How many FPL points would Messi and Ronaldo have scored at their peak?
Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi hit peaks that even elite goalscorers can only dream of. Their most ridiculous seasons came while representing Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively, which begs the question – how many points would they have racked up in Fantasy Premier League?
Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah currently holds the record for the most points scored by any player in FPL history, having notched 303 points in Liverpool’s 2017-18 campaign.
Manchester City striker Erling Haaland has scored 267 points with two games left to play and could yet break that record if he scores bagfuls against Brighton and Brentford.
Ronaldo from 2007-08 actually already features in the all-time greatest-ever FPL XI, having notched 283 points in Manchester United’s 2007-08 Premier League title win. But the era-defining goalscorer went on to better that tally frequently during his time in the Spanish capital.
We’ve taken a closer look at Messi and Ronaldo’s best individual seasons and how their output would’ve scored in Fantasy Premier League.
Lionel Messi (2011-12)
Games: 37
Starts: 36
Sub appearances: 1
Goals: 50
Assists: 16
Yellow Cards: 6
Red Cards: 0
Messi scored 50(!) goals in Barcelona’s 2011-12 La Liga campaign, Pep Guardiola’s last at the club.
The Argentinian also notched 16 league assists for the Catalan club last season. Most mind-blowingly of all, Barcelona didn’t win the title that season, ending up nine points behind Jose Mourinho’s Real Madrid, who became the first side in the history of the Spanish top flight to reach a hundred points.
He played 90 minutes in all but two of the club’s league outings that season. He missed one match through a yellow card suspension and came on as a second-half substitute in an early-season 2-2 draw with Real Sociedad.
But what does all that mean in FPL terms?
First things first; we’re classing him as a midfielder. According to WhoScored and Transfermarkt, Messi featured on the right of a front three most often that year – so, using the same logic that applies to Mohamed Salah, he’s a midfielder in Fantasy Premier League terms.
That means his 50 goals would be worth 250 points on FPL. Then there are a further 48 points for the 16 assists.
Messi would’ve picked up a further 73 points for appearances, and – being a ‘midfielder’ – a further 19 points for the clean sheets Barcelona kept across the 36 games he played over an hour in. Minus six for the bookings he picked up.
That leaves us with a total of 384 points we can be absolutely sure of. He obliterates Salah’s record before you even get to bonus points.
There is some degree of ambiguity about how many bonus points Messi picked up that season, but at a conservative estimate we can call it – sh*tloads.
On just 10 occasions he failed to score or assist, but given his consistent attacking numbers he might well have picked up bonus points on those occasions. He scored six hat-tricks, scored four goals twice and notched a hat-trick of assists on one occasion.
WhoScored gave him man-of-the-match in 24 of his 37 appearances and FPL use a similar data-led algorithm to determine their bonus points.
So we’d hazard a guess that Messi would’ve received three bonus points on 24 occasions (72 points) and a further 20 bonus points from the other 13 matches in which he featured. Let’s call that 92 points.
All in all, we’re estimating that Messi would’ve picked up 476 FPL points in 2011-12. At a minimum 450 and pushing 490 if FPL were especially generous with their bonus points.
READ: Comparing Mbappe’s record now to Messi & Ronaldo at the age of 24
Cristiano Ronaldo (2014-15)
Games: 35
Starts: 35
Sub appearances: 0
Goals: 48
Assists: 16
Yellow Cards: 5
Red Cards: 1
Similar to Messi in 2011-12, Ronaldo was outstanding individually for Real Madrid in 2014-15 but collectively the club weren’t quite at their best.
They were beaten on all fronts by Barcelona, who claimed the treble that season, the only year between 2014 and 2018 that Los Blancos failed to get their hands on the Champions League trophy.
That season Ronaldo notched an insane career-best tally of 48 goals, plus a further 16 assists. He might’ve beaten Messi’s record had he not received a red card against Cordoba and been forced to serve a two-match suspension.
The Portugal international only missed one other game with a thigh injury, racking up the full 90 minutes in almost every other appearance – and at least 60 in all but one of his 35 starts. He was withdrawn after 58 minutes after scoring a hat-trick in a 7-3 victory over Getafe on the final day.
There’s some debate about what Ronaldo would’ve been classed as at that stage in his career. During his first stint at Manchester United he was always classed as a midfielder, but was listed as a forward upon his return in 2021.
In the 2014-15, we reckon he was far enough along in his transformation from winger to deadly penalty-box specialist that season to be classed as a forward.
He did feature on the left side of the attack at times that year, but also featured as a centre-forward and up top alongside Karim Benzema in a front two.
So that would translate to 192 FPL points for goals, 48 points for assists and a further 69 for appearances. He wouldn’t have received any points for clean sheets, while suffering an eight-point penalty for cards.
That leaves Ronaldo with a confirmed tally of 301 points we’re certain of.
You can also be sure that Madrid’s No.7 would’ve picked up a lot of bonus points that year. WhoScored gave him 17 man-of-the-match awards and he scored or assisted in all but five of his La Liga appearances that year. He scored five hat-tricks, hit four against Elche and five against Granada.
So we can be pretty sure that Ronaldo would’ve picked up the maximum three bonus points on 17 occasions, but in all likelihood considerably more. It wouldn’t have been often that Ronaldo drew a blank in terms of bonus points, so we can guess he would’ve scored somewhere in the 75 mark.
We’re estimating that Ronaldo would’ve picked up 376 FPL points in 2014-15, but potentially up to 390 or as low as 360 depending on bonus points.
That’s with the assumption he’d have been listed as a forward. If he were a midfielder, it would’ve been around 439 with the extra goalscoring and clean sheet points.
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