Bundes Manager Efterår 2026 Round 1 Preview

Bundes Manager Round 1 preview: best buys, budget gems and the picks to avoid

Bundes Manager Efterår 2026 opens on Friday 28 August with Bayern München at home to VfB Stuttgart, and you have eleven slots to fill. Round 1 is the one round where every manager starts from a blank sheet, so the squad you build now is the biggest single decision of the half-season. This preview covers the best buys by position, the budget gems worth more than their price tag, and the expensive names the model says to leave alone. Every number below comes from the latest model run.

One thing to settle before you start: there is a captain in this game (kaptajn) and he scores double, but there is no chip to fall back on. The armband goes on the highest projection you own — Harry Kane (14.0m, FCB) tops the round at 210k, and Serhou Guirassy (8.0m, BVB) at 182k is the captain pick if you would rather not pay for Kane, with Michael Olise (9.0m, FCB) at 181k the third option. After that the question is where each million actually buys the most. You can compare the whole pool on the Bundes Manager player picks page before the deadline.

Round 1 fixtures: five teams to target

Nine matches, and the gap between the best and the worst fixture is enormous. Bayern and Dortmund are both at home to promoted or rebuilding opposition, and Dortmund carry the best clean-sheet number of the round.

Those five teams are where the round is won. Bayern's 76% win probability and 3.05 expected goals is the strongest single fixture projection of the opening six rounds bar their own Round 4 home game against Union Berlin (80%). At the other end, Stuttgart at Bayern and Hamburg at Dortmund are the two slates to walk past entirely, and Elversberg, Mönchengladbach and Paderborn are all projected under 1.2 expected goals.

The middle of the card is genuinely close: 1. FC Köln - Hoffenheim has the away side as the marginal favourite (42% to Köln's 33%), and Union Berlin against Eintracht Frankfurt is nearly a coin flip (39% to 35%). Neither is worth premium money, but both are where the cheap differentials live.

Look one round ahead too, because that is where the cheap transfers pay off. Bayern travel to Schalke in Round 2 (75%), Leverkusen host Union Berlin (63%), and Stuttgart host Köln (57%). Leipzig go the other way: [A]Leverkusen in Round 4 and [A]Bayern in Round 6, which drags every Leipzig asset's medium-term outlook down hard. The full run is on the Bundes Manager schedule page.

Goalkeepers: Dortmund's clean sheet, or Bayern's consistency

Gregor Kobel (5.0m, BVB) — 85k, the top goalkeeper projection of the round. Dortmund's 43% clean-sheet probability at home to Hamburg is the highest of any team in Round 1, and it is not a fixture illusion: Dortmund conceded just 1.17 expected goals per game across last season's 34 Bundesliga matches and kept 15 clean sheets, the best defensive record in the league. Hamburg were the worst team in the division on the same measure (1.81 xGC per game, 1.22 xG created).

Manuel Neuer (5.5m, FCB) — 81k this round, and the best six-round weighted score of any keeper at 297k. Bayern's programme barely dips, so this is the keeper you buy once and never pay a fee on again. Half a million more than Kobel buys you a much flatter curve.

Robin Zentner (3.5m, M05) — the budget answer at 71k, and 62k per million weighted, the best ratio of any goalkeeper. Mainz at home to Paderborn is a 36% clean-sheet fixture. Be honest about what you are buying, though: Mainz kept only 4 clean sheets in 34 games last season and conceded 1.68 xGC per game. This is a fixture bet, not a defensive-quality bet — which is exactly why it is cheap.

Mark Flekken (4.5m, B04) — 80k, and the steadier mid-price option at 267k weighted. Leverkusen visit Elversberg and then host Union Berlin, so the first two rounds are both good.

Defenders: Bayern's left side leads, and Leipzig hold the penalties

Nathaniel Brown (4.5m, FCB) — 114k, the best defender projection in the round and the best over the horizon by a distance (358k weighted, 80k per million). He is projected for 85 minutes and 0.28 assists against Stuttgart, and Bayern's schedule is the most reliable in the league. If you buy one defender and forget about him, buy this one.

David Raum (4.5m, RBL) — 102k, and the most interesting defender on the board. The model gives him a 98% share of Leipzig's penalties, which is why a full-back outprojects most midfielders. He also carries 88 minutes and Leipzig's 33% clean sheet at home to Mönchengladbach. Last season he produced 16.31 xA from left-back, so the creative floor is real, not modelled optimism.

