The biggest move of this summer transfer window might be a prolific Bundesliga attacker going to the Premier League. That never works out, right? (Except for all the times it has.)
In their oft-updated book, "Soccernomics," authors Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski laid out a pretty strong statistical case: Though team wages are extremely predictive of team success, the amount teams spend in the transfer market has almost no correlation to success. It's a maddening thing to realize, considering how much time we spend obsessing over the transfer market.
And yet, it makes sense, doesn't it?
In the past seven years, Kylian Mbappé has made two transfers: one cost a transfer fee of €180 million, and the other cost €0. But his wages were a more consistent indicator of his value. Beyond that, the players who rake in the biggest fees in a given year tend to have varying degrees of performance. Paris Saint-Germain probably don't regret a penny of the €70 million they paid for Khvicha Kvaratskhelia in January, but Manchester United are hoping the jury remains out on their €62 million Leny Yoro move for quite a while.
The success rate of big-money transfers is very mixed. Ousmane Dembélé to Barcelona for €135 million worked out horribly; Dembélé to PSG for €50 million worked out beautifully. Neymar to PSG for €222 million was solid (if still probably disappointing); Neymar to Al Hilal for €90 million was horrible.
The math is the math, but surely we can learn something from big-money transfers, right?
In pursuit of some answers, I created a data set: Using the numbers from Transfermarkt, I looked at the 200 most expensive transfers of every season for the past decade -- 2,000 deals. What could be expected on average from a pure minutes perspective? Did players moving from one league to another provide extra value?
To figure out the success of a transfer, you have to get really complicated (create a player ratings system based on key statistical indicators for each position) or keep things really simple (how many minutes did they play?). I went with the latter. If you pay good money for a new player, you want to get them on the field.
Looking at players moving to teams within Europe's Big Five leagues, players in this data set were an average of 23.6 years old when they moved, with an average transfer fee of €23.6 million. They played an average of 57.3% of league minutes with their club in the first year, 41.9% in the second year after the transfer and 28.4% in the third. If you want to create a weighted average of sorts -- with, say, 50% of the weight going to first-year minutes, 33% to second-year minutes and 17% to third-year minutes -- that works out to about 47.4% of relevant minutes. So, that's where we're setting the bar.
Let's see what we can learn from these 2,000 player moves.
If you want to make it to the Premier League, go to Portugal
Of the players in the sample, 699 moved to Premier League clubs. Their weighted average for percent of minutes played was 47.5% -- about the same as the overall sample. Though coming from leagues such as the Netherlands' Eredivisie (45.8%) or France's Ligue 1 (47.0%) didn't always translate to success, players coming from three leagues seemed more likely to produce more bang for the buck: Spain's LaLiga (53.7%), the Premier League (53.8%) and, most of all, Portugal's Primeira Liga (57.5%).
Be it a huge signing such as Enzo Fernández moving from Benfica to Chelsea for €121 million, or one of the many more financially sound moves Wolverhampton Wanderers have made in the past decade (Benfica's Raúl Jiménez for €38 million, Sporting CP's Rui Patrício for €18 million, FC Porto's Willy Boly for €12 million), moving from Portugal to England tends to work out pretty well. Even expensive players who produced occasionally frustrating results, such as Fernández or Darwin Núñez (Benfica to Liverpool for €85 million in 2022-23), have seen heavy minutes. You're getting something for your investment.
In this regard, you could make a pretty solid case that either Benfica or Sporting is the most well-run club in the world. Despite completing at least one big-money outgoing transfer just about every season -- João Neves to PSG (€59.9 million) in 2024-25, Gonçalo Ramos to PSG (€65 million) in 2023-24, Fernández to Chelsea (€121 million) and Núñez to Liverpool (€85 million) in 2022-23, Rúben Dias to Manchester City (€71.6 million) in 2020-21, João Félix to Atlético Madrid (€127.2 million) in 2019-20 -- Benfica have reached at least the UEFA Champions League round of 16 in three of the past four seasons, and made back-to-back quarterfinals in 2022 and 2023.
