Messi in FPL

Fantasy Premier League, or FPL for short, is a popular game that is in the Premier League's own page. One of the key points is, well, FPL points given to each player after their performances. And so, today's topic would be about how many FPL points Messi would get if he was in FPL, so without further ado, let's get into the numbers.

Fantasy Premier League has a bit of a complicated but manageable point system: You get 4 points for each goal if you're a forward or 5 if you're a midfielder (we'll concentrate on those 2 positions because Messi could be either of those). 3 points for an assist (Opta or non-Opta), 2 points for playing over 60 minutes (1 point if it was less), and then there are bonus points for performances, which is 3 points for a MoTM, 2 points for being the 2nd best player and 1 point for being 3rd. If he were to enter as a midfielder, he would also receive 1 point per clean sheet. You also get subtracted points for yellow cards, red cards and penalty misses. With all of that in mind, let's look at what Messi's numbers would be like.

Last season in La Liga, WhoScored ran the math that he would have gotten a whopping 300 FPL points as a forward or an amazing 339 FPL points as a midfielder (actually 306 or 345 since they didn't put his two non-Opta assists). To put it into perspective, De Bruyne, who had the most FPL points in the 2019/20 Premier League season, tallied only 251, which means that Messi would dominate the competition if he was in the FPL. Even if we look at FPL's record set by Salah in the 2017/18 season, it was 303 points, which is still less than Messi's forward FPL points if we account for non-Opta assists, and way less if we consider him a midfielder.

And we're talking about perhaps one of his worst seasons in La Liga, if he looked at his prime his numbers simply wouldn't make sense, with 410 FPL points as a forward or 479 FPL points as a midfielder, a ludicrous amount that would have remained the FPL's record for long and by a huge difference.

The consensus from some FPL enthusiasts is that if Messi was on FPL, he'd be a midfielder worth £14.0 (like Ronaldo or Van Persie did once), and he'd certainly rip the competition apart as well, so most people would want to buy him and captain him on an unprecedented scale compared to other players.