Ridle Baku (4.0m, RBL) — 97k, 24k per million for the round, and 257k across the first three. Same warning as every Leipzig asset: Round 4 and Round 6 collapse (40k and 19k projected). Treat him as a three-round buy, not a half-season one.

Konrad Laimer (5.0m, FCB) — 98k and 307k weighted, the second Bayern defender worth owning if you would rather not double up on Dortmund or Leipzig.

Daniel Svensson (4.0m, BVB) and Waldemar Anton (4.0m, BVB) — 85k and 82k, the cheap route into the same Dortmund clean sheet as Kobel. Pairing a goalkeeper with a defender from the same strong-CS team doubles your exposure to one clean-sheet event, which is the correlation worth taking when the fixture is this good. Joane Gadou (3.0m, BVB) at 69k is the third-cheapest way in.

Anthony Caci (2.5m, M05) — 75k at two and a half million, which is 30k per million, the best round-one ratio of any defender. His Round 2 and Round 3 numbers fall to 37k and 31k, so buy him for this round and sell him after: on a 2.5m player the fee is 25k, which is nothing against a 75k projection. Stefan Posch (2.5m, M05) at 63k is the steadier version if you would rather not pay a fee again next week.

One name that needs a caveat: Ramy Bensebaini (5.0m, BVB) projects 88k, which is good rather than exceptional. He holds 83% of Dortmund's penalties but only 75 projected minutes on a 0.75 starter factor. He is a fine pick — Brown and Raum are simply cheaper and better projected. Check the predicted line-ups for Bundes Manager before committing to him.

Midfielders: two Bayern premiums, then the best value in the game

Luis Diaz (8.0m, FCB) — 180k, and the best premium midfielder on value at 70k per million weighted. The model has him on 0.52 goals and 0.30 assists in 80 minutes against Stuttgart, and 562k weighted across six rounds — narrowly ahead of Olise despite costing a million less. He produced 0.89 xGI/90 last season. If you are buying one expensive midfielder, buy this one.

Michael Olise (9.0m, FCB) — 181k, fractionally the highest midfield projection of the round, and the more assist-led profile: 0.48 projected assists, the highest of any Bayern player, on the back of 28.06 xA last season and a 0.97 xGI/90. On value he trails Diaz (62k per million against 70k). Owning both costs 17.0m, which is defensible given Bayern's opening run, but it forces cheap picks everywhere else.

Antonio Nusa (4.5m, RBL) — 121k, the highest projection of any midfielder under 8.0m, on 77 minutes with 0.37 goals and 0.22 assists at home to Mönchengladbach, and 314k across the opening three rounds. The Leipzig caveat applies from Round 4 onwards, but for the first three rounds this is the best mid-price attacker on the board.

Konstantinos Karetsas (3.0m, BVB) — 112k at three million. That is 37k per million for the round and 104k per million weighted, still the best figure in the entire game by a wide margin. He is projected for 78 minutes, 0.27 goals and 0.31 assists at home to Hamburg, and his Round 3 number is nearly as good (102k, home to Paderborn). He registered 11.88 xA last season, so the creative role is established rather than assumed.

Afonso Moreira (3.5m, B04) — 112k, 87 projected minutes, and the most durable of the cheap options at 300k weighted. Leverkusen's opening fixtures never turn genuinely bad, so unlike the Mainz and Leipzig bargains this is a hold rather than a rotation. Ibrahim Maza (4.0m, B04) at 103k and 299k weighted is the second Leverkusen midfielder worth owning.

Nadiem Amiri (6.0m, M05) — 110k, and the highest-projected penalty taker outside the premium bracket at a 93% share. 84 minutes at home to Paderborn. He is the pick if you want a mid-price midfielder with a spot-kick floor rather than a pure fixture punt.

Jae-Sung Lee (3.5m, M05) at 95k (27k per million) and Brajan Gruda (4.5m, RBL) at 101k round out the value bracket. Adam Daghim (3.0m, HOF) at 89k is the differential of the round: three million, 66 projected minutes, a 96% penalty share, and a fixture almost nobody will look at because Hoffenheim travel to Köln as only marginal favourites.