Sporting, meanwhile, have won three league titles in the past five seasons. They don't have quite the same list of splashy exports (or record of Champions League success) as Benfica or Porto -- since Bruno Fernandes left for €65 million in 2019-20, they've facilitated only two big-player exits: Matheus Nunes to Wolves for €47.4 million in 2022-23 and Pedro Porro to Tottenham Hotspur for €40 million in 2023-24.
We've grown accustomed to the Portugal-to-England (or Paris) pipeline, and we're used to the influence that Portuguese super agent Jorge Mendes has on certain clubs. But it's interesting to think about what might happen to the richest league in the world if clubs that have become important providers of talent made shaky moves and lost their way a bit. What if Benfica or Sporting failed to produce ready-made players for a couple of seasons? What if Porto's shaky 2024-25 campaign started a trend?
It's not something they've had to worry about for a while, but we might be seeing the impact of a "feeder club stops feeding clubs" situation in the Bundesliga.
Austria's RB Salzburg had an incredible run of success, winning 10 straight league titles from 2013-14 to 2022-23 while providing a steady stream of talent to mostly German clubs. Among them: Naby Keïta (€29.8 million to RB Leipzig in 2016-17), Dayot Upamecano (€18.5 million to RB Leipzig in 2016-17), Erling Haaland (€20 million to Borussia Dortmund in 2019-20), Stefan Lainer (€12.5 million to Borussia Monchengladbach in 2019-20), Dominik Szoboszlai (€36 million to RB Leipzig in 2020-21), Karim Adeyemi (€30 million to Borussia Dortmund in 2022-23) and Benjamin Sesko (€24 million to RB Leipzig in 2023-24). Leaving aside the concerns and effects of multiclub ownership -- and how many Salzburg stars made Leipzig their next place of residence -- Salzburg's success worked out well for Salzburg and higher-end teams in the German Bundesliga.
However, the product has begun to slip: Salzburg fell to second in the Austrian Bundesliga in 2023-24, then third in 2024-25, and Sesko aside, recent former Salzburg players such as Noah Okafor and Strahinja Pavlovic (both of whom moved to AC Milan) haven't produced at the same level, either. Sesko just had a frustrating season, and Leipzig suffered their worst season since their promotion to the Bundesliga in 2016. Premier League teams (Wolves in particular) better hope Benfica or Porto don't suffer similar droughts.
The gold rush for Brazil's next big player usually doesn't pay off
Though certain clubs have seen massive success in developing younger players and then moving them on to mega-clubs -- Borussia Dortmund come to mind, as do the clubs mentioned in the previous section -- we've also seen an end-around of sorts in recent years, with the mega-clubs and others attempting to skip the light heavyweight feeder clubs and go straight to the source.
On four different occasions since 2018, Real Madrid have acquired an 18-year-old player from Brazil's Serie A: Flamengo's Vinícius Júnior (€45 million) in 2018-19, Santos' Rodrygo (€45 million) in 2019-20, Flamengo's Reinier (€30 million) in 2019-20 and Palmeiras' Endrick (€47.5 million) in 2024-25. Vini Jr. and Rodrygo made this strategy worthwhile -- the transfer fee for each would have at least doubled had these players gone first to Benfica or somewhere comparable -- and other players such as Gabriel Jesus (Palmeiras to Manchester City for €32 million at age 19) and Lucas Beraldo (São Paulo to PSG for €20 million at age 20) have been worth their transfer fees.
Reinier's journey, however, hasn't been as successful: He has gone on loan for five straight seasons and hasn't played for Real Madrid. Vitor Roque, meanwhile, moved to Barcelona for €30 million in January 2024, and the club bailed on him 13 months later. (He's at Palmeiras now.) It will be quite a while before we find out if Endrick, or Vitor Reis (€37 million to Manchester City last summer), or Luis Guilherme (€23 million to West Ham United in 2024-25) was worth the transfer fees. Players such as Reinier, Roque and Gabriel Barbosa (€29.5 million to Inter Milan in 2016-17) certainly weren't.
