Our World Cup of FPL reaches its climax this week, as Sergio Aguero and Frank Lampard square off in a public vote to decide the greatest Fantasy asset of all time.
Over the past two months, we’ve been polling the Fantasy Football Scout userbase on 32 of the leading FPL players from the game’s 18-year history.
A group stage format initially played out before 16 assets were whittled down to four semi-finalists via knockout round head-to-heads.
Over 1,800 votes were cast in total this week as Aguero and Lampard made it through from the last four – but the two match-ups were incredibly tight and went down to the wire.
Semi-Final – Match 1
- Frank Lampard – 50.59%
- Mohamed Salah – 49.41%
Mohamed Salah‘s run in our World Cup of FPL is over but there was precious little to choose between the Egyptian and Lampard in our public vote.
Liverpool’s record-breaking winger initially pulled narrowly ahead of the current Chelsea boss and the two premium Fantasy midfielders were actually tied on more than one occasion.
Lampard nosed in front in the final 24 hours, however, finishing a mere 11 votes clear of the leading points scorer of the last three seasons.
Having qualified from his group at the expense of Alexis Sanchez and Petr Cech, Salah then defeated Kevin De Bruyne and Wayne Rooney in the last 16 and quarter-finals before coming a cropper.
Semi-Final – Match 2
- Sergio Aguero – 51.50%
- Thierry Henry – 48.50%
While not as close as our first semi-final, Thierry Henry pushed Aguero all the way in our other last-four tie.
The Frenchman, like Salah, had initially edged clear when the poll first opened, although Aguero soon overhauled the retired Arsenal striker and maintained a narrow gap thereafter.
Henry had seen off Steven Gerrard, Carlos Tevez, Robin van Persie and Cristiano Ronaldo to get to this point, so his early-noughties exploits in FPL’s fledgeling years had clearly lingered in the minds of many.
Tournament Bracket
The Final: Vote Now
There’s a nice narrative to our tournament decider, with the top-scoring FPL asset of the noughties going up against his counterpart from the last decade.
No player in FPL history has been earned a place in the end-of-season Dream Team on more occasions than Lampard.
The Chelsea midfielder achieved that feat a remarkable seven times between 2002/03 and 2009/10, the first five of them in a row.
In the last of those campaigns, Lampard scored a career-best 22 goals and hit double figures for assists en route to a then-record FPL points total of 284.
The longevity of Lampard’s value to Fantasy managers also props up his case here.
The current Chelsea boss hit at least ten goals per season for a full decade from 2003/04 onwards.
After a year at Manchester City, Lampard departed the Premier League having racked up 2,318 FPL points.
Aguero has delivered at least 25 attacking returns in seven of his eight completed seasons in the Premier League.
The Argentine striker has thrice passed the 200-point mark in Fantasy Premier League, making the end-of-season Dream Team on all three occasions.
His best campaign came in 2014/15, with Aguero scoring 26 goals and creating a further ten en route to a total of 216 FPL points.
Aguero has been a name to reckon with in Fantasy circles from Gameweek 1 of his very first year in the top flight, registering two goals and an assist in a half-hour cameo on his Manchester City league debut in August 2011.
The premium forward has never started a season under £11.0m but that is with good cause: Aguero has accumulated 180 goals, 62 assists and 1,557 FPL points since he first moved to England in 2011.
*The poll will close at 23:00 BST on Sunday 10 May, with the winner announced the next day
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