175 upgrades & 174 downgrades
©TM/IMAGO
Transfermarkt has re-rated all 504 LaLiga professionals and distributed 175 upgrades and 174 downgrades. The four biggest winners are in the squad of the recently stumbling FC Barcelona and the five biggest losers wear the Real Madrid jersey – two German national players are also seeing a decline in market value.
The biggest jumps are made by the 17-year-old Barça talents Pau Cubarsí and Lamine Yamal, who are each up for 30 million euros. The latter climbs to 180 million euros and now only has Erling Haaland and Vinicius Junior in front of him. LaLiga expert Tobias Blaseio says: “His career so far is becoming increasingly difficult to put into words. The leadership role he already plays in the Spanish national team and at FC Barcelona is simply indescribable. The jump in quality as soon as he is on the field is unmistakable. Hansi Flick now has the task of getting his long-term stress under control in order to avoid more serious injuries. It’s not worth comparing him with other world stars of the past at the moment because his performance data is unique for his age.”
Lamine Yamal has tripled his value this year and became the youngest player in the history of market values to break the 180 million mark – the Barça homegrown player is a good two years younger than Kylian Mbappé in 2018. Cubarsí, for whom it was worth 40 million. 70 million, he is the 26th defender to reach this value since 2004 and by far the youngest.
Blaseio, who has been working on LaLiga market values for 17 years, says: “As a regular in Barcelona, it’s hard to imagine him without him and he now also plays an important role for Luis de la Fuente in Spain. With his above-average skills in building up the game, leading tackles and risky play with very high pressing, he is a footballer who can sometimes meet the modern demands of defense perfectly. To play this position like that at this age is spectacular and impressive. Cubarsí has worked his way into the elite of central defenders in a very short time, and now he has the task of maintaining his level.”
14 devaluations for Mbappé & Co. – 126 million minus at Real Madrid
Some Real Madrid stars have not been able to maintain their level recently. The largest of the 14 devaluations in the Royal squad go to Kylian Mbappé (-20 million to 160 million), Aurélien Tchouaméni (-20 million to 80 million), Eduardo Camavinga (-20 million to 80 million) , Éder Militão (-20 million to 40 million) and Endrick (-20 million to 40 million). This wave of devaluation results in a loss in the squad value of 126.3 million euros. While Real fell to 1.23 billion euros, Barça recorded an increase of 70.5 million euros and is now listed in 5th place in the international squad value table with 1.01 billion.
Blaseio says: “Real Madrid has the smallest team in LaLiga and only a few players who consistently reach their performance limit. These are Thibaut Courtois, Antonio Rüdiger, Federico Valverde and Vinicius Junior. In addition, on average they are almost three years older than the youngest team in the league – FC Barcelona. The fact that the squad planning needs to be improved will probably become apparent in January, when one or two transfers could be made. Due to the high load and the many missions, this increases the pressure on the regular players and thus also the risk of injury. Increasing the permeability of the youth would be a sensible step, because as we saw with Raúl Asencio, it is worth giving younger players opportunities.”
This refers to the 21-year-old home-grown Asencio, which makes a big jump from 300,000 euros to 7.5 million euros. “The central defender actually slipped into the team as an emergency measure after a number of injuries minimized the squad and the options for Carlo Ancelotti. Since Real Madrid’s second team constantly develops players for the first two Spanish leagues, but they rarely if ever end up in Real’s first team, Asencio was able to take advantage of his opportunity. In the overall package, he is certainly an interesting central defender who brings a lot to the table physically, has no specific weaknesses, but does not have any particularly outstanding strengths in terms of profile. “In January we will see whether we will react to the injury misery with transfers or whether we will rely on our own youth,” says Blaseio.
Meanwhile, the market value losers include the German veteran Antonio Rüdiger (-1 million to 24 million), who appeared eight times with Asencio, and Barcelona’s Marc-André ter Stegen (-5 million to 15 million), who was due to a Due to the patellar tendon rupture, he will not play again until 2025/26.
Minus for Atlético despite winning streak – Barrios increases by 20 million
For what was by far the strongest team in Europe, the red pencil was given 19 times – partly due to age. League leaders Atlético Madrid (-12 million to 499 million) have won twelve games in a row since the end of October, while Barça and, to a lesser extent, Real have weakened in LaLiga. Julián Alvarez (+5 million to 80 million), coach’s son Giuliano Simeone (+9 million to 12 million) and Pablo Barrios (+20 million) played a major role in ensuring that things went smoothly for Diego Simeone’s team. to 50 million).
Market value expert Blaseio says about the latter: “The midfielder made his debut for the Spanish national team in November and has had a development that was absolutely to be expected. He is one of the few youngsters in an aging Atlético squad and was guided step by step by Simeone to his current role. Despite his many injury absences last year, his potential was always evident and he also missed a few games this first half of the season. He has played a big part in the series of successes – with him on the pitch, Atlético are unbeaten this season. If he stays injury-free, he should confirm his potential in the second half of the season and increase his market value significantly.” With his new market value, Barrios is one of the 25 most valuable players in LaLiga.
Away from the metropolises with millions of inhabitants, central defender Enzo Boyomo from CA Osasuna is one of the biggest winners. Blaseio explains why the 23-year-old newcomer climbed from 10 million to 20 million: “The new Cameroon national player has become the focus of many teams. Signed from Valladolid in the summer for 5 million, he could be a successful deal for Osasuna – his release clause is 25 million. Boyomo’s speed, physicality, strength in tackles and his header game make him a sought-after defender; several English clubs are apparently interested, including Unai Emery with Aston Villa. England would be no stranger to him as he completed four years of his training at Blackburn.”
This is how transfer market market values work
The transfer market market values are created taking into account various pricing models as well as a strong involvement of the transfer market community, which deals with the values in detailed discussions. The transfer market market values cannot generally be equated with the transfer fees actually paid.
The goal is not to predict a price, but rather an expected value. When determining the market value, both individual transfer modalities and situational conditions are relevant to a certain extent. Examples of this will be here listed. Transfermarkt does not use an algorithm (for a detailed definition of market value).