Your guide to Yahoo fantasy football for the 2014/15 Serie A season
By Fantasy Football Blog (original post on Yahoo Eurosport)
Serie A in Italy gets underway this Saturday so to help you out, here are some recommendations to create your dream team and challenge your friends with Yahoo Fantasy Football.
Start with the goalkeeper
The best goalkeepers have the best defenders and based on last season this certainly applies to Morgan De Sanctis at Roma (value €13.27), Gigi Buffon at Juventus (€14.54), and Samir Handanovic at Inter (€11.24). Antonio Mirante at Parma (€7.37) kept 13 clean sheets while Andrea Consigli at Atalanta (€7.97) performs slightly less well than the others but he saved 2 penalties.
Gambles - Simone Scuffet (€5.89) was a surprise entry between the posts for Udinese and he hasn’t looked back since: 16 games and only 22 goals conceded which is an average worthy of a top player. Etrit Berisha (€7.73) from Lazio, and Francesco Bardi from Chievo are excellent low-cost solutions.
Defenders for an unbeatable dream team
Last seasons top four defenders are Giorgio Chiellini (€14.45, the most expensive defender), Roma's defender, Castan (€12.45), and Parma skipper, Alessandro Lucarelli (€11.96). Gambles? Ranocchia from Inter, Roma’s Astori, and even Molinaro, back in Serie A with Torino. And a low-cost solution? Fabio Peluso (value €1.74) who plays with Sassuolo.
Quality midfielders get you points
In midfield, one name stands out - Antonio Candreva from Lazio (€15.50), the midfielder with the highest number of points per match played, thanks to his 12 goals and 6 assists, but also to 84.1% completed passes and over 3 shots per match. Another good bet would be Giacomo Bonaventura (€11.05) from Atalanta.
Midfielders who are a safe bet and never disappoint are Vidal (€11.81) and Pogba (€10.55) from Juventus. For guaranteed goals and assists; Borja Valero (€10.83) also had an excellent season with 87.8% successful passes. Playmakers emerging alongside Pirlo (€11.84), 88.5% completed passes and 6 assists, 68 key passes and just 45 lost balls), include two “surprise” players: Cigarini from Atalanta (€10.89) and Allan from Udinese (€9.70).
Other options - Victor Ibarbo (€6.58) from Cagliari and Pereyra (€5.06) from Juventus. Low cost choices, Juventus’ Simone Pepe (€4.33), Verdi (€2.50) from the newly promoted Empoli, and Obbadi (€2.50) from Verona.
Strikers: top choices
A good bet - Carlos Tevez (€17.31). For his first season in Italy he finished with 19 goals out of 55 shots on target (that’s a 34.55% success rate) and 127 total shots (meaning 15% of his concluding actions ended with him scoring). Luca Toni (€15.58) from Verona finished last season on 20 goals and his statistics were even better than those of “El Apache”, given that he finished on 40% (20 goals out of 50 goal shots), 7 assists, and 2.4 fouls suffered per match. Other safe bets: Rodrigo Palacio (€13.50), Gonzalo Higuain (€11.99), Totò Di Natale (€13.46), and Giuseppe Rossi (€16.11) who scored 16 goals in just 21 matches.
Another good bet is Domenico Berardi (€15.92), one of Italy’s most talented youngsters. His first season with Sassuolo saw 16 goals and 6 assists (7 of these were scored in just two matches against Sampdoria and Milan). Discipline is a bit of a problem for this player (10 yellow cards and one red), as are his 130 lost balls, but try balancing this out with 1.4 key passes, 0.9 dribbling actions and 3.1 fouls suffered per match, plus participation in defense to the tune of 1.4 tackles and 0.8 passes intercepted.
As for young foreign players, there’s a derby between Lazio’s Keita (€6.86) and new Roma signing, Iturbe (€13.08). But don’t forget Francesco Totti (€12.04) and Antonio Cassano.
Surprises – How much room will there be for Mauro Icardi (€6.69) in Inter ‘s attack? Don’t forget that his 9 goals, were scored from 12 shots on target (a 75% efficiency rate) for a total of 40 shots on goal (22.5%, which places him after just Destro, Rossi, Llorente, and Callejon).
Comeback players - what do you think of the trio, Mario Gomez, Quagliarella and El Shaarawy? You could have them in your team for very little, since all three come out of a season spent mainly on the bench and therefore, will be eager to prove themselves. But all three will be first team choices. Inter has Pablo Daniel Osvaldo (€1.00) who is looking to re-launch his game: in 2012-2013 with Roma he scored 16 goals with 3.1 goal shots per match, and 1.6 aerial fights won.
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