Last updated: 21 August 2026

What separates a successful fantasy football manager from everybody else? Player knowledge matters, but so do strategy, probability, risk management and knowing when you need to make a different decision from the managers around you.

Fantasy Sports Portal explored those ideas more than a decade ago in this interview with multiple national fantasy football competition winner Russ Cane.

At the time, Russ was working for Malta-based fantasy football operator Oulala and had just recorded his fourth Sky Sports weekly victory and his 25th national fantasy football win.

The fantasy games discussed here belong to a different era, but much of Russ’s thinking remains remarkably relevant. Concepts now commonly described as differentials, effective ownership, upside, game theory and expected returns can all be recognised in the strategy he was already using.

From Fantasy Football Player to the Industry

Fantasy Sports Portal: Can you tell us about your background, your interest in fantasy football and the career path you chose?

Russ Cane: My first experience playing fantasy football was in the mid-nineties at the age of fifteen through Match Magazine. The hobby remained casual until 2010 when I decided to invest more time and effort into playing and go up against the masses.

That season I entered FPL, Telegraph, Sun Dream Team, Metro, Daily Mail and Sky Sports. It was also the season I captured my first national win, the Telegraph weekly in the first week of October.

Over the following four years I focused on the Telegraph, Sun, Sky and Daily Mail, which brought more national wins, mainly through weekly and monthly short-term prizes.

I found a game called Oulala in September 2013, a weekly game based in Malta, and four weeks later I won it. Because I was intrigued by the game, I began engaging with the people behind it through their forum, social media and eventually email.

A few months later the managing director was flying to London for a gaming conference and we met for lunch. A four-hour conversation about fantasy football ended with a job offer.

I accepted, worked from the UK for two months while I sorted everything out and then moved to Malta.

I now lead the stats-based content we supply to external publications. Making statistics entertaining is not easy, but if it was easy it would get boring very quickly. I prefer a challenge.

How Do You Win a Weekly Fantasy Football Competition?

Fantasy Sports Portal: Tell us about your latest victory and which of your tournament successes was the most satisfying.

Russ: The Sky weekly was my fourth Sky weekly win in four seasons. I also won the Sky monthly in May 2013.

They gave you two free teams at the beginning of the season and then a third in January for the second-half competition. Most players used their teams to target the overall competitions against hundreds of thousands of other teams.

I preferred to hold my teams back and target the shorter-term prizes.

With 40 transfers available per team, if you had a bad start to a weekly attempt you could tidy the team up and use it for another weekly challenge.

Start by Building a Defensive Base

Russ: One of the basic principles I used in the Sky Sports weekly game was generally to target three-day Saturday, Sunday and Monday weeks. That gave an average Saturday start more opportunity to recover.

I looked for Saturdays with an early kick-off between two average sides where I thought the home team had a good chance of keeping a clean sheet and offered a relatively cheap defence.

I would then use the well-known block defence strategy: goalkeeper plus four defenders from the same team.

If the clean sheet arrived, you immediately had a strong defensive points base. You also had the advantage of confirmed team news rather than trying to predict an entire defence in advance.

If the clean sheet did not arrive, I could leave the team alone and use it for another attempt later.

Using a relatively cheap back line also left more budget available for attacking players.

Pick the Captain Around Involvement, Not Just Goals

Russ: I picked the captain first, generally a forward who scored, assisted and picked up man-of-the-match awards — an involved attacking player rather than simply a finisher.

At the time I would think of players such as Alexis Sánchez or Sergio Agüero rather than relying purely on a conventional goalscorer.

I then filled the remaining positions with attacking players I felt were likely to perform.

Usually, if you had picked up the clean sheet, your captain had done reasonably well and you had a sprinkling of goals and assists elsewhere, you would be well positioned on the weekly leaderboard after Saturday.

Then Play Fantasy Football Like Poker

Russ: Then you start playing fantasy football like you would poker.

If you’re top, you play Sunday differently from somebody who is third. If you’re third, you play differently from somebody who is twentieth.

Being top means going with the obvious choices and taking fewer gambles. Which team has the best chance of a clean sheet? Who is the obvious captain? You protect your position.

If you’re within touching distance of the leader, you might use the obvious defence to keep pace but select a more obscure, yet still reasonable, captain.

If there is a larger distance between you and the leader, you have to consider what the leaders are likely to do and potentially do something different.

