Ranking Real Madrid’s five most valuable players, in terms of transfer value

5. Thibaut Courtois

Thibaut Courtois will always be there on the list of Real Madrid’s most valuable players, regardless of the criteria being market value or the importance to the team. It has been just three years since his arrival in Madrid, but it feels like he has been saving shots and saving Real Madrid for an eternity. This just shows how frequently he has produced unbelievable saves for the club, and how consistent he has been for Real Madrid, despite a rocky debut season.

We can run out of words while describing the Belgian wall, who is one of the main reasons behind the 2019/20 LaLIga triumph, during which he won the prestigious Zamora award. It is safe to call him one of the best goalkeepers on the planet right now, if not the best. This is enough to justify why he’s on this list and his high market value. He is not the youngest keeper out there but given that goalkeepers don’t decline early, he can possibly be the most valuable goalkeeper at the moment.

Real Madrid purchased Courtois from Chelsea in the 2018 summer window, for a fee of 35 million pounds. Though that fee was considered to be high back then as he had just a year remaining on his contract, it has proved to be a bargain. Considering all the factors such as performance, resale value, and everything else, we can value Courtois at somewhere between 60-65 million euros.

The record transfer fee for a goalkeeper is that of 80 million euros, for the Kepa Arrizabalaga to Chelsea transfer, which was sealed in the same window as Courtois’ transfer to Real. We know the result of that transfer, but we cannot use that as a benchmark to value goalkeepers because it was more of a clever business move from Athletic Bilbao, who renewed Kepa’s contract just five months before the transfer, and took advantage of Chelsea’s desperation to sign a goalkeeper after Courtois’ exit by asking them to trigger Kepa’s release clause of 80 million euros.