups bring together the top teams in the Nations League. These games were often entertaining.

Nevertheless, this had a negative impact on the goalkeepers’ results. You only have to look at the total points of players like Diogo Costa or Kasper Schmeichel. Not even Jordan Pickford or Mike Maignan make it into the top five.

No, the main prize should go to Stole Dimitrievski from North Macedonia. He is closely followed by the Belarusian Fedor Lapoukhov. These may not be your first choice, but they have proven to be extremely effective.

Veterans play a less important role

International friendlies used to be an excuse for older players to increase their participation in the national team. While this is still the case for some stars, there are significantly fewer examples of charity caps at the 2024 Nations League games.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Luka Modric and Edin Dzeko are among the older players who were still given valuable playing time.

However, national team managers are more interested in using the Nations League as an opportunity to test new players who can serve as the basis for squads in European and World Cup tournaments.

The focus and reliance on young players also means they provide great opportunities for fantasy football managers looking to build their teams.

There are many 1* players who are absolutely free on FootballCoin and have regularly collected points. Among them, Fedor Lapoukhov, Karl Hein from Estonia and Dimitar Mitov from Bulgaria were the child prodigies. Keep these players on your radar.

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