There's a story you can tell about European soccer where defensive midfielders explain the world.
Per ESPN BET's odds, three teams have at least a 10% chance of winning the Champions League this season: Manchester City, Real Madrid, and Arsenal. Those three teams employ, arguably, the three best defensive midfielders in the world: Rodri, Aurélien Tchouaméni, and Declan Rice. Quibble with the specifics if you want, but the crowd-sourced valuations from Transfermarkt have those three as the only players at their position with nine-figure transfer values.
Fourth in the Champions League odds: Liverpool, who have tried and failed in three successive summers to sign big-money holding midfielders. Fifth favorites: Barcelona, who have been swaying in the wind since Sergio Busquets left the club last summer. Tied with Barca are Bayern Munich, who spent two straight summer transfer windows trying to acquire Fulham's late-20's defensive midfielder.
Seventh: Paris Saint-Germain, who still haven't found a holding midfielder they trust for the long haul. And the only other team with title odds of at least 5%: Inter Milan, who dominated Serie A last season by playing without a true holding midfielder, but went out early in the Champions League because they couldn't control a two-goal lead against Atletico Madrid.
At the highest level of the sport, you have three teams anchored by without-a-doubt world-class defensive midfielders -- and then five others whose recent existence seems to be defined by the fact they do not have a world-class defensive midfielder on their roster.
So, what do these players do that's so important to winning soccer games? Why are they becoming more expensive to sign? And are they really as important as they seem based on all the facts just laid out?
