Valencia’s prolific striker and Spain international David Villa (pictured left) captured the 2nd spot in the FTBL world ranking of forwards after the 3:1 away win over Osasuna yesterday. He is now just 3 rating points from the #1 forward in the world, Real Madrid’s superstar Cristiano Ronaldo. Can Villa beat the Portugal international?

We believe Villa is capable of demoting Ronaldo. The Portuguese, after all, will have to “defend” a daunting combined plank of 63.06 rating points in his next 2 games: if there is an excellent opportunity to earn points against FC Zürich in the Champions League, the same cannot be said of the La Liga encounter against bitter rivals Barcelona.

In the meantime, Villa will be going into the La Liga encounter with Mallorca with a guaranteed bonus of 1.02 points, a result of the loss to Slavia Prague in the Europa League, in which he was sent off. Therefore, only a huge win by Real in its next two games, combined with losses for Valencia, can prevent Villa from overtaking Ronaldo. But whether that will be enough to become the #1 forward in the world remains an open question.