Wrexham Fantasy Soccer: How to play The Athletic’s game with your friends

Wrexham have been the Hollywood story of English football over the last two seasons — and it will continue this campaign as they return to League Two.

They are among the most popular teams on the planet after the release of the documentary covering their rise under the ownership of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.

Speaking of popular football/soccer-related things — Fantasy Premier League is a phenomenon in its own right. And both the UK and the USA, where Wrexham have developed a huge fanbase, have a long-standing tradition of fantasy sports games.

The Athletic has brought together its Wrexham and Fantasy experts to create a game that will allow you to follow the Welsh team’s fortunes through a little bit of friendly competition. We have used the old-school pen-and-paper format, allowing you to play with only the printout found below in the article, a Wrexham squad list, a pen, a dice and some friends.

Read on to find out how to play — and tell us in the comments below if you’ve set up a league ahead of the season starting on Saturday. We recommend you kick off your season before their game against MK Dons to make the most of our fantasy game.

How to play

Create a five-man squad including a minimum of one defender, one midfielder and one forward within a budget of £10m. Pick a captain each week whose points total will be doubled.

Game variants

There are two ways you can play this game with your friends — using either draft rules or freestyle rules.

In draft rules, every player in the Wrexham squad provided below can only be picked once. This means that each manager will have a unique five-person squad.

To set up the game, each player has to roll a dice. Whoever gets the highest number makes the first pick, before the player with the second highest number, then the third, and then the fourth. For the second round, the player with the lowest number picks first, the player with the second lowest number picks second, and then the third and then the fourth. The group of five players has to be worth less than £10m — keep that in mind while making your early picks!

At the end of every gameweek (a gameweek begins five hours before Wrexham’s weekend fixture), a manager can sell one player and buy another who is undrafted. This has to be calculated from the remaining budget. No two managers can buy the same player in the same week. If a player in one squad is sold, he becomes available to the other managers.

If Wrexham sell a player, a manager is allowed to bring in a replacement before the next game.

Draft mode can be played with a maximum of four players, due to the limitations in Wrexham’s squad size.

In freestyle rules, every player in the Wrexham squad provided below can be picked as many times as needed. This means that every manager can have the same player in their squad.

To set up the game, each player has to pick their five-man squad. This can be done in their own time prior to Wrexham’s first game of the season — against MK Dons on August 5.

Player values

How to score each player

Goal: 5 points

Assist: 3 points

Clean Sheet: 4 points (starting GKPs & DEFs only)

Starter: 2 points

Substitute: 1 point

Yellow Card: -1 point

Red Card: -3 points

Own Goal: -2 points

Man of the Match: 3 points

When should points be calculated?

Points should only be calculated for League Two matches.

This means that matches involving Wrexham in the FA Cup, the EFL Cup and the EFL Trophy should not be counted when points are being totalled.

Where do we keep track of the league?

We’ve pulled together a handy PDF document that will allow you to track progress.

The teams section only has four slots for teams to be written in, but it can include more than four teams per league. The same applies to the fixtures section — just create a larger table and print that out instead if you have more than four people playing in your league.

Click the link below to access it.

Play Wrexham Fantasy Soccer

(Photo: Jan Kruger/Getty Images)