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 50.0m to fill eleven slots. Round 1 is the one round where every manager starts from the same 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 our model says to leave alone.

One thing to settle before you start: there is no captain in this game and no chip to fall back on. Every point comes from your eleven starters, so the question is not "who do I double up on" but "where does each of my 50 million actually buy 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 worst fixture is enormous. Bayern and Dortmund are both at home to newly-promoted or rebuilding opposition, and Dortmund's projection carries the best clean-sheet number of the round.

The five teams above are where the round is won. 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 1.3 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. Neither is worth spending premium money on.

Look one round ahead too, because that is where the cheap transfers pay off. Bayern travel to Schalke in Round 2 (75% win probability) and host Union Berlin in Round 4 at 80% — the single best fixture in the opening six rounds. 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 is the round's best

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 Kobel is the cleanest way to buy it.

Mark Flekken (4.5m, B04) — 78k for half a million less, and the more stable pick across the opening three rounds (229k combined against Kobel's 230k, with less week-to-week swing). Leverkusen face Elversberg then host Union Berlin, so this is a two-round buy rather than a one-week punt.

Robin Zentner (3.5m, M05) — the budget answer at 71k, 61k per million weighted. Mainz at home to Paderborn is a 36% clean-sheet fixture, and the 1.5m you save against Kobel is most of a second premium midfielder. If you want the cheapest route into a good clean sheet, this is it.

Manuel Neuer (5.5m) is behind all three for Round 1 at 78k, but has the best six-round weighted score of any keeper (294k) because Bayern's programme barely dips. If you expect to hold one keeper all half-season without paying a fee again, he is the argument.

Defenders: penalties from the back, and two 2.5m bargains

Ramy Bensebaini (5.0m, BVB) — 106k, the best defender projection in the round and the most interesting pick in the game. The model gives him a 98% share of Dortmund's penalties, which is why a defender projects above most midfielders. He also carries Dortmund's 43% clean sheet and 88 projected minutes. A defender on spot-kicks in the round's best defensive fixture is not a subtle recommendation, but it is the right one.

Nathaniel Brown (4.5m, FCB) — 102k now and the best defender over the horizon at 333k weighted, on 84 minutes and 0.29 projected assists. Bayern's programme is the most reliable in the league, so this is the defender you buy once and never think about again.

Ridle Baku (4.0m, RBL) — 89k against Mönchengladbach, and 239k across the first three rounds. Read the warning above though: Leipzig's Round 4 and Round 6 fixtures collapse (37k and 17k projected for Baku), so plan on this being a three-round asset, not a half-season one.

Daniel Svensson (4.0m, BVB) and Waldemar Anton (4.0m, BVB) — 82k and 80k, the cheap way to stack the same Dortmund clean sheet as Kobel. Pairing a goalkeeper with a defender from the same team doubles your exposure to one clean-sheet event, which is exactly the kind of correlated bet worth taking when the fixture is this good.

Anthony Caci (2.5m, M05) — 75k at 2.5m is remarkable value for Round 1, on 76 projected minutes into Mainz's 36% clean sheet. Be honest about what it is: his Round 2 and Round 3 projections fall to 37k and 26k. Buy him for this round, sell him for next. On a 2.5m player the transfer fee is 25k, which is nothing against a 75k projection.

Stefan Posch (2.5m, M05) — 68k, 88 minutes, 70k per million weighted. The steadier of the two Mainz cheap defenders, and the better choice if you would rather not pay a fee again in Round 2. A Zentner–Posch–Caci Mainz block costs 8.5m for three players and buys the same clean sheet three times over.

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

Luis Diaz (8.0m, FCB) — 179k, and the highest points-per-million of any premium in the game at 71k per million weighted. Against Stuttgart the model has him on 0.52 goals and 0.31 assists in 79 minutes. Over six rounds he scores 571k weighted, ahead of Michael Olise despite costing a million less. If you are buying one expensive midfielder, buy this one.

Michael Olise (9.0m, FCB) — 179k, essentially identical for Round 1 and marginally behind on value (63k per million). His profile is more assist-led: 0.48 projected assists against Stuttgart, the highest of any Bayern player. Owning both Diaz and Olise costs 17.0m of your 50.0m, which is defensible given Bayern's opening programme, but it forces cheap picks everywhere else.

Konstantinos Karetsas (3.0m, BVB) — 119k at three million. That is 110k per million weighted, the best figure in the entire game by a wide margin. He is projected for 79 minutes, 0.29 goals and 0.34 assists at home to Hamburg, and his Round 3 number is even better (107k, against Paderborn). If there is one name to take from this preview, it is this one — a premium-level Round 1 projection at a budget-defender price.

Afonso Moreira (3.5m, B04) — 114k, 86 projected minutes, and the most durable of the cheap options at 310k weighted over six rounds. Leverkusen's fixtures never get genuinely bad in the opening stretch, so unlike the Mainz and Leipzig bargains this is a hold rather than a rotation.

Ibrahim Maza (4.0m, B04) — 99k and 291k across three rounds, the second Leverkusen midfielder worth owning. Adam Daghim (3.0m, HOF) is the differential: 101k at three million with 79 minutes projected in a fixture most managers will skip entirely, because Hoffenheim are travelling to Köln and are only marginal favourites. Cheap, well-projected, and in a match nobody is looking at.

