Introduction

SportsBox.com - provides fantasy sports games based upon real-life sporting events. Champions Fantasy makes you "The Gaffer", grabbing you by the scruff of the neck from the safety of your armchair and plonking you slap bang into the pressure cooker that is the Champions League manager's dugout. With the 50 Million notes you get at the beginning of the season, you must buy and sell players to make your team the ultimate eleven on the pitch. Best of all, compete directly against your mates - proving that all those evenings spent watching Champions League have finally been put to good use!

It's so easy to get started

Using your starting budget of £50 Million you must buy players to put together the best 11 man team possible. You are free to choose any player that is currently available for selection in the real-life Champions League.

Depending upon how well a player within your team performs in real-life, the value of that player will either increase or decrease. For example, if a player's real-life team wins a match, that player will increase in value, but decrease in value if they lose. Each team's position in the league is directly related to the team's overall worth plus any leftover cash. To put it bluntly, it's the team that contains the greatest value of players that will win!

In addition to buying players, you must also hire a Champions League coach for your team. Just like a player, a coach also increases or decreases in value depending upon how their associated team performs in real-life. Real-life performances are reflected in your players values in accordance to the Champions Fantasy Knock-Out point system. Click below for more detailed information upon the Champions Fantasy Knock-Out point system.

View point system

As a manger, you must continually stay sharp by reacting to real-life Champions League events such as player injuries, transfers, suspensions and changes in the fixture schedule. Many of these things have the potential to catch you off guard, so you must stay up to date with the latest Champions League news to stay on the top of your game. This element of 'realtime realism' continually tests your managerial metal and helps separate the pros from the amateurs!

What else is important?

Objective of the game: Increase the overall value of your team

This is done by buying players for your team who look likely to perform well in the future and thus, increase in value. Because the game follows the results of the real match scores and setups, one of the key aspects to being a good Champions League manager, is timing. Crucial team advantage can be gained by buying and selling at the right time.

The game is divided into periods, each known as a "game round"

The change in the overall value of your team for each game round depends upon the performance of the players you selected for your team's lineup prior to the commencement for that given game round. This is a particularly important aspect to consider in the event of a postponed match. View fixtures and results.

Just like a new house, the best way to familiarise yourself with Champions Fantasy Knock-Out is to have a good wander around and explore all the site's nooks and crannies. We have purposely made Champions Fantasy as user friendly as possible, so you can focus on the game and not get stuck in technicalities. Even after a short while you're likely to know your way around the game so well that you can even smell the turf.

Player units and formations

Defenders, midfielders and forwards each make up a different "unit" on your team. When buying players you can choose among the following formations:

5-4-1    5-3-24-5-1    4-4-2    4-3-3    3-5-2    3-4-3

Example: If you chose a 3-5-2 formation you must buy 3 defenders, 5 midfielders and 2 forwards for your team. No matter what formation you choose, you still must buy a coach and a goalkeeper. This chosen formation however can always be changed when you are buying players, so don't worry about it too much at the beginning.

Money not spent on players stays safe sitting in the team's bank account, ready to be used for future transfers. The overall starting value for all teams (inc.bank deposits) is always £50,000,000

Team restrictions

Until the quarterfinals, when selecting your team you are only allowed to have a maximum of 4 players from the same real-life team (including the coach). The only exception from this rule is if a player changes real-life team during the course of the game.

Player deactivation, Real life transfers and dismissals

Players from clubs who are knocked out of the tournament are deactivated before trade re-opens. Players that have become deactivated are indicated by a red cross. Deactivated players can be sold when "Player Trading" is open, but they can no longer be bought. You wouldn't want a useless player with a red cross all over it anyway, would you?

If a player is sold or loaned to another club in real-life, he will also in Sportsbox.com. If the player switches to a club outside of the Champions League, he will be deactivated and will no longer receive any value changes – positive or negative.

If a coach gets the chop in real-life, he will be deactivated, and will no longer receive any value changes. The new coach that is appointed as his replacement will then become available to purchase as soon as he starts the job.

We do our best to keep the player rosters up to date but ultimately your line-up is your own responsibility! No compensation will be given due to transfers, sackings etc.

Game rounds

A fundamental element of the game is that the season is divided into segments known as 'game rounds'. In very simple terms, a game round can be seen as corresponding to one match, as each team plays one match per game round - unless a match needs to be postponed to due some unforeseen circumstance such as bad weather.

Want to know more?

Postponed matches

If a real-life match is cancelled and rescheduled for a new date that falls outside the game round period it was originally set, this will result in the rescheduled match being rescheduled to the most appropriate Game round in the future. Naturally, this can end up with a team playing no matches during one match period (the cancelled match game round period).

It is important to note that when a match is cancelled, players from the teams of the cancelled match neither gain or lose value, being simply awarded zero. When the rescheduled match does take place, a Champions League team's player/s or coach only can gain or lose points upon the follwing two conditions;

1) A player or coach is featured within the Champions Fantasy Knock-Out team's line-up at the time of the rescheduled match

2) A player or coach is also featured within the real-life line-up for the rescheduled match

Captain

From your team of 11 players you must choose a captain to lead the team out and do all the fun stuff like coin calling and centre-circle hand shaking. Your captain's value will increase or decrease just like every other player for each game round but with one significant bonus; any value increase for your captain will be matched by an additional, equal payment to the team's bank account! For example, if your captain is a striker, any goal scored by him would increase his value by the usual £70,000 but also increase the team's bank account by another £70,000. For those of you not so hot on the maths (like me), just look at it like this - your captain always "scores twice" for your team. Isn't that fantastic? Yes it is.

