Amidst a fascinating season across Europe’s top leagues, domestic football has taken a minor break to allow the international teams around the world to take stock ahead of a busy summer. Once the big leagues draw to a conclusion in May, Europe’s biggest nations will lock horns at Euro 2024 in Germany to compete for the title of European champion, while the Copa America rages on in the United States. But before all of that, let’s take a look at which nations can lay claim to the biggest talents in the world. Using Transfermarkt’s market values, we can gauge just how strong each national team is at this point in the year and pit one against the other to suggest which nations have the strongest squads. And, to no great surprise, European nations dominate the top 20, with no less than 13 of the top spots. So let’s take a look at which nations make the cut.
Top 20 most valuable national teams in the world
Turkey kick off the top 20 with a combined market value of €307.45 million, just below the United States (€311.5m) and African Cup of Nations champions Ivory Coast (€311.58m). However, the latter isn’t the only African side in the top 20, with Morocco (€321.4m) and Nigeria (€343.5m) sitting just above their continental compatriots. The only other nation from outside of Europe to feature below the top 10 are Uruguay, who sit thirteenth with a squad market value of €408.2m. The most valuable international team from Asia are Japan but their squad market value of €226.7m only places then 28th on the list.
Once we get to the top 10, we can quickly see where European nations dominate the list. Although Argentina (€722.2m) sit sixth and Brazil can claim fourth (€927.1m), the top three is made of Portugal (€1.03b), France (€1.22b) and England (€1.41b) - who will likely be the three leading contenders for Euro 2024 this summer. Such is the wealth of talent these nations possess that Germany’s squad market value of €628m is less than half that of England’s and almost half as much as France’s. Which goes some way to showcasing the lack of options available to Germany national team manager Julian Nagelsmann ahead of the tournament his nation are set to host this summer.
