THE sight of Lionel Messi and Ronaldo lining up for Stevenage is not one you see every day.

In the online world, the tiny Hertfordshire club have recruited some of the biggest football names on the planet.

Thanks to sponsors Burger King, Stevenage have become the darling of gamers everywhere with a brilliant marketing campaign.

Replica shirts for the club that finished bottom of the pile last season have been flying off the shelves to cope with the demand since they became the most used team in FIFA career mode.

Burger King’s scheme to get their logo featured in the FIFA 20 game has been an inspired one – making Stevenage the unlikeliest of global hits.

Messi and Ronaldo will obviously not be strutting their stuff back at Valley Parade. But back in the real world, Stevenage are equally unrecognisable from the side that won just three of their 37 league games before last season was halted in March.

Stuart McCall claimed the first win of his third managerial spell at Valley Parade over Alex Revell’s side to clinch City’s only double.

Stevenage finished well adrift – only to be saved from the drop to the National League because of Macclesfield’s demise.

Such a close shave with relegation into non-league hastened a reboot at the Lamex Stadium. Sixteen players have gone, former Bantam Paul Taylor among them, while the new recruits include a fully-recovered Romain Vincelot.

After a car-crash campaign under four different managers, Stevenage have a new identity as Revell starts to put down his mark.

The early evidence is very encouraging – four points from their opening two games, taking Portsmouth to penalties in the Carabao Cup and beating Southampton’s under-21s in the EFL Trophy.

That 2-1 victory in midweek took their goals tally to nine – all scored by different players. It took Stevenage 14 games to reach that number last season.