Yamal leads most valuable players list 🌍, Vini out of top 30

Lamine Yamal, Barcelona’s jewel, tops the list of the world’s most valuable players, according to the most recent study by the CIES Football Observatory , released this Thursday (8).

At just 18 years old, the Spaniard reached a record valuation of 343 million euros – about R$ 2.16 billion – surpassing stars like Erling Haaland and Kylian Mbappé.

Vinícius Júnior out of the Top 30

The big surprise for Brazil is the drop of Vini Jr. The Real Madrid star appears only in 38th place, valued at 90.3 million euros (R$ 568.8 million), below players like Dominik Szoboszlai of Liverpool (37th), Jamal Musiala of Bayern (36th), and Kvaratskhelia of PSG (35th).

The study suggests that recent performance and the lack of contract renewal weighed on his devaluation.

On the rise at Chelsea, Estevão is the best-ranked Brazilian in the study, followed by João Pedro, also from the Blues , and Savinho, from Manchester City.

The Brazilian jewel was valued at 118.9 million euros (R$ 747.8 million), with João Pedro valued at 100.5 million euros (R$ 632.1 million), and Savinho at 91.5 million euros (R$ 576.4 million).

Highlights

At the top of the list in January last year, Jude Bellingham is now in fourth place (153 million euros).

The Englishman from Real Madrid is ahead of Frenchman Michael Olise, from Bayern Munich (137 million euros), and Liverpool’s new signing, Florian Wirtz (136 million euros).

The top 10 also includes two players from Paris St-Germain, Désiré Doué and João Neves, another Real Madrid member, Arda Güler, and another FC Barcelona player: Pedri González.

Outside the five major European leagues, Vitor Roque from Palmeiras is the absolute leader, valued at 85 million euros, surpassing prospects like Samu Aghehowa from FC Porto (76 million euros), and Geovany Quenda from Sporting CP (70 million euros), who has already been signed by Chelsea.

Gianluigi Donnarumma is positioned as the most valuable goalkeeper, at 81 million euros, Pau Cubarsí as the most valuable central defender (110 million euros), and Nico O'Reilly as the most valuable full-back (90 million euros).

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The CIES Football Observatory (Observatory of Football at the International Centre for Sports Studies) is a research group based in Switzerland, founded in 2005 as a partnership between FIFA, the University of Neuchâtel, and the city of Neuchâtel.

They are considered the “scientific voice” of the football market, as they use complex mathematical models to analyze football.

This ranking is a semi-annual list of the 100 most valuable players in the world. It does not just reflect who plays best, but rather the estimated market value (transfer price) for each athlete if he were sold today.

How do they calculate these values?

Unlike sites like Transfermarkt , which rely heavily on market perception and expert opinions, CIES uses an econometric algorithm that analyzes variables such as:

Why is Lamine Yamal worth so much?

Yamal’s astronomical value in the 2026 ranking, of 343 million euros, or about R$ 2.16 billion, is due to a “perfect storm” of factors:

What can you do with R$ 2.16 billion?

To give you an idea of the scale of Lamine Yamal’s market value:

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.

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