Forwards: Kane is the best player and still not the best buy

Harry Kane (14.0m, FCB) — 210k, comfortably the highest single projection in the game, 686k weighted across six rounds, and a 93% penalty share. He is also 28% of your entire budget for one of eleven slots, and his 49k per million is the worst ratio of any premium forward. His 1.14 xGI/90 last season was the best in the league by a distance, so this is not a doubt about the player. It is arithmetic: buy him if you want the highest floor in the game and are comfortable filling six slots at 3.0m or less, skip him if you would rather own three good players than one great one.

Serhou Guirassy (8.0m, BVB) — 182k for six million less, on 0.71 projected goals against Hamburg. That is the highest goal projection of any player in the round, Kane included, and 66k per million. His Round 3 is nearly as strong (173k, home to Paderborn). This is the premium forward the numbers point at.

Patrik Schick (7.0m, B04) — 163k, with 0.64 projected goals and a 91% penalty share against Elversberg. Between Schick and Kane you are choosing between two designated penalty takers; Schick is half the price and returns 68k per million against Kane's 49k. He scored 27 with 26.82 xG last season, so the finishing is not running hot.

Phillip Tietz (4.5m, M05) — 117k, the best value forward on the board at 26k per million for the round and 325k weighted, on 84 minutes with 0.43 goals against Paderborn. He is the pick that lets you afford a second premium elsewhere.

Igor Matanovic (5.5m, SCF) at 104k and Ragnar Ache (4.5m, KOE) at 98k are the two mid-price alternatives. Ache is the better long-term hold (312k weighted, 69k per million) and produced 0.60 xGI/90 last season; Matanovic carries a 92% penalty share for Freiburg at home to Werder Bremen.

Emmanuel Latte Lath (2.5m, FCU) — 87k at two and a half million, 35k per million, the best price-to-projection ratio of any forward in the game, on 83 projected minutes. Union Berlin against Frankfurt is a near coin-flip fixture that most managers will avoid, which is precisely what makes this a differential. His Round 3 is also strong (87k, home to Schalke), with a dip in between — a two-round pick with a 25k fee at each end.

Maximilian Beier (5.0m, BVB) at 101k deserves a mention with one caveat the others do not carry: 59 projected minutes. If Dortmund's line-up firms up in his favour he is underpriced, so check the predicted line-ups closer to kick-off.

Where the premium money goes

With no chips to fall back on, your budget split and who wears the armband are the strategy. The model's most efficient expensive assets, ranked by points per million over the weighted six-round horizon:

Two premiums plus nine cheap-to-mid picks is the shape the numbers support. Three premiums is possible but leaves you starting several 2.5m players, and one premium wastes budget you cannot bank. The optimal teams solver for Bundes Manager works this out live against the current prices and projections, which is the authoritative version of the trade-off above.

A legal Round 1 template

Eleven players, a maximum of four from any one club, in a 1-3-5-2 shape. Combined Round 1 projection: 1,272k.

Note what it does not contain: Harry Kane. Diaz plus Guirassy outscore Kane plus a 6m downgrade, and the club caps are comfortable at three Mainz, two Bayern, three Dortmund and two Leverkusen. Treat it as a starting point rather than a final answer — swap the Mainz pair for Dortmund defenders if you prefer the higher clean-sheet probability, and use the solver linked above for the exact optimum at current prices.

Who to avoid at these prices

Round 1 has no sell list, because nobody owns anything yet. It has something more useful: a do-not-buy list of expensive names plenty of managers will still pick on reputation.

• Jamal Musiala (7.0m, FCB) — zero projected minutes for Round 1. Whatever he is worth by December, he is not a Round 1 pick at seven million.
• Nico Schlotterbeck (5.0m, BVB) — also on zero minutes. That matters more than it looks, because Dortmund's clean sheet is the most attractive defensive asset in the round and he is the one Dortmund defender who cannot deliver it. Buy Svensson, Anton or Gadou instead.
• Christoph Baumgartner (6.5m, RBL) and Andrej Kramaric (6.5m, HOF) — both on zero minutes, and both projected negative across the first three rounds. At 6.5m these remain the two worst buys in the game.
• Ismael Saibari (6.5m, FCB) — a genuine Bayern attacker, but on a 0.18 starter factor and 21 projected minutes. The price assumes a role the model does not give him yet.
• Chris Führich (5.5m, STU) and Jamie Leweling (5.0m, STU) — around 60 minutes each and still only 18k and 17k, because Stuttgart at Bayern is a 10% win probability with a 5% clean sheet. Good players in the worst fixture of the round. Ermedin Demirovic (6.5m, STU) is worse again at 31 minutes and 10k.
• Deniz Undav (8.0m, STU) — 62k this round for the same reason, then 155k in Round 2 when Stuttgart host Köln. Do not buy him now; buy him next week. He produced 0.86 xGI/90 last season and is a genuinely different call from the names above.

