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.
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).
The data
| # | Player | 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 MoroccoSafe floor | 5.08 | 6.0 | 10.17 | 5.08 | 28.0% |
| 6 | Mike Maignan FranceDifferentialSafe floor | 5.06 | 5.0 | 10.13 | 5.06 | 8.9% |
| 7 | Dayot Upamecano FranceDifferentialSafe floor | 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 FranceDifferentialSafe floor | 4.74 | 5.4 | 9.47 | 4.74 | 6.3% |
| 10 | Christian Pulisic United StatesDifferential | 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 ParaguayDifferentialSafe floorBench | 1.92 | 3.5 | 3.83 | 1.92 | 0.5% |
| 13 | Luc De Fougerolles CanadaDifferentialSafe floorBench | 1.85 | 3.5 | 3.71 | 1.85 | 0.9% |
| 14 | Gessime Yassine MoroccoDifferentialBench | 0.79 | 4.0 | 1.58 | 5.59 | 0.2% |
| 15 | Kamal Miller CanadaDifferentialSafe floorBench | 0.10 | 3.5 | 0.20 | 0.10 | 0.1% |
Bottom line
Field this 3-5-2 — 58.69 xPts from a 98.5m squad, with 1.5m left in the bank.
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How we get these numbers. Market odds (de-vigged) → Dixon-Coles scorelines → 50k Monte-Carlo simulations, scored on the official FIFA World Cup Fantasy points table. Ceiling = the 85th-percentile outcome across our 50,000 simulations — the score when a player's best realistic game happens, not a fantasy cap. Every figure here is machine-readable at /api/round/5/wildcard.json.