Club World Cup testing - a new format!

Hello!

It’s been a while since our last update on the development of Fantasy Utd, but we’ve been busy behind the scenes.

Our original plan was to have open testing for the 2025 Club World Cup. As we got closer to the start of the tournament, though, it became clear we weren’t where we needed to be to make that happen.

However, we still made good use of the CWC for testing with a closed group of internal testers.

Here are some of the things we did during this period...

New format

A big reason why we wanted to test using the CWC was to formulate a new format in preparation for the 2026 World Cup.

Until now, we have only tested using a ‘league’ format - meaning every team plays a set number of fixtures in the season. The CWC (and the World Cup) has a knockout format which presents us with a number of challenges, the main one being knockout rounds.

The solution we came up with was to create a First Stage of four gameweeks that included three group fixtures and the round of 16 fixtures.

This First Stage can be expanded to handle bigger tournaments or condensed for smaller ones. The format needs to be adaptable to work for all tournaments.

After the First Stage, the top eight teams in the league table qualify for the Quarter-Finals followed by a Semi-Final stage and a Final to produce a winner.

5-a-side

Another challenge unique to a knockout tournament (like the CWC) is that as the rounds progress the number of teams users can pick players from dwindles.

To account for this, we introduced a mid-tournament shift which sees teams go from 11-a-side to 5-a-side from the Quarter-Final stage onwards. This includes an auto-select function to prevent ghost teams.

Eliminated players

Once a user is eliminated from the league, the players they own will be released back to the open market to allow other users still in the league to sign them.

Players whose teams have been eliminated from the tournament will also be marked as such in your squad. You have the ability to release these players to receive full budget for them without any punishment.

This will help you replenish your squad with new players if they required.

Seedings

To give users an incentive to finish as high as possible in the First Stage table, knockout round seedings were introduced.

This means that the first place team will meet the eighth place team in the Quarter-Finals, the second place team will meet the seventh place team, and so on and so forth.

Lobby banners

Users are clearly notified in the lobby page of the tournament if they have been won or knocked out. Highlights of their performance will be added as a future development.

What's next?

Phase 3 of testing will begin soon and will shift back to MLS.

We hope to be able to conduct a longer phase of testing, possibly until the end of the 2025 regular season.

Testers will be notified within the app and by email. Become a tester HERE!

What is Fantasy Utd?

We want to build the next generation of fantasy soccer that offers American fans a more in-depth experience. Something molded by you.

Fantasy Utd will cater for all sorts of soccer fans with different formats, leagues and game modes.

Hundreds of committed testers have already helped shape our game. Sign up to become a FUTD tester HERE!