Team Selection Strategy: FPL Manager

Bala Madhusoodhanan - Aug 7 '23 - - Dev Community

Intro:
With the new football season just around the corner, now is the perfect time to start planning your Fantasy League journey. Dust off your managerial cap, embrace the strategizing, and dive headfirst into the world of Fantasy Football.

Rules:
The aim is to pick a squad of 15 players, including 2 goalkeepers, 5 defenders, 5 midfielders, and 3 forwards for a budget caped at 100 Million. The objective is to build the best possible team within the budget and earn points based on the performance of the selected players in actual Premier League matches.

The Excel solver has a limit of leveraging only 200 decision variable to had to do a bit of feature engineering.

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DECISION MAKING : EXCEL SOLVER:
a) The Decision variable would be binary to select a player for the team or not (Highlighted in Yellow cells)
b) The object function is to minimise the total points scored if the players is selected
c) Constraints:
i) Cost: Sum of all players selected < 100 Million
ii) Count of position for GKP = 2
iii) Count of position for DEF = 5
iv) Count of position for MID = 5
v) Count of position for FWD = 3
vi) Sum the count of player selected from a team < 3

Setup in Excel Solver:

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Result:

name team position cost total_points
Raya BRE GKP 5 166
Alisson LIV GKP 5.5 162
Gabriel ARS DEF 5 146
Mings AVL DEF 4.5 130
Mee BRE DEF 5 143
Schär NEW DEF 5 139
Trippier NEW DEF 6.5 198
Martinelli ARS MID 8 198
Ødegaard ARS MID 8.5 212
Douglas Luiz AVL MID 5.5 142
Gross BHA MID 6.5 159
Eze CRY MID 6.5 159
Watkins AVL FWD 8 175
Wilson NEW FWD 8 157
Kane TOT FWD 12.5 263

Summary:
Having learned on how to optimize the chance to score more points, enjoy the exciting way to immerse ourselves in the world of football management. May our Fantasy teams reach new heights, and may the spirit of competition unite us in the love for the beautiful game.

Reference:
FPL Player Status Data
Fantasy Premier League

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