Every four years, the World Cup provides players the chance to showcase their skills on the grand stage of football. In turn, we usually see an influx of World Cup stars make moves to big clubs based on their performance. In 2010, after Spain’s run to their first and only World Cup, David Villa starred and was rewarded with a big move from Valencia to Barcelona, while fellow teammate David Silva raised eyebrows with his silky smooth play and secured a move from Valencia to Manchester City. Now that the summer transfer window has closed, I thought it would be a good time to take a look back at which players were able to cash in on their World Cup performances and engineer bigger and better moves.
Note: I am focusing on players who were either relatively unknown or underrated before Brazil 2014. So for instance, while Diego Costa and Angel Di Maria made big moves in the summer transfer and played in the World Cup, Costa’s move to Chelsea occurred before a single minute had been played in Brazil and Di Maria was already a known player in Real Madrid’s Champions League winning team.
James Rodriguez (Colombia)
No other player saw his stock rise in Brazil as much as the Colombian midfield playmaker. All the talk going into the World Cup for Colombia was how they were going to miss star striker Radamel Falcao. However, Rodriguez made the world forget about Falcao for a few weeks as he orchestrated his team’s run to the Quarter-finals, while scoring in each game en-route to winning the tournament’s Golden boot (six goals scored in five games). Rodriguez was not an unknown player when he began his tear of teams in Brazil, but he certainly wasn’t regarded as one of the best in the world either. He had spells at Envigado FC (Colombia), Club Atletico Banfield (Argentina), FC Porto, and was currently with Monaco, whom he helped secure a Champions League spot. Monaco had acquired him from Porto for €45 million (approximately £36 million) and after just one season with the team and his spectacular World cup performance they sold him to European Champions Real Madrid for a reported amount of €80 million (approximately £63 million). That’s a 77.7% profit over the period of one year for Monaco.
Enner Valencia (Ecuador)
Ecuador may not have made a huge impact in Brazil, failing to get out of the group stage, but striker Enner Valencia surely did. Valencia scored all three of Ecuador’s goals in the World Cup; two of them headers, one being the winner vs Honduras. Valencia had a bit of a meteoric rise to the world stage. He previously played for Club Sport Emelec (Ecuador) and one season with C.F. Pachuca (Mexico) before West Ham United of the Premier League identified him as a possible asset to their goal barren team. His one season with Pachuca saw him become their top goal scorer with twelve goals and helped his team reach the Liga MX finals. West Ham paid a reported transfer fee of £12 million to acquire the striker.
Toni Kroos (Germany)
It’s hard to label a player who has won The Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal, and Champions League with Germany’s most successful club and a World Cup as relative unknown player to the world; Germany went into the World Cup with a roster of known stars and players. However, Toni Kroos may have been one of the most underrated players in the side. Other than Mario Götze for his World Cup winning goal, Kroos may have been the team’s man of the tournament, scoring two goals and getting the joint most assists in the tournament with four. He has spent most of his senior career with Bayern Munich, apart from an eighteen month loan spell with Bayer Leverkusen. Kroos was ready to make a jump to, in his words, the “biggest club in the world” when Real Madrid came calling and acquired the German midfielder’s rights for an estimated £24 million transfer fee.
Daley Blind (Netherlands)
He may not have been the flashiest player at the World Cup or even in his team but Daley Blind, the defensive midfielder/left back, made an impact for the 3rd Place Netherlands squad in Brazil. He only got two assists in the tournament; both came in a game that the world was watching, the 2010 World Cup final rematch between Spain and the Netherlands in the group stage, in which the Dutch tore the defending champions to pieces with a 5-1 victory. Blind’s assist for Robin Van Persie’s diving header set the stage for the Netherlands’s run and Blind became a key part of the team. Blind’s rise through the Dutch ranks occurred mainly through Ajax and a short loan spell at FC Groningen before finally joining his Netherlands World Cup manager Louis Van Gaal and fellow Dutch teammate Robin Van Persie at Manchester United for a transfer fee of £13.8 million on transfer deadline day.
Daryl Janmaat (Netherlands)
If Blind wasn’t a standout star, Janmaat was a player who many World Cup fans may have not even noticed, although clubs certainly did. Janmaat started at right back for all three of the Dutch group stage games and came on as a substitute in their semi-final loss to Argentina and third place win against Brazil. Janmaat also recorded 2 assists in the tournament. Like his teammate Blind, the right back found himself plying his trade through the Dutch league ranks, playing for ADO Den Haag, SC Heerenveen, and Feyenoord Rotterdam. Janmaat was acquired by the Premier League’s Newcastle United over the summer for £5 million.
Keylor Navas (Costa Rica)
Costa Rica’s improbable run to the World Cup quarter-finals occurred on the back of a vaunted five-man defence and one standout goalkeeper in Keylor Navas. Navas recorded twenty-one saves in the World Cup, making the fifth most saves in the tournament, but the quality of the saves along with his performance in the penalty shoot-out against Greece in the Last 16 cemented him as one of the top ‘keepers in the tournament; it helped that he only conceded two goals all tournament. Navas started out playing for Deportivo Saprissa (Costa Rica) before moving on to Spain to play for Albacete Balompie, S.A.D. in the second division and Levante UD. Navas made the move to Real Madrid after the WC after they paid €10m (approximately £8 million) to Levante to trigger his buyout clause. Navas currently is backup to starting goalkeeper Iker Casillas, but he certainly is a good backup to go to should Casillas’s form begin to decline.
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