In case you’ve been living under a rock, this season WSL Football has launched its own fantasy game.
It has many aspects that you will be familiar with if you’ve played FPL or Aerial Fantasy. You have a £100m budget to buy 15 players, and you make transfers each matchweek to change the players in your team. Players earn points from things like goals, assists, clean sheets, and more, and you can compete in mini-leagues against your friends. There are also some features that are less familiar for regular fantasy players.
Two leagues and 26 teams
Both WSL & WSL2 players can be selected for your team. You can stick to one league if you prefer, but WSL Football has said that simulations showed that fantasy teams that used players from both leagues fared slightly better; on average, they earned 3% more points than fantasy teams that used one league.
Players earn points in the same way no matter which league they’re in. For example, a WSL midfielder getting an assist earns the same number of points as a WSL2 midfielder getting an assist. The most expensive WSL players such as Bunny Shaw (12.5m) and Alessia Russo (£11.5m) will likely score more than any WSL2 players, but players priced from about £8m down should yield the same number of points per £1m, no matter which league they’re in.
Legs
The season is split into six legs, each lasting three to six matchweeks. As well as the usual season-long leaderboards, there will also be a leaderboard for each leg, and all fantasy players start the leg on zero points, giving everyone a clean slate. This means that fantasy players can create a team mid-season and not feel like they’ve completely missed out. If you make a fantasy team at Christmas, you can still compete to win some legs. It enables people who start getting into the WSL and/or WSL2 during the season to join the fantasy fun without having to wait until the start of the next season to be in a position to win prizes.
The legs start at MW1, MW6, MW12, MW15, MW20 and MW24. In the run-up to each of those matchweeks, you will be given unlimited free transfers, which truly makes it a level playing field for the leg.
Prizes
At the end of the season, the top fantasy players worldwide will win prizes. These include season tickets, a visit to a WSL or WSL2 club for an exclusive training session, and, for the overall winner, an on-stage award at the WSL Football Awards and an overnight stay.
There are also prizes for the top players in each leg. The top prize for leg one is a FaceTime call with a Barclays WSL or Barclays WSL2 player, second place will receive a signed shirt from a club of their choice, and third place gets two tickets to a 2027-27 game of their choice. The prizes for future legs are still to be announced, but it certainly seems like WSL Football is going to be dishing out some fantastic rewards for doing well in the game.
Deadlines
Fantasy football games typically require you to lock your team before the team sheets are released for the first game of the matchweek. But in WSL Football’s fantasy game, the deadline is kick-off for the first game. WSL Football has said that it is so that fantasy players who forget to change their team until just before the first match can still compete that week, and amend their team how they wish. This also gives an added advantage to fantasy players that are on the ball - if you’re happy to wait until the line-ups are out to make your transfers, you can guarantee yourself some players that start the match.
Scoring
Goals, assists and clean sheets score you points, but they’re not the only methods. Players can also earn attacking involvement points, defensive involvement points, and bonus points.
For every four combined shots on target, key passes, successful crosses and successful dribbles, a player will earn one attacking involvement point.
For every 10 combined tackles won, interceptions, clearances, blocks and recoveries, a player will earn one defensive involvement point.
The three best performing players in each match will receive three, two and one bonus points, respectively.
Involvement points and bonus points will mean that players who don’t get the headline numbers of goals, assists and clean sheets can still be good value picks and useful to have in your team.
Transfers and substitutions
In the run-up to each matchweek, you will get two free transfers to make changes to your squad. If you do not use all of your free transfers in a given matchweek, they will roll over to the next, with a cap of five free transfers. If you want to make more transfers than the number of free transfers you have, you can, but you will need to pay for these with points. As a general rule of thumb, paid transfers should only be used in dire situations, such as when too many of your players have injuries to field a full XI.
Mid-matchweek substitutions are an aspect of this fantasy game that could give a real competitive edge to fantasy players looking to rinse every drop of points out of their team. Once all matches are finished on a given day, you’ll have the option to sub on players from your bench for players that you initially put in your XI. There are two catches: you cannot substitute your captain, and the player(s) you sub on must not have played their game yet. For example, I have Daniëlle van de Donk in my starting XI for MW1. Her team, LCL, are playing on Friday night. On Saturday morning, I’m going to check my team, and if van de Donk has only scored one or two points I’m going to substitute her off, probably for Vivien Endemann who doesn’t play until Sunday against newly-promoted Crystal Palace.
If you use substitutions effectively, I reckon you can get an extra few points per week on average. A few points may not sound like a lot, but it could easily be 100+ points over the 26 matchweeks and could move you up a space or two in your private league.
Boosters
Each fantasy player gets three boosters: one wildcard and two free hits.
The wildcard will enable you to make unlimited transfers for a matchweek, with the usual £100m budget. Once you make your team, you keep it moving forward.
The free hit also lets you make unlimited transfers, but they only apply in that matchweek.
It’s down to the fantasy player to decide which matchweeks they use these. The main candidates for when to use these boosters are MW16 and MW23, when WSL2 teams have two matches each. Other good options are MW8, MW11 and MW26, when WSL2 teams have no fixtures, so you would only get points from WSL players.
As with any new product, this game is unlikely to be perfect in the first iteration. The demands of the game will also change over time. Take a look at the market leader in this space, FPL. Although it’s been around since the 2002-03 season, they still make small improvements to the game every season, and sometimes larger additions such as defensive contribution points and draft leagues.
Fantasy content on The Cutback
This season, The Cutback will be featuring pieces focused on the fantasy game, helping you throughout the season with your strategy and team selection.
We’ve also launched a brand new fantasy podcast, Decoding Fantasy WSL, in collaboration with the creators behind Decoding the WSL. This show forms part of the new brand new The Cutback Podcast Network.
With new episodes out every Thursday, the Decoding Fantasy WSL team will be discussing the players they are selecting, the use of boosters, hidden gems that most fantasy players might miss, and everything else you need to succeed in fantasy.
The video podcasts can be found on YouTube - subscribe to Decoding the WSL and The Cutback. For audio, search for Decoding Fantasy WSL wherever you get your podcasts.
You can join in the fun by competing against the team at Decoding Fantasy WSL as well and other fans of the pod. Use the code J8MZ9ZI1 in the WSL Football app to join our public league.
