Ayoub El Kaabi (Olympiacos) — low expected ownership, decent projected return vs Haiti. Upside if they catch a clean route.
🤖 AI PICKS · WORLD CUP FANTASY 2026
MATCHDAY 1 LIVEAI CAPTAIN · DIFFERENTIALS · VALUE🤖 ONSIDE AI · UPDATES HOURLY
AI-picked World Cup Fantasy brief
Onside AI predicts the highest-points picks for managers playing the official FIFA World Cup Fantasy game. AI captain shortlist, AI contrarian differentials, AI value board — every pick comes with a model rationale and confidence score.
Not affiliated with FIFA. Onside AI publishes the picks; you play them in the official app. Window: 25–28 June 2026.
QUICK ANSWER
Who should I captain in World Cup Fantasy 2026?
Onside's model's top World Cup Fantasy captain for Matchday 3 is Harry Kane (England) , ahead of Lautaro Martínez and Lionel Messi. These are AI-ranked by projected points for managers playing the official FIFA World Cup Fantasy game, and the shortlist refreshes hourly on squad news and fixtures.
MATCHDAY 3 · CAPTAIN SHORTLIST
Full 7-pick list →Who to captain this matchday
MATCHDAY 3 · DIFFERENTIALS
Full differential list →Low-ownership picks with upside
Julián Álvarez (Atlético Madrid) — low expected ownership, decent projected return vs Jordan. Upside if they catch a clean route.
Memphis Depay (Corinthians) — low expected ownership, decent projected return vs Tunisia. Upside if they catch a clean route.
MATCHDAY 3 · BEST VALUE
Full value board →Points-per-million leaders
£4.5m for 4.5 projected points / 90 — frees 3.5m vs an £8m premium.
£4.5m for 4.3 projected points / 90 — frees 3.5m vs an £8m premium.
£5.5m for 5.2 projected points / 90 — frees 2.5m vs an £8m premium.
HOW TO USE THIS BRIEF
1. Read this matchday's picks on the captain / differential / value pages. 2. Open the official FIFA app at play.fifa.com/fantasy. 3. Make your transfers + captaincy decision before the matchday deadline. 4. Subscribe to the newsletter below for the brief direct to inbox.
Onside is not affiliated with FIFA. We publish picks for the official World Cup Fantasy game at play.fifa.com/fantasy.
SAME ENGINE · POINTED AT FPL
Build your FPL 2026/27 squad with the same model
Once the World Cup ends, the tournament minutes feed straight into our FPL 2026/27 captain shortlist, differentials and squad builder. Same model, just pointed at the Premier League.
WC FANTASY · MATCHDAY BRIEF
Captain picks that delivered 7 / 7 in MD1
- The Onside model captain shortlist for every WC matchday
- Plus differentials, value board, and the first FPL 26/27 picks
- Same engine that powers our Premier League tools
Weekly digest
Captain picks, transfer tips & differentials — every week.
One email per gameweek. Unsubscribe any time.
WC FANTASY · FAQ
Common questions about World Cup Fantasy 2026
Schema-marked so Google can surface these as a rich result.
What is World Cup Fantasy 2026?›
World Cup Fantasy is FIFA's official free-to-play fantasy game for the 2026 World Cup, hosted at play.fifa.com/fantasy. Players build a 15-man squad within a £100m budget, pick a starting XI per matchday, and score points based on goals, assists, clean sheets, bonus and appearance fees. Onside is not affiliated with FIFA — we publish decision-support picks for managers playing the official game.
Who should I captain in World Cup Fantasy this week?›
Our per-matchday captain shortlist (see the Captain page link below) ranks the 7 most ownable armband picks. The current matchday's top pick lives on the hub at /world-cup-2026/fantasy/captain. Updates happen hourly via the Onside AI.
What's the best differential pick for World Cup Fantasy?›
Differentials are low-ownership players with above-baseline projected returns. Our /differentials page filters out Premier League top-six club players (proxy for low effective ownership) and surfaces 7 picks per matchday with a decent fixture and a real shot at a haul.
How does Onside's World Cup Fantasy model work?›
Onside AI builds a per-player matchday projection that factors fixture context, club form, role, recent minutes and squad news. Projections refresh hourly as new data lands. We publish the picks (outputs only); the model itself is proprietary. Overview at /world-cup-2026/methodology.
Can I sync my FIFA Fantasy team to Onside?›
No — FIFA Fantasy doesn't expose a public API, so direct sync isn't possible. We provide picks here; you implement them in the FIFA app. We may add a "paste your squad and compare to optimised" manual flow later in the tournament if there's demand.
When are the World Cup Fantasy deadlines?›
Each matchday deadline is the kickoff time of the first fixture in that matchday. Group-stage Matchday 1: 11 June 19:00 UTC. MD2: 18 June 16:00 UTC. MD3: 25 June kickoffs vary. Knockout deadlines per round. We list the deadline on each matchday page.
WC MATCHDAY BRIEF · ONE LIST, TWO SEASONS
Get the World Cup brief in your inbox — plus early FPL 2026/27 picks
Match-by-match predictions, captain picks for World Cup Fantasy, likely scorers, and the first FPL 2026/27 differentials to watch. Same engine that powers our Premier League tools, pointed at the world's biggest pre-season.
Weekly digest
Captain picks, transfer tips & differentials — every week.
One email per gameweek. Unsubscribe any time.
SAME ENGINE · POINTED AT FPL
Tracking the World Cup? Use the same engine for FPL 2026/27.
v5 depth-2 GBT stacker · 51k+ OOS predictions · MAE 0.86. Captain picks, MILP squad optimiser, AI Coach, set-piece intel — the production Premier League tools.