The best new players in Fantasy (and what they cost ahead of MD1!)

10.08.2023

Marcel Sabitzer and Lois Openda are among the shiny new assets in Fantasy this season, and better yet, they're for available for a knock-down price!

This season, new arrivals in the league are subject to a 10 per cent discount ahead of the opening round of fixtures.

Some of the players in question are familiar faces to Bundesliga fans, while others will be playing in the German top flight for the first time, but they all have one thing in common: they can be picked up on the cheap for a limited time only!

bundesliga.com picks out five of the best new players to buy…

Lois Openda
Club: RB Leipzig
Position: forward
Price: 12.6m

Lois Openda (c.) is a premium striker who doesn't carry a premium price heading into the new season. - IMAGO/Picture Point LE

Openda joined RB Leipzig from Lens in July, and his 21 goals and four assists in Ligue 1 last season suggest he is rightly priced as a premium attacking asset. Seven goals in pre-season also augur well.

While Openda would normally be priced at 14m - the same value carried by Bayern Munich star Serge Gnbary and last season's Bundesliga top scorer Niclas Füllkrug - you can make a 1.4m saving on him ahead of Matchday 1.

Marcel Sabitzer
Club: Borussia Dortmund
Position: midfielder
Price: 9.9m

Watch: Sabitzer ready to rock with Dortmund

Unlike Openda, Sabitzer is a Bundesliga veteran, having previously played for Leipzig and Bayern, and his move to Dortmund from the latter - via a loan spell at Manchester United last season - makes him the first player to have played for all three German sides.

His default value is 11m, like Fantasy favourites Florian Kainz and Ritsu Doan, but he comes in at 9.9m ahead of Dortmund's season opener against Kainz's Cologne. If BVB can channel the Leipzig version of Sabitzer - 32 goals and 27 assists from 145 Bundesliga games - he could prove a real snip.

Alexander Nübel
Club: VfB Stuttgart
Position: goalkeeper
Price: 6.3m

Watch: Nübel's best saves in the Bundesliga

Budget goalkeepers are always a sensible transfer into your Fantasy squads: as important as shot-stoppers are in the real world, their points can't get multiplied 1.5 times with stars, unlike their outfield colleagues.

Bayern-owned Nübel is now on loan at VfB Stuttgart having spent the last two seasons with Monaco, and what might be a prohibitively expensive 7m price tag is knocked down to 6.3m - in line with the cheapest safe starters in the Bundesliga like Jiri Pavlenka. He also had a Ligue 1 high 140 saves last term…

Leart Paqarada
Club: Cologne
Position: Defender
Price: 6.3m

Leart Paqarada is already endearing himself to the Cologne faithful. - IMAGO/Beautiful Sports

With Cologne legend Jonas Hector hanging up his boots, the Billy Goats have moved for St. Pauli's Leart Paqarada to plug their gap at left-back. His 10 assists plus three goals in Bundesliga 2 last season suggest he could be a future star in the real and Fantasy universes.

Like Nübel, Paqarada's price is knocked down from 7m to 6.3m, making him a budget-busting option 700k cheaper than his new Cologne teammate and Fantasy favourite Benno Schmitz lining up on the opposite flank.

Fraser Hornby
Club: Darmstadt
Position: Forward
Price: 2.7m

Fraser Hornby should be Darmstadt's first-choice striker this season, and costs peanuts. - IMAGO/Crystal Pix

Last, but only least in terms of price, is Darmstadt's new striker Fraser Hornby, who has joined the Bundesliga new boys from Ligue 1 side Reims after spending last season on loan at Belgian side Oostende.

That spell took in eight goals and two assists from 21 Pro League games, with a goal-involvement of one every 162 minutes, and while Belgium may be four places below Germany in the latest UEFA coefficients, he could still help Die Lillien. And for 2.7m, the English-born Scotland youth international is the epitome of a budget-busting enabler.