Brajan Gruda (4.5m, RBL) at 100k and Antonio Nusa (4.5m, RBL) at 96k are both strong for the opening three rounds (249k and 250k) against soft opposition. Same caveat as Baku: sell before Round 4.

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

Harry Kane (14.0m, FCB) — 207k, comfortably the highest single projection in the game, and 689k weighted across six rounds. He is also 28% of your entire budget for one of eleven slots, and his 49k per million is the worst of any premium forward. That is the whole Round 1 decision in one line: Kane is the best footballer in the league and the model still prefers spending that money elsewhere. 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) — 179k 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 64k per million. His Round 3 is nearly as good (169k, home to Paderborn). This is the premium forward the numbers point at.

Patrik Schick (7.0m, B04) — 154k, 0.63 projected goals and an 89% penalty share. Between Schick and Kane you are choosing between two designated penalty takers; Schick is half the price and projects 65k per million against Kane's 49k.

Phillip Tietz (4.5m, M05) — 114k, the best value forward on the board at 70k per million, on 84 minutes with 0.42 projected goals against Paderborn. He is the pick that lets you afford a second premium elsewhere.

Emmanuel Latte Lath (2.5m, FCU) — 87k at two and a half million, 85k per million, 84 projected minutes. Union Berlin against Frankfurt is a near coin-flip fixture that most managers will avoid, which is precisely why this is a differential. His Round 3 is also strong (87k, home to Schalke), with a dip in between.

Maximilian Beier (5.0m, BVB) at 103k is worth a mention but comes with a caveat the others do not: 62 projected minutes on a 0.73 starter factor. If Dortmund's line-up firms up in his favour he is underpriced — check the predicted line-ups for Bundes Manager closer to kick-off before committing.

Where the premium money goes

With no captain and no chips, your budget split is the strategy. The model's three 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, exactly 50.0m, a maximum of four from any one club, in a 1-3-5-2 shape. Combined Round 1 projection: 1,275k.

Note what it does not contain: Harry Kane. Two 8-9m Bayern midfielders plus Guirassy outscore Kane plus a 6m downgrade, and the three Mainz picks buy the same clean sheet three times for 8.5m. Treat this as a starting point rather than a final answer — swap the Mainz block 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 that will still be picked by plenty of managers on reputation.

• Christoph Baumgartner (6.5m, RBL) and Andrej Kramaric (6.5m, HOF) — both projected for zero minutes in Round 1, and both projected negative for the first three rounds. At 6.5m these are the two worst buys in the game right now.
• Jamal Musiala (7.0m, FCB) — 11 projected minutes and a 26k projection. Whatever he is worth by December, he is not a Round 1 pick at seven million.
• Ermedin Demirovic (6.5m, STU) — 20 projected minutes, 5k. Lennart Karl (5.5m, FCB) — 5 minutes, 6k.
• Ismael Saibari (6.5m, FCB) — a genuine Bayern attacker, but on a 0.27 starter factor and 37 projected minutes. The price assumes a role the model does not give him yet.
• Chris Führich (5.5m, STU) — 70 projected minutes and a nailed starting place, and still only 21k, because Stuttgart at Bayern is a 12% win probability with a 5% clean sheet. A good player in the worst fixture of the round.
• Deniz Undav (8.0m, STU) — 63k in Round 1 for the same reason, then 143k in Round 2 when Stuttgart host Köln. Do not buy him now; buy him next week. That is a genuinely different call from the names above.

The broader Leipzig point belongs here too. Baku, Gruda, Nusa, Raum and Orban all look strong for the first three rounds and then fall off a cliff in Round 4 and Round 6. Owning them 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 are the most efficient pair. Fill the rest with Karetsas at 3.0m, Moreira at 3.5m, Daghim at 3.0m 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.

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 179k and Serhou Guirassy (8.0m, BVB) at 179k are the two most efficient premium picks, both at 64-71k per million over a weighted six-round horizon. In the budget bracket, Konstantinos Karetsas (3.0m, BVB) projects 119k — 110k per million, the best value in the entire game — with Afonso Moreira (3.5m, B04) on 114k and Phillip Tietz (4.5m, M05) on 114k close behind.

Is there a captain in Bundes Manager?

No. Bundes Manager Efterår 2026 has no captaincy multiplier and no chips, so every point comes from your eleven starters at face value. That makes budget allocation the main strategic lever instead: 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 207k, the highest single number in the game, but at 14.0m he is 28% of your 50.0m budget and returns only 49k per million — the weakest ratio of any premium forward. Guirassy at 8.0m projects 179k and Schick at 7.0m projects 154k. 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 101k and Emmanuel Latte Lath (2.5m, FCU) at 87k are both projected for 79-84 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. 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?

Christoph Baumgartner (6.5m) and Andrej Kramaric (6.5m) are both projected for zero minutes, and Jamal Musiala (7.0m) for eleven. Chris Führich (5.5m) starts but only projects 21k because Stuttgart travel to Bayern in a 12% win-probability fixture. Deniz Undav (8.0m) is a special case — 63k this round, 143k next round when Stuttgart host Köln, so wait a week rather than writing him off.

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