20 years of market values at TM
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Real Madrid (squad value: 783 million) became the first team to defend the Champions League title against Juventus Turin in the 2016/17 season. Meanwhile, Pep Guardiola’s era began at Manchester City (553 million), FC Bayern (566 million) won its fifth championship in a row and Kylian Mbappé’s star rose in Monaco. As part of the 20th anniversary of market values, Transfermarkt looks at this season.
Lionel Messi from FC Barcelona (733 million) was the single most valuable footballer in the world with a market value of 120 million euros, as the then 31-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo was devalued to 110 million euros. The Argentine scored 54 goals and assisted 20 times in 52 appearances, making him once again Europe’s top scorer, followed by teammate Luis Suárez with 56 goals. The Uruguayan confirmed his market value of 90 million euros and once again made it into the most valuable eleven.
In addition to Real Madrid, which had the most in this selection with four professionals around Toni Kroos, who was there for the first time, AS Monaco drew attention to itself in the premier class with their home-grown Mbappé. The then 18-year-old led his team to the semi-finals against Juventus in the knockout phase with six goals, including three against Borussia Dortmund. He also won the French championship with Monaco and moved to rivals Paris Saint-Germain in the summer of 2017. After 40 goals in 44 games, his market value rose from 1.5 million to 35 million euros.
Sané becomes the most expensive German footballer – China is spending a lot of money
At Manchester City, Guardiola succeeded Manuel Pellegrini and at the start there were signings for 216 million euros, making the Citizens the club with the highest spending for the second time in a row. Among other things, they signed Leroy Sané from FC Schalke and made him the most expensive German footballer at the time with a transfer fee of 52 million euros. They finished third in the Premier League and Chelsea secured the championship under Antonio Conte. The Citizens, subsidized by Abu Dhabi, remained untitled.
The most expensive transfer of the season was made by local rivals Manchester United (476 million), who secured the services of Juve’s Paul Pogba for 105 million euros, which became a new record transfer. In his first season, the Frenchman scored 15 goals in 51 appearances and won the Europa League. In addition, Chinese clubs such as SH SIPG were involved in a transfer offensive – the Shanghai club had the ninth highest expenditure in the world at 123 million euros.
The Chinese Super League clubs paid 545 million euros for new players and had higher net investments than the Bundesliga, LaLiga, Ligue 1 and Serie A combined. Only the Premier League suffered a larger transfer loss. The most expensive players were Oscar and Hulk, for whom SIPG transferred 60 million euros to Chelsea and 56 million euros to Zenit St. Petersburg.
After the end of the Guardiola era, Carlo Ancelotti took over the coaching position at FC Bayern. The Italian won the fifth championship in a row with the Munich team, but had to admit defeat to BVB in the semi-finals of the DFB Cup and Real Madrid in the Champions League. The most valuable German player was Bayern’s Thomas Müller with 75 million euros and the most valuable Bundesliga professional was his teammate Robert Lewandowski with 80 million euros.
Archive: The most valuable professionals 2015/16
