Champions League Fantasy Football: The Scout squad for the final

The Scout's final selection for the 2023/24 UEFA Champions League consists of eight players from Real Madrid and seven from Borussia Dortmund with Vinícius Júnior, Mats Hummels, Jude Bellingham and Gregor Kobel all making the grade for the conclusion of #UCLfantasy, presented by PlayStation.

Goalkeepers

Dortmund's goalkeeper selection is straightforward, with Gregor Kobel (€5.0m) having picked up 58 points in this season's Champions League, including seven in each leg of the semi-final against Paris Saint-Germain. While Andriy Lunin has collected 37 points for Madrid this term, there remains the possibility the Spanish side might gamble on Thibaut Courtois (€6.0m), who is still to appear in this season's competition but did feature in four of their last five league games. At 4% ownership, the Belgian – Player of the Match in the 2022 Champions League final – represents a potential differential.

Defenders

The selection of defenders is also fairly straightforward, with the five leading points accumulators in that position all selected. The three top-scoring defenders all come from Dortmund, with Mats Hummels (€5.3m) out on his own on 91 Fantasy points – 34 coming via ball recoveries. Also performing strongly in that regard are Nico Schlotterbeck (€5.7m), whose 59 points include 21 from recoveries, and Julian Ryerson (€4.7m), with 16 from a total of 45. Although keeping a clean sheet might be a challenge for Dortmund at Wembley, those ball-recovery figures suggest their defenders could still score well.

Madrid's defensive representatives are Nacho (€5.0m) and Antonio Rüdiger (€5.4m). The former is on 41 Fantasy points thanks in the main to three clean sheets and 48 balls recovered while Rüdiger has a total of 38 – two clean sheets, 42 balls recovered and an assist in the semi-final decider against Bayern.

Midfielders

It would be a brave Fantasy manager who overlooked Jude Bellingham (€8.0m) – Madrid's former Dortmund midfielder is in 73% of teams at the time of writing, despite picking up only 15 points in the knockout stage so far compared to his 50 in the group stage. Bellingham's team-mate Federico Valverde (€7.5m) has fared better with 27 points from Matchday 7 onwards, including 15 across the quarter-finals, while Toni Kroos (€6.4m) will be looking to go out on a high in his final Madrid appearance.

Dortmund's Marcel Sabitzer (€5.8m) has scored 31 of his season total of 49 Fantasy points since Matchday 7, and Julian Brandt (€7.6m) has 21 points from his last three appearances, including seven in the semi-final second leg.

Forwards

Vinícius Júnior (€11.2m) is the top scorer among forwards still involved with 60 points – 21 of them in the semi-finals and 36 in his last five appearances. Having scored the only goal of the 2022 final, the Brazilian has history for finding his best on the big occasion. His Madrid team-mate Rodrygo (€9.2m) will also be looking to shine, and add to his five goals, two assists and 54 Fantasy points so far.

On Dortmund's side, Donyell Malen is unfortunate to be excluded after seven goals in his last ten club appearances, but it is hard to look past Niclas Füllkrug (€7.6m) – with three goals and two assists in his first Champions League campaign, he has a good chance of being involved if the German team do score in north London.