Of the 2,000 players in this sample, 43 moved from a Brazilian club. Their average age (20.2) was far lower than that of leagues with similar player export totals -- players from the Netherlands' Eredivisie averaged 23.0 years, Belgium's Jupiler Pro League 21.4 -- and there was very little average payoff. These players averaged just 34.0% of minutes for their new club in Year 1, then 26% in Year 2 and 15% in Year 3. Weighted average: just 28.3% of minutes. You know in advance that these are probably intended to be more long-term investments, but in a short-term sport, the obstacles to success in this regard are numerous.
Note to English players: Seeing the world is good!
In "Soccernomics," Kuper and Szymanski wrote, "Many national teams now consist chiefly of players who emigrated young to play abroad. That's true even of a country as rich as France. [...] But none of that is true for British (i.e., not just English) players. When FIFA TMS analyzed international transfers of different nationalities from 2011 to 2013, it found that only 26 percent of transfers involving British players were to a club outside Britain. The only two countries in the world with more insular transfer histories in that period were Myanmar and Nepal."
When the most lucrative league in the world is in your backyard, moving abroad isn't logical. English players don't have to go elsewhere to find high-level competition. But those who try it don't seem to regret it.
Of the 2,000 players in this sample, there were 12 cases of a British player leaving England. You could say that all 12 worked out pretty well.
• Two players, Jadon Sancho and Jude Bellingham, went to Borussia Dortmund as teenagers and thrived immediately.
• Two more, Kieran Trippier and Conor Gallagher, went to Atlético Madrid as relative veterans (Trippier was 28, Gallagher 24) and enjoyed solid success.
• Four moved to Serie A -- Tammy Abraham (Chelsea) and Chris Smalling (Manchester United) to AS Roma, Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Chelsea) and Fikayo Tomori (Chelsea) to AC Milan -- and got as many minutes as they wanted.
• Harry Kane left Tottenham for Bayern Munich in search of trophies. He succeeded in that regard (and, oh yeah, has scored 62 league goals in two seasons).
• Mason Greenwood left Manchester United for Marseille last summer, and though it was a polarizing move for off-the-pitch reasons, his 21 league goals made it an obvious success on the pitch.
• Jordan Henderson (Liverpool to Al Ettifaq) and Ivan Toney (Brentford to Al Ahli) moved to Saudi Arabia for big money; Henderson quickly left for Ajax, but he still generated four assists in 17 starts for Al Ettifaq, while Toney scored 23 goals in 30 appearances this season.
Not even including Toney and Henderson -- and also not including Scotland's Scott McTominay, who was a fabulous success in his first season after moving from Manchester United to Napoli -- the other 10 players averaged 75.7% of minutes played in Year 1, 64.9% in Year 2 and 44.7% in Year 3. That's a whopping 66.9% weighted average. A player like Kane was virtually guaranteed to succeed, but other players searching for a fresh start or more playing time found what they were seeking.
Serie A: European football's retirement home
Serie A is generally regarded as a league with older players on average, and a more pragmatic and tactical approach on the pitch. Napoli (11 regulars aged 28 or older) and Inter Milan (four starters aged 31 or older in the Champions League final) just dueled for the Scudetto, lending some accuracy to this assumption.
From this 2,000-player sample, there are 31 instances of players moving to Serie A from Spain and 26 from England. The LaLiga transfers' average age was 25.1, and the Premier League transfers averaged 26.3 years old. Italian clubs tended to get what they were looking for from these players: an average of 66.0% of league minutes in Year 1 and an overall weighted average of 55.5% (LaLiga transfers) and 54.5% (Premier League transfers), respectively.
