Top 25 ranked – the most valuable players left in this season’s Champions League

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7 Real Madrid players 

©TM/IMAGO

The  Champions League’s league phase reached its dramatic conclusion on Wednesday night, when 12 of the 36 clubs were eliminated from the competition and a further 16 were placed in the play-off round. While that means a majority of the clubs are still in the competition for the time being, it has already led to some big hitters departing European football for another season and left to rue what went wrong over the course of the eight matchdays. And as a result, the competition has lost a number of its biggest stars. 

The most obvious example of this was Bundesliga side RB Leipzig, who finished third bottom of the league phase despite having a squad that could lay claim to a combined market value of €532 million. Not only was that the 13th most valuable squad in the competition, but it also had a number of star players that are probably a little disgruntled at missing out on the next round of the competition. As we can see in the gallery above, star midfielder Xavi Simons with a market value of €80m is the joint-second most valuable player in the world to no longer be taking part in the Champions League, while his teammate Loïs Openda (€60m) ranks 15th among a flurry of Chelsea, Newcastle and  Manchester United player. 

However, now that the list of MVPs has been whittled down ever so slightly, we can now take a look at the updated rankings for the most valuable players left in the Champions League. And, as we can see in the gallery below, there are a number of familiar faces. Among the top 25 players, there are no less than seven players from Real Madrid, four from Arsenal, three from Barcelona, three from Manchester City and, rather curiously, just two from Liverpool. Whether that will have any bearings on which club are now favourites to win the tournament remains to be seen, but there’s little doubt that the Champions League is still the home of the very best players across the sport.