Spain has, on paper, the best selection of the Olympic Games. This is revealed by its price in the market according to the specialized website Transfermarkt: The 22 summoned by Luis de la Fuente are by far the most valuable: 545.9 million. The next is Brazil (344) and the others are already very far away: Argentina and Germany (128), France (122) …
Pedri and Oyarzabal, the two most valued players in Spain (70 million each) alone cost more than the full squads of half of the participating countries: Egypt, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, South Korea, Honduras, Romania and Saudi Arabia their 22 players add less than that amount.
This difference is due, in large part, to the existing law in Spain, by which Spanish clubs are obliged to cede their players at any time to the Spanish team, even if they are not FIFA dates. The rest of the countries, which do not have that advantage, have seen that great stars such as Mbappé, Vinicius or Salah publicly expressed their illusion to be in Tokyo but their clubs have not allowed it.
De la Fuente, taking advantage of this advantage, has formed a group of players who, almost entirely, play in Spain, because others such as Fabián, Ferran or Mayoral could not be called up because their clubs did not authorize it. The only exceptions are Dani Olmo (Leipzig) and Rafa Mir (Wolverhampton). The first has been insisting his club for months, to the point that he got a written permission authorizing him to go. He is one of the great stars of the German club, who decided to respect his will in the face of his efforts. In Mir's case, the Wolves have put him on the market and these Games are a golden opportunity for him to revalue even more after his good season at Huesca.
Players. On an individual level, Spain also has the best players in the tournament in terms of value. Of the ten most valued, seven are Spanish: Pedri (70 million), Oyarzabal (70), Pau Torres (50), Dani Olmo (45), Carlos Soler (40), Mikel Merino (40) and Marco Asensio (35) . Sneak into this top-10 two Brazilians and one Ivorian: Richarlison and Kessié share third place (55 million) and Diego Carlos is in the sixth step along with Dani Olmo (45). There are other Spanish footballers who are also very high on the list of most valued: Bryan Gil (30), Ceballos (27), Simón (20), Cucurella (20) … A luxury for De la Fuente, who now has the mission of working as a team.
Three, they can repeat
The Spanish National Team brings a very young group of players to the Games (23.1 years on average), mainly because there are three footballers who will have the opportunity to also play the next Olympic Games in Paris 2024, in case they La Rojita get classification. In that tournament, the rule will be that only footballers born after 2001 can play it, a condition that three of those called up meet: Èric García (January 9, 2001), Pedri (November 25, 2002) and Bryan Gil (February 11, 2001). Tickets will be obtained at the U21 Eurocup that will take place in 2023 in Georgia and Romania. Luis de la Fuente's Selection will begin the qualifying phase for that tournament in September and is in an affordable group (Russia, Northern Ireland, Slovakia, Lithuania and Malta). The normal thing is that the selector can initially count on Bryan Gil, while the Catalans Éric García and Pedri are already fully settled in the Absolute and would only help in the final phase, since in the summer of 2023 there is no European Cup or World Cup in the category absolute.