# Best XI and Wildcard draft for Round 5

> The strongest starting XI is a 3-5-2 projecting 58.69 xPts, wrapped in a 98.5m legal 15.

By the evmax model · 7 July 2026 · https://evmax.ai/round/5/wildcard/

The strongest starting XI this round is a 3-5-2 projecting 58.69 combined xPts. Built out to a full legal 15 — 2 goalkeepers, 5 defenders, 5 midfielders, 3 forwards — for wildcard and rebuild managers, the squad spends 98.5m of a 100.0m budget.

> The bench is deliberately the cheapest legal one available — Orlando Gill, Luc De Fougerolles, Gessime Yassine, Kamal Miller are enablers, not picks: their job is to exist within the rules so every spare pound goes into the XI, not to contribute points themselves.

The most expensive picks are Mbappé (10.5m), Lionel Messi (10.0m), Vinicius Jr (10.0m). The standout value pick is Mike Maignan at 1.01 xPts/m (5.0m).

**Bottom line:** Field this 3-5-2 — 58.69 xPts from a 98.5m squad, with 1.5m left in the bank.

## The data

| # | Player | Team | xPts | Price | Captain EV | Ceiling | Owned % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lionel Messi | Argentina | 7.57 | 10.0 | 15.15 | 13.57 | 40.4% |
| 2 | Mbappé | France | 6.40 | 10.5 | 12.80 | 13.00 | 59.2% |
| 3 | Ismael Saibari | Morocco | 5.41 | 6.8 | 10.82 | 8.92 | 14.9% |
| 4 | Vinicius Jr | Brazil | 5.31 | 10.0 | 10.62 | 7.81 | 34.5% |
| 5 | Achraf Hakimi | Morocco | 5.08 | 6.0 | 10.17 | 5.08 | 28.0% |
| 6 | Mike Maignan | France | 5.06 | 5.0 | 10.13 | 5.06 | 8.9% |
| 7 | Dayot Upamecano | France | 5.02 | 5.3 | 10.03 | 5.02 | 4.9% |
| 8 | Michael Olise | France | 4.90 | 9.5 | 9.80 | 7.91 | 34.1% |
| 9 | Jules Kounde | France | 4.74 | 5.4 | 9.47 | 4.74 | 6.3% |
| 10 | Christian Pulisic | United States | 4.67 | 7.0 | 9.34 | 8.78 | 4.5% |
| 11 | Bruno Fernandes | Portugal | 4.53 | 8.5 | 9.06 | 9.04 | 34.9% |
| 12 | Orlando Gill | Paraguay | 1.92 | 3.5 | 3.83 | 1.92 | 0.5% |
| 13 | Luc De Fougerolles | Canada | 1.85 | 3.5 | 3.71 | 1.85 | 0.9% |
| 14 | Gessime Yassine | Morocco | 0.79 | 4.0 | 1.58 | 5.59 | 0.2% |
| 15 | Kamal Miller | Canada | 0.10 | 3.5 | 0.20 | 0.10 | 0.1% |

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Method: Market odds (de-vigged) → Dixon-Coles scorelines → 50k Monte-Carlo simulations, scored on the official FIFA World Cup Fantasy points table.
Data license: CC BY 4.0 (attribution: evmax, https://evmax.ai). Machine-readable JSON: https://evmax.ai/api/round/5/wildcard.json