Ali Thameem
Among the sixteen-thousand-plus Maldivians who manage a Fantasy Premier League team, Mohamed Rafaah (Red devils) from Eydhafushi has been confirmed as the highest-scoring FPL manager of the season.
As a Manchester United fan and a talented football player, Rafaah, 20, has been managing his FPL team since the 2016/2017 season. This season was his eighth and by far the highest-scoring season; he had outscored his previous personal best (2022/2023) season record of 2381 by the end of the 35th game week this season, with three more weeks in hand.
Having scored 2608 points by the end of the season, team Red devils had a 30-point edge over the second-placed FC Foobers – managed by Mifrah Yasir.
Rafaah’s team is the top-scorer in about two dozen local mini-leagues, including several prominent leagues such as Veligaa FPL 2023/2024, XL Energy Maldives, Marquee FPL 23/24, and MUSC Maldives FPL 2023/2024. Team Red Devils is certainly the winner of multiple FPL grand prizes. That would be the perfect birthday gift for an FPL fanatic like Rafaah, who’s turning 21 this Wednesday.
The new Maldivian FPL champ is ranked 2584th on the global leaderboards; just 215 points behind the world number one, Onkel Blaa. Rafaah’s impressive tally puts him above 99.98% of the total 10.9 million FPL managers.
Rafaah’s FPL Strategy
While several factors decide one’s FPL success, lending the captain’s armband to the right player is perhaps the most important decision an FPL manager can make.
It is no surprise seeing Erling Haaland as the Maldives FPL champ’s most-used captain. He captained Haaland in 20 game weeks – more than half of all premier league fixtures. That is quite some trust to put on a player sidelined with a foot injury for weeks and then suffered a goal drought later into the season. Despite that, Rafaah did not seem to have much trust issues with the Norwegian.
On double-game week 25, Rappu joined the 1.3 million other FPL managers in playing the triple-captain chip on Haaland – making the Manchester City striker the most triple-captained player ever in an FPL game week. Rafaah’s triple-captain ended up rewarding him with 30 points.
Last week (GW37) had ended well for Rafaah, who scored an impressive 134 points – thanks to his well-timed use of the Bench Boost chip. Rafaah started this final game week on top of the Maldives League and held his team’s number one spot.
Not all of the FPL chips worked out for Rappu. In double-game week 29, when only four fixtures were played, he had hopped on the Free Hit bandwagon, captaining Son Heung-Min, only to see the Spurs striker blank in both games. Nobody in Rappu’s Free Hit team delivered anything, except for Forest’s Gibbs-White.
It is not easy to pinpoint a single factor as the game changer, even for a champion like Rafaah. What ultimately made the difference is a combination of good decisions he made with the long game in mind; like his trust in Erling Haaland and his conservative attitude towards transfers (he’s only taken the risk of making extra transfers in just four of all 38 game weeks).
Spontaneity plays the biggest role in the world of Fantasy Football. The unpredictability of the game is what makes FPL managers keep checking in on our teams, even on days that disappoint us. One thing is certain; more Maldivians than ever have played Fantasy Premier League this season, and, assuming the trend continues, even more will sign up for next season.
