We have provided some Euro 2024 fantasy football lineup tips for all those fantasy managers eagerly awaiting the start of the tournament in Germany.

We will be using UEFA's official Euro 2024 fantasy football game, taking you through the best tips to use throughout the tournament, and also recommend a starting team for Gameweek 1 starting on Friday.

Our Euro 2024 fantasy football lineup tips

Manage your budget

It goes without saying, but some players are likely to score more points than others. For example, a team's third-choice goalkeeper is likely to score fewer points than a team's first-choice striker. However, in Euro fantasy, it is not as simple as just picking the best players in the game in their position.

Inevitably, the better players cost more money, and in Euro fantasy, you have a €100m budget to spend on 15 squad players each week in the group stages, and €105m in the knockouts. So you must weigh up whether players will be worth their price.

For example, Kylian Mbappe and Harry Kane are expected to score highly, but both are the joint-most expensive players in the game at €11m.

By picking them you will also have to look for hidden gems at cheaper prices – for example, Maximilian Mittlelstadt and Wout Faes are expected to start for strong teams, and each defender is the cheapest you can get in the game at €4m.

Look out for set-piece takers

In Euro fantasy, you score more points for goals and assists, so having set-piece takers in your team can be an advantage. There is a high chance of a goal from a penalty, while free-kicks and corners also provide excellent avenues for goals and assists for the takers.

Of course, stronger teams will likely have more of these scenarios, so targeting their set-piece takers should be considered, but targeting players who are the heartbeat of a so-called weaker team and take all their set-pieces can also yield many points.

Dominik Szoboszlai (€7m) and Hakan Calhanoglu (€6.5m) are great examples of such a player.

Target "better" fixtures

"Better" is subjective, but some teams will inevitably be favourites to beat others. Therefore, targeting teams with better fixtures on paper should maximise points potential.

For example, Belgium will be strong favourites to win their group containing Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine, so picking their players (you can have a maximum of three per team in the group stages) would be sensible.

Contrastingly, Albania are in a "Group of Death" with Croatia, Italy and Spain, and so it would be wise to try and avoid their players where possible.

Captain a player on the first day of a gameweek

In Euro fantasy, you can change your captain once per day to try to gamble and see if a player playing later in the gameweek can score more points. For example, if your captain only scores two points on a particular day, which would be doubled to four, you could switch him to a player playing the next day if you think they will score higher.

However, it should be noted that you can only have one permanent captain at the end of each gameweek, and so the points from each captain you have chosen do not accumulate.

In this case, it would be wise to captain a player playing on the first day of a gameweek, so that you have the maximum number of chances to change them later on if needed.

For example, captaining Florian Wirtz (€7.5m) for Germany's opening game against Scotland on Friday, then switching to Federico Chiesa (€7.5m) for Italy's game against Albania on Saturday if Wirtz does not score well, and so forth.

Use at least one chip in the group stages

In Euro fantasy, you get two chips that can be played in any gameweek, but not at the same time. They are the Wildcard chip, where you can use unlimited transfers (you would normally be allowed up to two per gameweek in the group stages) to change your team within budget.

The second is the Limitless chip, where again you can make unlimited transfers, but with no budget restrictions. The other key difference between the chips is with the Limitless chip, where your team resets back to the original from the previous gameweek after it is used, whereas the Wildcard chip ensures your team changes are permanent.

Typically, it is in the group stages where more 'mismatches' happen in terms of quality of opponents, so using the chips to pick as many better players from better teams as possible is an advantage. Therefore, we would recommend using at least one in Gameweek 2 or 3 (you get unlimited transfers up until Gameweek 1).

Our recommended Euro 2024 fantasy football starting squad

Starting XI:

Goalkeeper

Bart Verbruggen (Netherlands) - €4.5m

Defence

Federico Dimarco (Italy) - €5m
Marc Guehi (England) - €4.5m
Maximilian Mittlestadt (Germany) - €4m
Wout Faes (Belgium) - €4m

Midfield

Bukayo Saka (England) - €8.5m
© Florian Wirtz (Germany) - €7.5m
Rodri (Spain) - €6.5m
Jorginho (Italy) - €5m

Attack

Harry Kane (England) - €11m
Romelu Lukaku (Belgium) - €9m

Subs:

Goalkeeper

Diogo Costa (Portugal) - €5m

Defence

Theo Hernandez (France) - €5.5m

Midfield

Bruno Fernandes (Portugal) - €9m

Attack

Kylian Mbappe (France) - €11m

As shown, we have picked players from stronger teams, as we think they have the best chance to score points. We have captained Wirtz as part of the captain strategy discussed in the tips section.

You may be wondering why players like Mbappe, who are expected to score highly, are on the bench. It is because in Euro fantasy, you can substitute players from your bench into your starting XI during the gameweek, in case your starting player does not score highly.

In this case, France and Portugal play on later days in Gameweek 1, so we can gamble on the starting XI first, and substitute them out if they do not score highly, providing the player on the bench to replace them has not played in the gameweek yet.