TransferMarkt
German engineering with the tagline, “… immer besser!” No idea what this means, but TransferMarkt (TM) is big in Deutschland with those crazy Oktoberfester’s absolutely gagging for their latest player valuations. Broken down, TM is a really useful tool for real life scouts and agents in providing accurate unbiased valuations on players.
HOW?
How do we use TransferMarkt to find our scrumptious gems? We’ve all been there, daydreaming about our second favourite Serbian, (Look up Ana Kokić), and you want to know just how good he is. Now if everyone just hops onto TransferMarkt we can start. There is a search box in the top left corner of the site which should suffice in most cases, but here are the other methods.
The first method is to use the geographical navigation tools. So we click on Europe (Depends which version of the site you are on as to whether this is necessary) followed by Premier League and finally Manchester “don’t understand Wingbacks” City. And there we have it Aleksandar Kolarov is valued at €12.5M. Suggestions that Mastercard hasn’t yet reached Germany yet, and that they don’t understand that some things are priceless, would be appropriate here.
Now that method whilst simple, is quite convoluted, and you will be pleased to know there is a much more flexible method. This is where the UK version of the site absolutely destroys the German and Italian versions, and oddly the French have bugged out before the battle even began. Here we have the ultimate tool in any Owners, Managers, Scouts Arsenal, Advanced Search. Here we can search by name, (I shall presume you can all spell), nationality, Position, Value, Competition, as well as goal and assist record. So if we search by over 200 goals scored this season, again we find a certain Mr Aleksandar “ThunderCross” Kolarov who plays Left Inside Forward for Manchester City and is 1.87m tall.
I think you will agree, the Advanced Search tool will be invaluable for filling that tricky LB spot.
WHAT?
What information does TranferMarkt provide the budding fantasy football scout addict with? Aleksandar Kolarov as an example again obviously…
Now you can see his vital statistics at the top: 36-24-35. Now in all seriousness it is all pretty self-explanatory with everything clearly labelled. The most useful pieces of information are the Discussion, Position & Market Value on the right frame. Discussions allow you to see the latest ramblings of the crazed Oktoberfesters with regards to his player value. This is useful as they might be stirring about a future price hike or fall, humour may be a no go area, but the importance of precise valuations is not lost on them. Vorsprung Durch Tecknik. The Position tab show that although “officially” Kolarov is a Left-back, he has Left-midfield and Left-wing as secondary positions. I would suggest everyone bids high on Gareth Bale to play left-back for your premierleague team, but the Council are mean & spitefull people and require that it is the MAIN POSITION that is used in this game. Finally, we have the Market Value graph showing you the stability, or lack thereof, of the market value of this player. As you can see someone, crazed Oktoberfesters, seem to think that Kolarov ages like us mere mortals and at 27 human years is haemorrhaging value
WHOM?
The big Question, who are the big names you all want/need/lust for at night?
Lionel Messi and CR7 have the highest valuations unsurprisingly, and you may want to initially plan your approach to bidding for the holy relics of this competition.
New superstar Neymar comes in at number 9 last got a price alteration on the 26th of February this year. Now according to expert ENR his recent move to the old Tika Taka emporium isn’t official till the 1st of July so expect a further increase then.
No. 27 Gerard Pique is the highest priced defender at 36M€. It is not unknown that strikers and midfielders pull the biggest pricetags, so be careful about missing out on the wonderkids known as Iker Casillas and Manuel Neuer etc.
Please note, you are not allowed to bring Ronaldinho Gaucho back from retirement just to fullfill some sick fantasy. He may have been a rival to the power two back in the day, but he is now worth a mere €2M so look elsewhere. Similarly, Kaka used to be worth €70M, but having sold his soul to the Real Madrid devil has fallen from his throne to be worth a mere €16M. Wayne Rooney anyone?
WHEN?
To quote the lunatics themselves;
Looking back over this season Edison Cavani is the winner of biggest price hike award with a whopping €10M increase. Mr Vincent Sasso of SC Braga managed a 900% increase this year, though I still have no idea who he is.
The Hulk was bought by Zenit for £48.4M last summer, this resulted in his price rising from £32.5M to £39.5M. That should act as a rough guide for potential risers.
TACTICS
Now we are done with the dull stuff, though ogling Kolarov is never dull, let’s move on to the important tactical plays you need to consider.
Messi and Ronaldo, how much are you willing to spend of your budget of these guys? They come with a mighty punch and can literally lift you up by the bootstraps and into the upper echelons of the prem table, but at what cost to the rest of your team? Also forwards is the last bidding round of round1, so you will have already spent money on keepers and defenders…
How are you going to fill your backline? There is no choice here they are literally cut price when compared with the attackers, but going all out on the ubers may cost you a place in council history.
Scouting the rumour mills might find you a juicy price riser who could be picked up on the cheap, though beware finding them is only half the battle, underplaying their value on the boards is the other. Once you have identified them as a transfer target you can be assured that the other teams will try to work out what special piece of info you know that they don’t. Curiously, you can target an unknown player who is useless in the hope that someone else will bid for them……
Yours Ginkapo – Self-proclaimed Transfer Tournament Consultant
TWO WORLD WARS AND ONE WORLD CUP
FFS UEFA 
“Now we are done with the dull stuff, though ogling Kolarov is never dull, let’s move on to the important tactical plays you need to consider.”
Love it! 😀
This article is a sheer piece of art.
PS – Got to admit when I first started reading, I thought it was a Watchlist Article on Kolarov 😉
It is… If no one buys Kolarov I will be severly disappointed.
It will be very interesting to see how people communicate their targets on FFS. We will all be somewhat suspicious of each other but eager to know what everyone is doing.
I daren’t utter a word of who I’m looking at. Anybody still looking to join a team?
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