Studded stars: World's most valuable soccer players

2. Lionel Messi. Argentina.

Valued at €180million

Messi’s everyday life revolves around his wife and kids. “In the morning, I take them to school and when I come back from training, I practically leave straight away to pick up my son Thiago. We put them to bed, like any normal family does,” he was quoted as saying to Medium. “When my first kid arrived, that changed my mindset. I stopped focusing on just my career. In the end, football is a game. Sometimes the best doesn't win. I've just come to live with that.” For Messi, it isn't even about playing well or scoring goals. “Today, I try to help the team play more. I try to get everyone else more involved instead of being the finisher,” he said.

4. Harry Kane. England.
Valued at €150million

Harry started playing football really young, probably since he was four or five years old, at the park with his dad and brother who were big football fans. Playing with his mates, Harry always used to be the one that was scoring. "What is it about scoring?" Harry told Skysports, "It's the look. The look before it's gone in. If you slow down a replay or as you have a shot, your head's down and you look and you know halfway if it's going in and as soon as it goes in - the adrenaline. It's hard to explain the feeling, it's one of the best in the world, you are proud of yourself for scoring, you're proud that you're helping teammates, you're excited, it's all that in one big feeling". But a drop in his trajectory must surely happen at some point? “Yeah, but that’s football,” Kane says. "I try never to get too high or too low. It is how you cope with that."

5. Kevin De Bruyne. Belgium.
Valued at €150million

When he was 11, Kevin told his mum out of the blue: “I want to study Latin for two years, then I’ll go to the Topsport School and when I’m 18, I will fully focus on my football.” It was a plan he stuck to. “Kevin was stubborn as hell, like a mule”, his youth coach Frank De Leyn recalls in an article in The Guardian, “but I also think that it is that stubbornness, that character trait, that has made him the player he is now”.

Saliva tests done by doctors on the eve of games reveal his stress levels to be very low. Outside football, Kevin loves nothing more than spending time with his family and a small circle of close friends. Recently, he revealed a secret to his sparkling form this season; his two-year-old is finally sleeping through the night.

6. Kylian Mbappe. France.
Valued at €120million

With searing pace and a sharp eye on the goal, 18-year-old Kylian has become Europe's most sought-after teenager. Born to a migrant family with Algerian, French and African roots, in a suburb in northeast Paris, Kylian recalled to HypeBeast how important his Nike Air Maxes were “at that time when we didn’t have a lot of money. I was cleaning them all the time but as soon as I had the occasion to play football, I couldn’t resist. My mom was mad at me every time I got them dirty because they were quite expensive”. In an interview with France football, Kylian laughed off suggestions of a life of sacrifice as a professional footballer. "People say you have to make sacrifices to have a long career. I have never understood that. For me, a sacrifice would be having to get up early to go to work every day. I do not know if I could do that. I am not a hard worker. I just love football. When I go to training, I am always in a good mood. It is a bit like I am aware of the fact that I am living something of a waking dream."

Valuations by transfermarkt.com