Salah, Neymar, Haaland: The most valuable XI in world football, featuring Liverpool duo | OneFootball

Football is one of the most lucrative businesses in all of sport.

While Neymar's move to Paris Saint-Germain in 2017 continues to hold the transfer world record, it's becoming more and more common to see clubs buying players for around the £100-million mark.

Fuelled by mega-rich owners and eye-watering television funds, the likes of Manchester City and Barcelona have dipped deep into their pockets to make some of the biggest moves take place.

The bountiful game

As such, it's impossible to predict how much money that the Ballon d'Or winners of the future such as Kylian Mbappe and Erling Braut Haaland might be moving for in the coming seasons.

However, one way in which we can get a good idea about the transfer value of each and every player in the beautiful game is by turning to the data gurus over at Transfermarkt.

Liverpool - AC Milan Champions League Highlights (Football Terrace)

Fans familiar with the world of statistics and finances in the sport will have stumbled upon the fascinating website more than a few times in their lives, particularly when it comes to transfer values.

Besides, it's gripping to see how much they consider certain players to be worth regardless of how well they're actually playing with other factors such as age and nationality all playing a key role.

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World football's most valuable XI

And it always means that keeping an eye on the most valuable players of the bunch makes for an interesting look with the likes of Harry Kane and Lionel Messi have dropped out of the XI recently.

So, how does the line-up look as things stand? Well, we decided to find out by selecting what we considered to be the most traditional of all formations - the classic 4-4-2 - and hitting the 'generate' button.

The remarkable XI that came out the other end was calculated to be worth more than €1 billion - or €1,045,000,000 to be exact - which just about summed up the lucrative nature of the 11 players.

But don't just take our word for it because you can check out the line-up in all its glory down below:

A lucrative line-up

It's hard to imagine that an XI without Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Robert Lewandowski, Kane and Joshua Kimmich could be so valuable, but that's the level of competition we're talking about.

Now, of course, it goes without saying that the world's most valuable XI isn't necessarily the best XI in the sport, period, but it's fair to say there would be plenty of overlap between the two line-ups.

And even if you're a stickler for the old guard and would have Messi and Ronaldo leading the line in an instant, it's easy to see why this might be football's prevailing XI in just a few years' time.

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