Best XI and Wildcard draft for Round 5
The strongest starting XI is a 2-5-3 projecting 59.41 xPts, wrapped in a 99.4m legal 15.
The strongest starting XI this round is a 2-5-3 projecting 59.41 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 99.4m of a 100.0m budget.
The bench is deliberately the cheapest legal one available — Luc De Fougerolles, Orlando Gill, Redouane Halhal, 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 | 7.36 | 10.0 | 14.73 | 13.56 | 40.4% |
| 2 | Mbappé France | 6.12 | 10.5 | 12.23 | 12.95 | 59.2% |
| 3 | Ismael Saibari Morocco | 5.58 | 6.8 | 11.17 | 9.13 | 14.9% |
| 4 | Matheus Cunha BrazilDifferential | 5.42 | 7.3 | 10.84 | 8.29 | 4.4% |
| 5 | Vinicius Jr Brazil | 5.35 | 10.0 | 10.71 | 7.83 | 34.5% |
| 6 | Mike Maignan FranceDifferentialSafe floor | 5.03 | 5.0 | 10.07 | 5.03 | 8.9% |
| 7 | Dayot Upamecano FranceDifferentialSafe floor | 5.03 | 5.3 | 10.06 | 4.61 | 4.9% |
| 8 | Achraf Hakimi MoroccoSafe floor | 4.99 | 6.0 | 9.99 | 4.06 | 28.0% |
| 9 | Michael Olise France | 4.89 | 9.5 | 9.77 | 7.93 | 34.1% |
| 10 | Bradley Barcola FranceDifferential | 4.89 | 8.0 | 9.78 | 8.72 | 1.5% |
| 11 | Christian Pulisic United StatesDifferential | 4.75 | 7.0 | 9.49 | 9.05 | 4.5% |
| 12 | Luc De Fougerolles CanadaDifferentialSafe floorBench | 1.98 | 3.5 | 3.96 | 1.91 | 0.9% |
| 13 | Orlando Gill ParaguayDifferentialSafe floorBench | 1.93 | 3.5 | 3.86 | 1.93 | 0.5% |
| 14 | Redouane Halhal MoroccoDifferentialSafe floorBench | 0.78 | 3.5 | 1.57 | 0.74 | 2.3% |
| 15 | Kamal Miller CanadaDifferentialSafe floorBench | 0.11 | 3.5 | 0.21 | 0.10 | 0.1% |
Bottom line
Field this 2-5-3 — 59.41 xPts from a 99.4m squad, with 0.6m 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. Every figure here is machine-readable at /api/round/5/wildcard.json.