Top 20 list revealed 

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Midfield is the heartbeat of all football teams, connecting the defence to attack and it’s arguably the most important area of the pitch. Elite midfielders can dictate the tempo of the game and provide a platform for their leading players to provide the game-winning moments. Pep Guardiola’s esteemed Barcelona team is widely regarded as the greatest team in modern history and their world-class midfielders dominated games.

Sergio Busquets, Xavi and Andrés Iniesta are the most legendary trio and their brilliance allowed Lionel Messi to flourish to become one of the best players in the world. In current football, PSG possess two incredible technical midfield maestros in João Neves and Vitinha, who will go up against Arsenal’s powerhouse Declan Rice in the Champions League final. As part of a series on Transfermarkt, we’ve analysed which nations have the most valuable collection of players in each position and next up is midfielders.

The nations with the most valuable collection of midfielders

We’ve used Transfermarkt’s renowned market values and combined the valuations of every goalkeeper from that nation to formulate the results. Using our parameters, England has the deepest talent pool of midfielders with 511 totaling a combined market value of €2.01 billion. Real Madrid star Jude Bellingham is the second most valuable midfielder in the world at €140m, while Declan Rice (€120m) and Cole Palmer (€110m). England ranking top is even more impressive when you consider that they have less midfielders with market values in our database, which plays a significant factor in these results – second place Spain have more than double (1,142).

Pedri is the most valuable midfielder on the planet and he contributes to Spain finishing second – they occupied top spot for goalkeepers and defenders. Interestingly, France have no midfielders in the top twenty most valuable in the world with Aurélien Tchouaméni ranking joint-21st but they complete the top five. The list is dominated by 14 European nations with Brazil leading the way for South America, United States for North America, Japan for Asia and Morocco for Africa.