It might not work, but there is little point simply copying the decisions of the people you are trying to catch.

A Real Example of Fantasy Football Game Theory

Russ illustrated the strategy with a weekly competition involving West Brom against Chelsea.

He was chasing the leaders and expected them to select Chelsea defenders and Eden Hazard as captain. Instead, he backed West Brom’s defence.

West Brom won 3-0 and the differential decision pushed him from around tenth place to second.

One fixture remained: Arsenal against Sunderland.

Russ expected the leader to use Arsenal defenders with Alexis Sánchez as captain. Only five points behind, he decided that backing Sunderland completely would introduce too much risk.

Instead, he covered another possible outcome. He retained Arsenal defensive coverage, added Sunderland defender Sebastián Coates and captained Olivier Giroud rather than Sánchez. Leaving Sánchez out also released budget for stronger midfield options.

The match finished 0-0.

Russ moved above the leader and won the competition.

Why Your First Fantasy Football Win Matters

Russ: My most satisfying win will always be my first, the Telegraph weekly in 2010.

It doesn’t matter how large the prize is. Certain wins carry more weight. Getting that first victory is important because it gives you added confidence and, I believe, makes you a better player.

The Oulala win obviously holds significance too because without it my life wouldn’t have changed. Those were two very important wins in the grand scheme of things.

Understand the Scoring System

Fantasy Sports Portal: You played many different fantasy games. How did you adjust to their different scoring systems?

Russ: It becomes natural the more you play particular games. When you’re playing several different formats, you develop almost a sixth sense for how each should be approached according to its scoring method.

For example, the Sun did not award points for assists whereas most other games did. A player such as Cesc Fàbregas therefore carried much more weight in some games than others, depending on his price.

Price per million was also something useful to study against the different scoring methods in order to find the best player value.

How Should You Build a Fantasy Team?

Fantasy Sports Portal: Do you have a set methodology for picking your line-ups? How do captains and substitutes affect it?

Russ: In short-term games that award clean-sheet points to goalkeepers and defenders, those players come first. You then have a block base of points to work from.

If the game has captains, an involved attacking player comes next on the selection list, preferably playing at home against much weaker opposition.

I expect goals. If that’s not possible, a goalscorer who also creates assists is good compensation.

Then I fill the gaps with players I have a gut feeling for.

You should find a fine balance between strategy, form and instinct. Taking your own opinion and gut feeling completely out of fantasy football would turn it into a task rather than a fun hobby.

Fantasy Football Was Already Moving Towards Shorter Formats

Fantasy Sports Portal: What adjustments are needed as fantasy football moves towards shorter formats rather than traditional season-long games?

Russ: I believe short-term fantasy football needs to be clean, quick and fun.

The poker-style approach to fantasy football is an interesting one. Setting up leagues against friends or other players, or joining short-term competitions that have already been created, produces a different strategic challenge.

As a fantasy football player, that development excited me because stronger players could potentially gain an advantage through their decision-making.

One Final Piece of Advice

Fantasy Sports Portal: What is your final piece of advice for aspiring fantasy managers?

Russ: Be prepared to fail.

I’ve finished second many more times than I’ve finished first. It hurts. But coming just short teaches you many more things as a player than winning actually does.

If and when you finish second, look at it positively rather than negatively and learn from it.

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Why This Fantasy Football Advice Still Works

More than a decade later, much of the terminology surrounding fantasy football has changed, but Russ Cane’s underlying strategy is strikingly modern.

What he described as predicting what the leaders would do and adjusting his selections accordingly would now commonly be discussed in terms of game theory, differentials and effective ownership.

His preference for attacking players who contribute in several ways resembles modern analysis built around expected goals (xG), expected assists (xA), involvement and underlying statistics rather than simply looking at goals already scored.

His emphasis on understanding each game’s scoring system is equally important. A good real-world footballer is not automatically a good fantasy asset. The value of a player depends on how their actions are rewarded by the particular game being played.

Perhaps most importantly, the poker analogy remains extremely useful.

The best decision when protecting a lead is not necessarily the best decision when chasing one. Fantasy football is therefore not simply about predicting which player will score the most points. It is also about understanding the contest, your opponents and how much risk you need to accept.

Data available to fantasy managers has become vastly more sophisticated since this interview was originally published. The strategic problem has not.