5 famous footballers and their worst FIFA ratings

FIFA 17 is EA Sports highest selling game ever

The best players in the world have all had humble beginnings. Becoming an elite footballer involves years of hard work, dedication and perseverance to develop over a period of time. Footballers celebrated the world over for their performances on the pitch have put in years and years of hard hours on the training ground to reach elite levels.

Simply put, no footballer is born great, they all have to work for their ability.

In the FIFA gaming world, the best players in world football are judged by the overall rating given to them in-game. Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi are the best players in FIFA 17 with ratings of 94 and 93 respectively while the rest follow with ratings of 92 and below.

Before famous footballers such as Lionel Messi reached their dizzying heights, they too were young talents and were given lowly ratings on earlier editions of the FIFA series. In this listicle, we trace the lowly origins of FIFA rankings of five famous footballers and trace their journey since.

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#1 Lionel Messi

Messi has developed into arguably the world’s best footballer

 The five-time Ballon d’Or winner was the best player in FIFA for six straight years before being upstaged by Cristiano Ronaldo after his otherworldly season for club and country, which also saw him being pronounced the best player in the world apart from being made the best player in FIFA 17.

The diminutive Argentine forms one-half of the Messi-Ronaldo duopoly that currently rules the world of football and consequently, the FIFA series.

Messi and his Portuguese rival have shared the top spot in FIFA rankings for the past seven editions of the game and it is easy to forget that there was a time when Messi himself was a young teenager struggling to make a mark at Barcelona.

Back in 2005, when EA Sports released FIFA 06, Messi was given a rating of only 78 with dribbling being his best attribute, a surprisingly low rating for a man of his talent. The Argentine’s stock has only risen since; he made his foray into the 90 ratings with FIFA 09 and has stayed above that mark since.