Who to captain in your opening round

Who Should You Captain? 

Double the Points, Double the Drama

Captaining a player in Fanfuse is simple: their points are doubled.
The tricky bit? Picking the right player.
You can captain someone game by game, week by week, choose your captains in advance, or even stick with one player for the whole season. So there’s plenty of room for strategy - and, inevitably, a little bit of footballing madness.
Not necessarily.
Strikers are the obvious option because goals are worth points, and strikers are generally the players most likely to score. If your striker bags a brace, your captaincy decision suddenly looks very clever indeed.
But Fanfuse's scoring means you shouldn't automatically reach for your star striker every time.
Imagine Arsenal are playing a team that rarely scores. Your goalkeeper keeps a clean sheet and picks up 3 points.
Captain him?
That's 6 points.
Your striker, meanwhile, spends 90 minutes being chased around by three defenders and finishes with 1 point.
Football. Beautiful game. Terrible game.

Look at the fixture

The opposition matters. If you really want to get into it...
A weaker team can create opportunities for all sorts of players to score. Full-backs can get forward, midfielders can grab a goal, and even defenders can pop up with a header from a corner.
So before you captain your usual superstar, ask:

• Who are they playing? 
• How many goals does the opposition normally score? 
• Is your goalkeeper likely to keep a clean sheet? 
• Who takes the penalties? 
• Who takes the free kicks? 
• Is your midfielder getting forward regularly? 
• Is your defender a threat from corners?

And yes, penalty takers matter.
If your player is facing a team that gives away penalties regularly, suddenly that midfielder or defender who you've barely noticed all season starts looking very interesting.

A few Fanfuse scenarios

The obvious choice:

Haaland is playing a team near the bottom of the table. Captain him. He scores twice. Easy decision. 10 points becomes 20. You're a genius.

The clever choice:

Your goalkeeper is playing a team that has scored twice in their last six games. You captain him, he keeps a clean sheet and picks up 3 points. That's 6 points doubled to 12. Suddenly the goalkeeper looks like the smartest player in your squad.

The differential: 

Your midfielder is on penalties, corners and free kicks and is playing a team that concedes plenty of goals from set pieces. You take a chance and captain him. He scores and assists. Suddenly everyone who picked the obvious striker is wondering why they didn't think of it.

The disaster:

You captain your striker because he's "definitely scoring".
He hits the post.
Then gets booked.
Then gets substituted after 63 minutes.
Your goalkeeper keeps a clean sheet.
Welcome to football.

Sometimes, it's just luck

That's part of the fun.
You can research the fixtures, look at form, check penalties, study clean sheets and convince yourself you've made the perfect decision.
And then your captain gets injured in the warm-up.
There is skill in making the decision, but you can't control what happens once the whistle blows.
That's what makes Fanfuse interesting. There isn't one guaranteed captain every week. You have to decide how much risk you're willing to take.
Play it safe with the striker.
Go clever with the goalkeeper.
Take a punt on the midfielder.
Or completely ignore all sensible advice and captain a defender because you've got a feeling.
Just don't get too annoyed when it doesn't go your way.
After all, if football always did what we expected, we'd have nothing to argue about on Monday morning.