Manchester United and England forward Wayne Rooney will go into today's World Cup qualifier against Croatia just a few tenths of rating points from the top spot in the FTBL ranking of the world’s top players. With an overall rating of 201.97 points at the moment, Rooney trails only Chelsea’s Frank Lampard (201.98 points) who, despite being a midfielder, is the top player in the world on the FTBL chart at the moment.

But Rooney will find it rather hard to close that very narrow gap, given that he goes into the crucial game with a plank of more than 30 rating points to beat: he set the plank in England’s 6:0 routing of Kazakhstan, in which he scored a goal. In fact, Rooney is just as much in danger of slipping down the rating and seeing Spain’s David Villa (184.98 points) and Sweden’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic (180.68 points) surge past him.

But it is worth remembering that England defeated Croatia 4:1 in the first game, with Rooney scoring one of the goals, taking in 60 rating points in the process. If he can pull off a double tonight, he stands a good chance of becoming the world’s top player in FTBL ranking.