Malen is the most expensive in fantacalcio. For once, the most expensive is not also the most inflated

In August, in two teams out of five, someone raised a hand and said a figure that made the other seven laugh. Today those who were laughing are at the bottom of the table.

Donyell Malen cost on average 42.2% of the budget: more than anyone else in fantacalcio 2026/27. Behind him Lautaro Martínez at 38.8%, then nothing. Hojlund at 26.8%, Marcus Thuram at 25.4%, Gonçalo Ramos at 24.9%. Between second and third there are twelve points of budget: the market has decided that the top players are two and everyone else comes after.

The official valuation, the one in the listone, says little: Malen starts at 61 credits and Lautaro at 58. What counts is how much he was actually paid, and to know that you have to look at closed auctions, not at the guides.

One league in four says Lautaro

Here the asterisk appears. In eight-team leagues with 350 credits Lautaro went ahead, by one credit and seventy-two cents. Everywhere else Malen wins, and the more credits there are in your pocket the more the gap widens: in eight-team leagues at 500 credits they paid 188.43 for him, twenty credits more than the Argentine.

The simplest reading is this: with few credits you go for the name that has never let anyone down, with many you buy the season in progress.

What you bought

Six goals in five appearances, top scorer in the league, fantamedia 10.30, the highest among forwards. Three against Fiorentina, all from Dybala assists, two at Lecce, one at Torino. Zero against Atalanta and Inter. None from penalties. Since his debut in giallorosso, on 18 January, that is 20 goals in 23 league matches.

But a forward's price is not justified by goals, which are the least repeatable thing in football. It is justified by chances, and that is where the good news arrives for whoever paid for him: Malen is not in debt. He has produced 5.03 expected goals, one per match. We had already written it before the break: he is the most balanced player in Serie A, he scores what he builds.

Lautaro, for instance, has produced 4.37. The two most expensive players in fantacalcio produce almost the same, and that was not at all a given. The price difference, where there is one, is made by the context: Malen plays with the best creator in the league. Dybala has served 20 chances for 4.21 expected goals, and in Serie A nobody comes close to him.

Where you can lose

Not in form. In minutes.

The first risk is his left knee, the discomfort that made him leave the Netherlands camp. The head coach called it not serious, and for Como-Roma on Sunday at 12:30 he is available.

The second is the calendar. Three days after Como there is Real Madrid at the Olimpico, and Gasperini is already managing him now: in four of the first five matchdays he took him off before the ninetieth minute, twice to bring on Castro. With the Champions League in between the risk is not that he stops scoring, it is that he plays an hour instead of ninety, or that one Sunday he starts from the bench.

Before someone writes to us

The prices are averages: in your league he may have cost 90 credits or 250, and the comparison with Lautaro changes accordingly. The fantamedie are from FantaMaster, and other rating sources give different decimals.

And then there is the hole, which we mention right away because you would find it yourselves anyway: in our archive Malen shows five goals, not six. One is missing from the count, as had already happened to us with Roma-Inter. The relationship between what he scores and what he produces stays level anyway, and that is the only thing that really matters here.

The verdict, then. Yes, Malen is the most expensive signing of fantacalcio 2026/27, except in eight-team leagues at 350 credits. And for once the most expensive is not also the most inflated: he scores exactly what he creates, and he creates like almost no one else. As long as he plays, that price is right.

Which, said to someone who paid 250 for him, will still sound like cold comfort.

T.L.

Who is in credit and who has already paid you can find in the Meritometro. For those who want the models and not the headlines, there is the Nerd Zone.