Both big and small moves in this direction have succeeded. Cristiano Ronaldo played nearly every minute for Juventus for three years after his €117 million move from Real Madrid; Juventus didn't get better because of this move, but he put in the work. Meanwhile, Romelu Lukaku has succeeded twice while moving in this direction, first from Manchester United to Inter for €74 million in 2019-20, then from Chelsea to Napoli for €30 million in 2024-25. In both instances, he left disappointing situations and won a Scudetto. So, too, did McTominay, who cost Napoli €30.5 million last summer.
Discount moves have worked, too. It cost Roma just €11 million to take 29-year old Edin Džeko off Manchester City's hands in 2016-17, and he gave them eight solid-to-excellent seasons; more recently, discounted moves such as Atalanta's acquisition of Davide Zappacosta (from Chelsea for €7 million) in 2021-22 and Napoli's acquisition of Frank Anguissa (from Fulham for €16 million) in 2022-23 have worked out beautifully. Younger players such as Moise Kean (Everton to Juventus) and some guy named Mohamed Salah (Chelsea to Roma) have also turned out to be worth the transfer fees.
Not every move works out, though. Juventus paid €51.5 million for Aston Villa's Douglas Luiz last summer and got three league starts and a bunch of injuries, and Atalanta are still waiting for the €29.1 million they paid for El Bilal Toure (from Almeria in 2023-24) to pay off. But this pipeline works more frequently than a lot of others.
Julien Laurens reacts to Luka Modric's potential free transfer to AC Milan.
Where the FC 100 came from
Let's wrap up this experiment by turning our attention in the opposite direction. Instead of looking at which transfers succeed, let's look at where successes came from. Here's some basic transfer data for the players on this year's ESPN FC 100 list.
Average age at acquisition/debut: 22.7. Of the 100 players, 41 had either been acquired by their current club or made their debut (if homegrown) by the age of 21. Eight were homegrown, and 13 others required a transfer fee of €16 million or less. Others, such as Bellingham, Haaland and Neves, cost quite a bit even at such a young age.
Only seven players from the FC 100 -- Isco (Real Betis), Robert Lewandowski (Barcelona), Lionel Messi (Inter Miami CF), Matz Sels (Nottingham Forest), Cristiano Ronaldo (Al Nassr), Yann Sommer (Inter Milan) and Chris Wood (Nottingham Forest) -- were acquired by their current teams at age 31 or older. It probably isn't a coincidence that five of those seven are either all-time great goal scorers (Lewandowski, Messi, Ronaldo) or goalkeepers (Selz, Sommer).
Average transfer fee: €32.6 million. As you would expect, the range is immense. Homegrown players such as Liverpool's Trent Alexander-Arnold, Arsenal's Bukayo Saka, Atlético Madrid's Giuliano Simeone, Athletic Club's Nico Williams and Unai Simón and Barcelona's Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsí and Alejandro Balde cost virtually nothing in transfer fees. Meanwhile, 26 of the 100 players required a transfer fee of €50 million or more, led by Arsenal's Declan Rice (€116 million), Real Madrid's Bellingham (€113 million) and Bayern's Kane (€95 million).
The median value of the players on the list: €30 million, or exactly what Arsenal paid for William Saliba and Napoli paid for Fabián Ruiz.
Average years with current club: 3.9. We'll go with either when an imported player was acquired or a homegrown player made his debut. Of the 100 players, 15 played their first season for their current clubs in 2024-25, and another 25 were in their second season. With the pure volume of moves by top clubs, that probably sounds about right, although it's just as noteworthy that 34 players were on at least their fifth seasons for their clubs. The median: three years.
On the high end: PSG's Marquinhos (acquired from Roma for €31.4 million at age 19 in 2023-14), Atlético's Jan Oblak (from Benfica for €16 million at 21 in 2014-15) and Bayern's Joshua Kimmich (from RB Leipzig for €8.5 million at 20 in 2015-16). Virtually everyone else on PSG's breakthrough Champions League winner this season moved to Paris within the past four years, including first-year wonders Désiré Doué, Neves and Kvaratshkelia. But Marquinhos has been there for nearly the entire Qatar Sports Investments experiment.