# Mbappé is the Round 6 transfer priority

> France's forward ranks second overall because his team is 76.5% likely to advance—and value over replacement matters more than raw points.

By the evmax model · 8 July 2026 · https://evmax.ai/round/6/transfers/

Transfer budgets are finite in knockout football. The difference between a brilliant pick and a wasted one isn't just expected points—it's whether your player's team survives. That's why Mbappé, despite projecting 5.44 xPts with a 7.72 ceiling (his 85th-percentile outcome across 50,000 sims), ranks as the top priority ahead of higher-ceiling forwards like Kane or even Lionel Messi.

The ranking logic hinges on value over replacement: how many additional points a player delivers versus a typical player at his position. Mbappé's 4.375 value over replacement is the second-highest among all forwards, trailing only Messi's 4.515. But Messi plays for Argentina at 72.8% to advance, while Mbappé's France sits at 76.5%—a meaningful edge when you're spending a transfer on a knockout tie. Kane, by contrast, projects 5.45 xPts with a 7.95 ceiling and a 4.385 value over replacement, but England's 66.4% advancement probability discounts his upside. A coin-flip team means even a great pick yields diminishing returns.

> Mbappé's 4.375 value over replacement, paired with France's 76.5% survival odds, makes him the first move for any manager with a transfer to spend.

If you have a second transfer available, Messi becomes the logical follow-up. His 4.515 value over replacement is the highest in the dataset, and Argentina's 72.8% advancement chance is still solid. Kane ranks third—his ceiling is genuinely explosive at 7.95, but the lower advancement probability makes him a riskier second move. The gap between Mbappé's priority and Messi's is narrow, but it's real: France's extra 3.7 percentage points of survival odds justify the hierarchy.

**Bottom line:** Prioritise Mbappé first if you have one transfer. If you have two, follow with Messi. Both deliver elite value over replacement on teams likely to advance; Kane's higher ceiling doesn't compensate for England's lower knockout odds.

**Bottom line:** Prioritise Mbappé first if you have one transfer. If you have two, follow with Messi. Both deliver elite value over replacement on teams likely to advance; Kane's higher ceiling doesn't compensate for England's lower knockout odds.

## The data

| # | Player | Team | Priority | VOR | xPts | Advance % | Price | Owned % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lionel Messi | Argentina | 7.80 | 4.51 | 5.58 | 72.8% | 10.0 | 40.4% |
| 2 | Mbappé | France | 7.72 | 4.38 | 5.44 | 76.5% | 10.5 | 59.2% |
| 3 | Kane | England | 7.30 | 4.38 | 5.45 | 66.4% | 10.5 | 40.6% |
| 4 | Mike Maignan | France | 7.25 | 4.11 | 4.29 | 76.5% | 5.0 | 8.9% |
| 5 | Emiliano Martinez | Argentina | 7.19 | 4.16 | 4.34 | 72.8% | 5.0 | 30.0% |
| 6 | Unai Simon | Spain | 6.83 | 3.91 | 4.09 | 74.6% | 5.0 | 8.5% |
| 7 | Oyarzabal | Spain | 6.17 | 3.54 | 4.60 | 74.6% | 8.1 | 10.8% |
| 8 | Jordan Pickford | England | 5.82 | 3.50 | 3.68 | 66.4% | 4.8 | 15.9% |
| 9 | Lautaro Martinez | Argentina | 5.30 | 3.06 | 4.13 | 72.8% | 8.8 | 2.6% |
| 10 | E. Haaland | Norway | 5.14 | 3.85 | 4.91 | 33.6% | 10.5 | 28.6% |
| 11 | Dayot Upamecano | France | 4.44 | 2.52 | 3.97 | 76.5% | 5.3 | 4.9% |
| 12 | Thuram | France | 4.30 | 2.44 | 3.50 | 76.5% | 7.5 | 0.4% |
| 13 | Lamine Yamal | Spain | 4.29 | 2.46 | 4.50 | 74.6% | 10.0 | 39.3% |
| 14 | Noni Madueke | England | 4.15 | 2.50 | 3.56 | 66.4% | 6.1 | 0.3% |
| 15 | Jules Kounde | France | 4.12 | 2.33 | 3.79 | 76.5% | 5.4 | 6.3% |
| 16 | Ferran Torres | Spain | 3.83 | 2.19 | 3.26 | 74.6% | 7.8 | 2.1% |
| 17 | William Saliba | France | 3.79 | 2.15 | 3.60 | 76.5% | 5.3 | 13.0% |
| 18 | Aymeric Laporte | Spain | 3.76 | 2.15 | 3.61 | 74.6% | 5.5 | 9.2% |
| 19 | Gregor Kobel | Switzerland | 3.32 | 2.61 | 2.79 | 27.2% | 4.7 | 3.9% |
| 20 | Cucurella | Spain | 3.27 | 1.88 | 3.33 | 74.6% | 5.1 | 27.0% |

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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/6/transfers.json