Why Aurelien Tchouameni was not too expensive for Real Madrid

There are a lot of football fans who do not understand the transfer market despite the fact that they are seemingly glued to their screens 24/7 for transfer updates. You could see that ignorance quite clearly regarding the reactions to Real Madrid’s decision to sign Aurelien Tchouameni for 80 million euros, plus bonuses.

Let’s quickly discuss the details of the transfer fee, because there are a lot of myths out there. MARCA’s Mario Cortegana reports that the fixed fee for Tchouameni is 80 million euros, which is exactly what Monaco asked for all along. The bonuses are 10 million euros in what can be easily achieved and 10 million euros for rare bonuses like Tchouameni finishing on the Ballon d’Or podium as a defensive midfielder.

Look, if Tchouameni can pull that off, which is not impossible, nobody will care what Tchouameni’s fee is. So for all intents and purposes, Tchouameni to Real Madrid is a 90 million euro transfer. Calling it a 100 million euro transfer is disingenuous.

Is Tchouameni worth 90 million euros? Yes. Because the market says he is worth 90 million euros.

That may seem like a dismissive answer, but it is far more accurate than what people think transfer values are. See, transfer values are not what CIES or Transfermarkt tell you. Those are numbers that are bereft of context, can be manipulated, and are guesses made by people who use algorithms that don’t really accurately evaluate the worth of footballers.

Aurelien Tchouameni put up elite numbers in 2021/22 for Monaco

Tchouameni is a 22-year-old defensive midfielder who can play as a 6, 8, or a 6/8 in a double-pivot. He was the best midfielder in his league and has a skill-set that literally no current star or up-and-coming midfielder possesses.

We are talking about a player who had five goal contributions last season with a pass completion percentage close to 87 percent, 1.7 fouls drawn per game, and 1.1 dribbles completed per game. Those are outstanding numbers for a midfielder, and they become generational when you account for the fact that he is a defensive midfielder. Tchouameni was Ligue 1’s best defensive presence in the middle of the park, averaging a whopping 2.5 tackles and 2.9 interceptions per game. And he was not even 23.

Under contract through the 2023/24 season, Tchouameni was not a special case like new teammate Eduardo Camavinga was at Rennes. Though Tchouameni pushed Monaco into selling him – and to Real Madrid, no less – since he wanted a bigger challenge beyond Ligue 1, his club had no reason to be forced into selling. Thus, the market and a bidding war would dictate his fee.

Because Tchouameni has such a rare skill-set, has re-sale value, has potential, and is better than anyone at his position when projecting his next 5-10 years of output, he was ALWAYS going to set the market. The very best teams in the world were going to be after him if they had the slightest need for him in the next several years. Both Champions League finalists, Real Madrid and Liverpool, were heavily interested, as were last year’s Champions League winners in Chelsea, and the richest club in the world (and biggest team in Ligue 1), PSG.

Real Madrid can’t always sign great midfielders on bargain deals like ‘KCM’

It was PSG’s involvement that took Tchouameni from a record-breaking, market-setting midfield talent into something even more. Real Madrid HAD to pay any price possible to sign Tchouameni, because PSG would have. They probably personally wanted to make a statement to the world that they can still compete with PSG on the transfer market after the Kylian Mbappe decision. Real also wanted to make a statement to Tchouameni that they valued him picking them over PSG, a statement to Mbappe and Luis Campos that they would not let them get their man over Madrid, and a statement to the likes of Eduardo Camavinga and Carlo Ancelotti who lobbied heavily for the signing of Tchouameni.

If you want to sign the absolute best players in the world at a position, you need to pay up. And unlike past years, defensive midfielders with rare qualities like Tchouameni are not undervalued on the transfer market if they are indeed special players. As we saw with Liverpool and PSG’s involvement, players like Tchouameni are in just as high demand as up-and-coming strikers.

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When you factor in all of this, Tchouameni was worth the approximately 90 million euros Real Madrid will spend on him. If he ends up being worth 100 million euros, then, ironically, he will prove even further that he was worth the investment from Real Madrid. This is the price you have to pay to get top young players you are sold on as an organization, and credit to Florentino Perez for going beyond groupthink or conventional wisdom to listen to his scouting team and get this mega-transfer in midfield done. The era of signing established midfielders on bargain transfers like “KCM” is over, because the rest of Europe has wised up since then.