Players Whose Value Fell by £20 Million Because of this World Cup 

The World Cup can do strange things to a player’s reputation. Three good games and suddenly a club is paying £20million extra. Three quiet ones and the same recruitment department will go quite quiet even if they’ve spent the last nine months monitoring him. 

This is not a list of players whose values have definitely collapsed. Football does not work like that, especially with players already tied to elite clubs or long contracts. But reputations matter and this tournament has not helped everyone.

 

Igor Thiago

Igor Thiago earned a surprise starting role for Brazil after an outstanding Premier League season with Brentford, but to say he struggled to make an impact with Brazil would be an understatement. The striker missed a clear-cut chance in the opening game, offered little with his hold-up play and failed to develop any chemistry with Brazil’s attacking stars. As well as looking slow, sluggish and out of touch.

His performances highlighted Brazil’s lack of attacking fluidity under Carlo Ancelotti. As a traditional penalty-box forward, Thiago often occupied central areas, allowing opponents to defend compactly. The tournament suggested he is not yet ready to lead Brazil’s attack at the highest international level and has done little to combat the lights are too bright allegations.

Maybe they should’ve brought Joao Pedro…

Felix Nmecha

Germany’s tournament was a mess and Felix Nmecha ended up standing in the middle of it. Nmecha came into the World Cup with a serious Bundesliga reputation and a chance to make himself look like part of Germany’s next proper midfield. Instead, his tournament became attached to another German post-mortem.

The Paraguay game was the most damaging one. Germany went out on penalties, but the performance before that was bad enough to make the shootout feel like a non-issue. Nmecha started in midfield, struggled to impose himself and was taken off at half-time. The criticism afterwards was brutal.

The World Cup performances fed directly into the doubts that matter most for a midfielder at his price. Can he control a game? Can he receive under pressure? Can he be trusted when everyone around him starts wobbling?

For everyone else watching Germany’s World Cup, this was not a persuasive advert.

 

Arda Guler

The tournament was set up for him to become a superstar and Türkiye crashed out before the story could even get going. 

He arrived with all the ingredients for a huge World Cup. Real Madrid player, crazy left foot, ridiculous technical ability, national-team saviour status etc. Türkiye were supposed to be competitive and fun, with Guler being a big reason for that. 

Instead, their tournament became one of the great early disappointments. Defeats to Australia and Paraguay left them effectively finished before the final group game and the numbers made it look even worse. Türkiye had shot after shot in the games that mattered and still could not score. For a side built around attacking talent, that is hard to justify. 

 

Omar Marmoush

This tournament that looks much better for Egypt than it does for him. 

Egypt made history, reached the knockouts and gave Argentina a horrible afternoon. The problem for Marmoush is that he was not really at the heart of it.

For a £50million-level Manchester City forward, this was a big opportunity. He was not a teenage prospect being eased in and he was not an ageing star there for one last dance. He was supposed to be one of Egypt’s main attacking weapons alongside Mohamed Salah. 

Instead, this is how I would summarise his tournament…  lots of attacking volume, not enough end product, a big miss against Australia and then dropped for the Argentina game. Playing poorly in a knockout game is one thing. Not starting the biggest game of Egypt’s tournament tells its own story.

When he did come on against Argentina, he did not change much. Egypt had moments late on, but Marmoush never really imposed himself.

This was not a disaster. He did not stink the place out or become a national villain. But Egypt’s tournament had heroes, and Marmoush was not one of them. 

 

Jérémy Doku

Jérémy Doku did not look central to Belgium’s best work. That is a bit of a problem when you are a Manchester City winger valued like a difference-maker. Doku’s value is built on fear. He is supposed to tilt the pitch, isolate full-backs, create panic and make defenders look like they are running with shopping bags tied to their ankles. When Belgium battered the United States 4-1, though, he came on after the game had already turned. The headline performer was Charles De Ketelaere, not Doku.

The issue with Doku has never been whether he can beat a man. Everyone knows he can. The question is whether he turns all that chaos into enough goals, assists and control to justify the price tag.

 

Julián Álvarez

Julián Álvarez is on this list because he’s been in a transfer saga between three of the biggest clubs in the world and he hasn’t even started every game for Argentina. 

Argentina are still alive. He is still a brilliant footballer. There are still clubs who would happily build a forward line around him. But if the question is whether this tournament has boosted his reputation as a £100million centrepiece, the answer is much less convincing.

Álvarez came into the World Cup as an elite-club forward, World Cup winner, Champions League-level player and one of the few attackers in world football who could plausibly command a nine-figure fee. At that level, simply being useful is not enough. You need to look unavoidable.

 

Federico Valverde

Federico Valverde’s club reputation is basically bulletproof. He plays for Real Madrid, he can run for three people, and he has spent years looking like the sort of midfielder every serious team would like to clone. One disappointing World Cup does not change that.

But Uruguay needed more from him.

This was supposed to be a tournament where Valverde became the obvious leader of a very talented side. Uruguay had enough quality to make an impression, enough edge to be awkward, and enough attacking threat to scare bigger names. Instead, they stumbled.

Then came the Spain game, and Uruguay went out. Again, it would be unfair to pin that on Valverde alone. Spain can make very good midfielders look like they are chasing a receipt in the wind. But the tournament still ended with the feeling that Uruguay’s biggest names had not quite imposed themselves.

 

Antoine Semenyo

Ghana needed more than involvement. They needed decisive moments. Semenyo had flashes, and there were periods where he grew into games, but for a player being talked about at that level, flashes are not enough. If you are an £80million attacker, the standard is different. You are expected to get more than 0 goals and 0 assists in four games.

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