The broader Leipzig point belongs here too. Nusa, Raum, Baku, Gruda and Orban all project strongly for the first three rounds and then fall off a cliff — Baku drops from 97k to 40k in Round 4 and 19k in Round 6. Owning them now is correct; owning them past Round 3 is not. You can sanity-check the underlying win and clean-sheet numbers yourself on the market probabilities page.

The short version

Target Bayern, Dortmund, Leverkusen, Leipzig and Mainz. Buy two premiums, not three — Luis Diaz and Serhou Guirassy remain the most efficient pair. Fill the rest with Nusa at 4.5m, Karetsas at 3.0m, Moreira at 3.5m, Tietz at 4.5m and Latte Lath at 2.5m, and take one cheap clean-sheet block from either Mainz or Dortmund. Leave Kane, Musiala, Baumgartner and Kramaric to somebody else, and diarise Undav for Round 2.

More rounds and more analysis in the Bundes Manager preview hub, and if you also play the official game, the Bundesliga Fantasy previews cover the same fixtures under different scoring rules. New to this? Start with our fantasy football guides.

FAQ

Who are the best buys in Bundes Manager Round 1?

Luis Diaz (8.0m, FCB) at 180k and Serhou Guirassy (8.0m, BVB) at 182k are the two most efficient premium picks, at 70k and 66k per million over a weighted six-round horizon. In the budget bracket, Konstantinos Karetsas (3.0m, BVB) projects 112k — 104k per million weighted, the best value in the entire game — with Antonio Nusa (4.5m, RBL) on 121k, Afonso Moreira (3.5m, B04) on 112k and Phillip Tietz (4.5m, M05) on 117k close behind.

Who should I captain in Bundes Manager Round 1?

Harry Kane (14.0m, FCB) at 210k, the highest single projection of the round — the captain scores double in Bundes Manager. If you skip Kane on value, Serhou Guirassy (8.0m, BVB) at 182k is the next-best armband and Michael Olise (9.0m, FCB) at 181k the third. There are no chips, so after the armband the decision that matters is how many premium players you can afford without filling the remaining slots with players who barely project.

Should I buy Harry Kane in Round 1?

Kane projects 210k, the highest single number in the game, but at 14.0m he is more than a quarter of a squad and returns only 49k per million — the weakest ratio of any premium forward. Guirassy at 8.0m projects 182k and Schick at 7.0m projects 163k, both on penalties of their own. Kane is the right pick if you want the highest floor and are happy starting six players at 3.0m or less; otherwise the money goes further split across two assets.

What are the best differentials for Bundes Manager Round 1?

Adam Daghim (3.0m, HOF) at 89k and Emmanuel Latte Lath (2.5m, FCU) at 87k are both projected for 66-83 minutes in fixtures most managers will skip — Hoffenheim travel to Köln as marginal favourites, and Union Berlin against Frankfurt is close to a coin flip. Daghim also holds a 96% penalty share. Anthony Caci (2.5m, M05) at 75k is the cheapest route into a 36% clean-sheet fixture and worth buying for this round alone, given a transfer fee of just 25k.

Which players should I avoid in Round 1?

Jamal Musiala (7.0m), Nico Schlotterbeck (5.0m), Christoph Baumgartner (6.5m) and Andrej Kramaric (6.5m) are all projected for zero minutes. Chris Führich (5.5m) and Jamie Leweling (5.0m) start but project only 18k and 17k, because Stuttgart travel to Bayern in a 10% win-probability fixture. Deniz Undav (8.0m) is a special case — 62k this round, 155k in Round 2 when Stuttgart host Köln, so wait a week rather than writing him off.

This preview was written by TheFantasyTool AI - verified by Nicolai @ TheFantasyTool