The stuff you should know
⏰ Round of 32’s deadline is Sunday 28 June 2026, 20:00 BST.
♾️ Everybody has unlimited transfers ahead of the next World Cup Fantasy deadline.
👋 16 teams have been eliminated, including Uruguay, Turkey, and South Korea.
🤝 Elliot Anderson to join Man City (Romano).
🔜 Leeds reach an agreement to sign Harry Wilson from Fulham (Ornstein).
Alright?
It’s a quick one today, so don’t get too settled. Snap it off if you need to.
This newsletter is the last one that’s dedicated to World Cup Fantasy. Going forward, each newsletter will have a section that discusses it, but we’re shifting our focus over to FPL. Which, ironically, will probably involve talking about the World Cup quite a lot.
Still, it’s high time we returned to our roots. World Cup Fantasy is going too well. The good players keep scoring points - frankly, it’s a bit weird.
We miss the ambiguity of the bonus system, the complexity of DEFCONs, and the looming sense that nothing - no matter how hard we try - will work out in our favour.
With that out of the way, let’s look ahead to Round 4, or as the normies call it, the Round of 32.
Finish the Tournament with Premium
Our World Cup Fantasy pundits head into the knockout rounds ranked 43,356th, 55,286th, 84,563rd and 111,892nd overall.
This is the last newsletter dedicated entirely to World Cup Fantasy. Going forward, our free newsletters will continue to cover the tournament, but our detailed analysis will live in Premium.
Join us for expert team reveals, WhatsApp updates, transfer plans, captaincy rotations and all the information you need to finish the tournament strongly.
We're gradually shifting our focus back to FPL. What do you think of that decision?
Round of 32 fixtures.
The knockout stages.
Summary for the Lazy: When in doubt, back the bracket. Argentina, England and Brazil have favourable routes, while several European heavyweights could eliminate each other early.
Looking ahead to the next two rounds before the quarter-finals, there’s a real mix of fixtures. Some teams (the jammy ones, you understand) have pretty nice paths. If they were an actual path, they’d be one of those ones that cuts through the manicured gardens of a country estate.
Other teams have more challenging routes to victory. Their paths would look more like the sort of paths you’d see in the background of an episode of Ross Kemp on Gangs.
We've colour-coded each fixture based on how difficult we believe it will be for that team, using our own assessment of the likely challenges and opportunities presented by each opponent.
Before the pundits write in: Yes, we know there are no easy games at a World Cup. Mexico at home in Mexico City obviously presents its challenges, as has been covered plenty of times elsewhere. But it’s our job to make a few light assumptions so that we can furnish you with useful fantasy information.
Favourable Runs
Team | R32 | R16 |
|---|---|---|
ARG | CPV | AUS / EGY |
ENG | COD | ECU / MEX |
BEL | SEN | BIH / USA |
BRA | JPN | CIV / NOR |
SUI | ALG | GHA / COL |
Tough R32, Better R16
Team | R32 | R16 |
|---|---|---|
NED | MOR | RSA / CAN |
MOR | NED | RSA / CAN |
Easy R32, Harder R16
Team | R32 | R16 |
|---|---|---|
GER | PAR | FRA / SWE |
FRA | SWE | GER / PAR |
POR | CRO | ESP / AUT |
ESP | AUT | POR / CRO |
USA | BIH | BEL / SEN |
COL | GHA | SUI / ALG |
Avoidable Runs
Nothing is impossible, of course. However, some teams face such challenging routes to the quarter-finals that we've left them out of the table view. Those teams are Ivory Coast, Norway, Mexico, Ecuador, Ghana, Algeria, South Africa, Canada, Sweden, Paraguay, Austria, Croatia, Senegal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, DR Congo and Cape Verde.
Could one or two spring a surprise? Absolutely.
But when building a fantasy squad, we'd generally invest in teams with a realistic chance of surviving the next two rounds rather than rely on a string of upsets. Loading up on players from these nations may leave you scrambling for replacements sooner than you'd like.
Boosters.
Summary for the Lazy: Use Qualification Booster now while the favourites are heavily favoured to progress. Clean Sheet Shield can wait until the Round of 16.
As we move into the knockout rounds, two new Boosters (or chips to you) have been unlocked.
Qualification Booster
When activated, it grants +2 points to any player in your starting XI who progresses to the next round of the knockout stage or wins the final. To be eligible for the bonus, the player must play at least 1 minute in the match.
We advise playing the Qualification Booster this round. With several clear favourites in favourable fixtures, this feels like the best opportunity to maximise points from the chip.
Clean Sheet Shield
Any goalkeeper, defender, or midfielder in your team will only lose their clean sheet after conceding 2 goals.
The Round of 16 seems to be the popular time to use this booster. If you target defenders with favourable fixtures in that round, you should be well set up to take advantage.
Going for 3x Argentina (likely two defenders plus Messi) could become the template. They face Cabo Verde this round, then would need either Australia or Egypt to score fewer than two goals in the Round of 16.
Unlimited Transfers Draft
This squad is built around Argentina, England and Brazil, who we believe have the strongest routes through the Round of 32 and Round of 16.
Belgium, Switzerland and the USA are also represented due to their favourable knockout paths, while Kimmich, Yamal and Mbappé provide exposure to Germany, Spain and France's excellent Round of 32 fixtures.
The hope is to benefit from those immediate opportunities while retaining the flexibility to move off those players should their nations run into trouble in the Round of 16.
The best captain(s) for Round of 32
Summary for the Lazy: Plan your captaincy route in advance. We'd generally be looking to stick on 15+ points and chase another return if our captain falls short of that mark.
Unlike Round 3, where fixtures within each group kicked off simultaneously, every Round of 32 match takes place at a different time.
That means captaincy flexibility is back. In theory, you could hand the armband to a different player in every match if you had a squad spread across all 15 fixtures.
In theory, if your squad contained players from all 15 matches, you could have 15 different captaincy rolls of the dice. Make sure you have a plan for when you'll stick and when you'll twist.
Our favourites for each match are:
Johan Manzambi vs RSA
Vinícius Júnior vs JPN
Kai Havertz vs PAR
Achraf Hakimi vs NED
Erling Haaland vs CIV
Kylian Mbappé vs SWE
Julián Quiñones vs ECU
Harry Kane vs COD
Leandro Trossard vs SEN
Folarin Balogun vs BIH
Lamine Yamal vs AUT
Cristiano Ronaldo vs CRO
Breel Embolo vs ALG
Mohamed Salah vs AUS
Lionel Messi vs CPV
Daniel Muñoz vs GHA
We’re back next week to talk about FPL (with a sprinkling of World Cup). We’ll look at the biggest signings so far this summer and examine some of the Premier League’s new managers in a little more depth.
Stay lazy,
The LazyFPL Team.