South American soccer powerhouse Brazil of recent has been rising steadily to their former place of glory in world football. They have reached another landmark by eclipsing Spain as the world’s most expensive national team.
Philippe Coutinho’s big money switch from Liverpool to Barcelona is a big boost to ensure Brazil move past Spain. The Catalan outfit had to fork out €160 million for Coutinho. Ligue 1 giants Paris St Germain had to pay €222 million to get Neymar last summer. This makes the first team for Brazil cost a whopping €530 million, beating Spain’s similarly impressive €520 million, and leaving the star studded Belgium national team in third place with €510 million.
The full Brazilian squad has market value of €789.5 million, according to Transfermarkt. The top valued players in the team are very young, with average age of 24 even though the overall squad average is 28 years.
Brazil are in great form and are gearing towards another world title. Soccer legend Pele has said that his country is the favourites to win the forthcoming event in Russia. The five time world champs were expected to do better when they hosted the world in 2014 but they were disgraced by Germany in front of their home fans 7-1.
Tite has helped the team regain its lost confidence and with the top players in the team, they are surely one of the top favourites to lift the title during the summer.
“In the last World Cup we had the best players in the world but the team was disorganized. It seems that now we’ll have a team and a Selecao that gives us confidence,” Pele said.
Pele, who was looking better compared to the final months in 2017, added that this generation of soccer produces fewer great players compared to the days of old. He opined that just three in Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar stand out compared to when there could be three outstanding players in just one team.