Brazil World Cup Squad's Market Value Plummets

Brazil's World Cup home soil humbling has led to the market value of its squad falling by 4.3%.

A report by Pluri Consultoria, a Brazilian research firm, found that the 23-man roster shed about £16.23m (€20.4m, $30m) in transfer value to £358m over the course of a disastrous final week, adding insult to the substantial injury suffered on the pitch.

Unsurprisingly, the price tag of misfiring forward Fred suffered most, falling 15.9% to just £1.4m, followed by that of QPR-owned goalkeeper Julio Cesar, which fell by 15.6% to a meagre £762,000.

Neymar, who sustained an injury to his vertebrae in the quarter final against Colombia, ruling him out of the rest of the tournament, is the only player to have experienced an uptick through the tournament, with Pluri adding 2.9% to his value.

Dani Alves, Dante and Maicon joined the Fred and Julio Cesar as losing double-digits, confirming the view that while Brazil went into the tournament with a reputation as being a well-organised unit, they exited a defensive shambles.

Only North Korea and Saudi Arabia have conceded more goals than the 14 Brazil let in during their home tournament, meaning that despite Julio Cesar's heroics in the penalty shootout against Chile, his reputation has taken a serious battering.

Pluri determines the value of a player by considering his age, technique, strength, physical conditioning, discipline and ability to change a game.

With an average age of 28.35, Brazil went into the tournament as one of the oldest squads, while the other, arguably more subjective attributes, proved to be lacking from the squad, particularly after the loss of their two talismen Thiago Silva and Neymar ahead of the 7-1 semi-final drubbing by Germany and 3-0 defeat to the Netherlands in the third-place playoff.

Before the World Cup, Pluri had calculated Brazil to be the most expensive squad in the tournament, followed by Spain. We're yet to see any recalibration of Spanish statistics, but one phrase springs immediately to mind: how the mighty have fallen.