To change your captain is always completely free, so choose the player you expect to have the most profitable game round. As choosing who to make captain is part of your line-up decision,you can only change the team's captain whilst the transfer window is open!

If your captain belongs to a club that plays two matches in a game round, he will only receive his captain's bonus for one of the games – the bonus awarded being related to the first match played by his club in that game round.

Please note again (for those of you reading too quickly before, yes we saw you) that the captain's bonus is not given to the player, but is deposited directly into the team's bank account.

Player transfers

Quite often you may notice that a player within your team gets injured or perhaps a player starts to play, er, how should we put this...well you know, absolutely crap. In this case, you will no doubt become a bit of a depressed Champions Fantasy Knock-Out Manager. Do not worry though my good man, this is the perfect opportunity to venture out into the transfer market! Tweaking your team through the buying and selling of players is without a doubt one of the most exciting parts of Champions Fantasy Knock-Out. Do keep in mind however, that just as in the real world, there are also greedy agents and middlemen in Champions Fantasy Knock-Out. As such, for each new player your team purchases, your team also has to pay an additional fee that corresponds to one percent of the purchased player's price. Learn more about transfer periods in the sections "Game weeks" and "Update and confirmation".

Squad selection

There is no sure fire recipe for success in the game. Although a player may have been on fire during the last game he played, you never really know just how well he will play in his next match. To succeed as a Champions Fantasy Knock-Out manager you need a combination of luck and skill, based upon your mix of knowledge, experience and good fortune. Having said that, we can give you a few expert tips to keep in mind when putting together your team.

1. Does the player look like good value for money? Sure, the expensive players are more likely to play well but there are still loads of players out there that can prove to be absolute bargains. Some players put in amazing performances throughout the entire season in relation to their purchase price. One of the key elements of being a good manager is to spot those players that you think are undervalued; potentially earning your team more dosh for less. Think like a cut thoat trader - buy low, sell high!
2. Does he play for a team that often wins? Maybe that player you're looking at is cheap, scores every week and so looks like your ideal striker. But wait. Before you make that decision to make him your next new number 11, ask yourself a couple of simple but important questions. Does his team often win and what do you think his team's chances are of winning the next few games? Remember, a player increases in value when his team wins, but drops in value when they lose. Therefore, it can be better to have an 'average' player on your side that plays for a winning team, rather than an amazing player whose team is always getting thrashed.
3. Does he sit on the bench a lot? Some players spend a lot of time watching their team play in a tracksuit on the substitute bench. That player you're looking at might be one of the best players in the league, look like good-value and play for a winning team. But does that player perhaps also face a lot of competition to make the starting line-up? Remember, a player is only able to increase in value for games that they were either in the starting line up for or joined later as a substitue. To make matters worse, a player also drops £5000 in value everytime they don't take any part in a match.

Update and confirmation

Games in progress are updated in real-time. This means that you can watch your individual player's performances and consequent value changes whilst the game is being played live. Of course, values which are dependant upon the final outcome of a match such as values awarded for team 'wins', 'ties', 'loses' and 'game decisive goals' are not updated in real-time until the end of the match. The values that are awarded to players in real-time during a game must only been seen as a very good indication of the values to be awarded upon completion of verification the following day. Essentially, this is because our updating systems can also get caught up in the excitement of a game from time to time and unfortunately make mistakes. Therefore, it is not until all games have been manually verified by ourselves that values can been seen to be officially awarded to players. As you are probably aware, decisions are sometimes taken in real-life concerning teams and their players which have the potential to change the values they have previously been awarded/deducted. For example, yellow cards that were given during a match are occasionally cancelled a few months down the line or a team may have a match disqualified due to some violation of the rules. In such cases, SPORTSBOX.COM reserves the right to asses whether any values need to be awarded/deducted retrospectively in light of these new developments. The decision of SPORTSBOX.COM in the case of such disputes is final.

Hidden Teams

All teams are 'hidden' until 'lock-down,' which occurs approximately 1 hour before the start of a game round. When teams are 'hidden', it means it's not possible for Champions Fantasy Knock-Out managers to see what changes have been made to other competing teams since the end of the last game round. As a result, other Champions Fantasy Knock-Out mangers are not aware of any changes you make to your team (including player transfers, team formation, change of Coach, change of Captain etc) until approximately 1 hour before the start of a game round. Remember, at the point of 'lock-down' it is no longer to make any changes to your team - so take advantage that all your tactical decisions are made out of view from other competing Champions Fantasy Knock-Out managers! Naturally, every team is completely 'hidden' at the beginning of game round 1, as at that point, no matches have been played and so there is no previous game round data available.

End of game

The game ends once the final game round has been completed and all values have been awarded, deducted and verified.