Top 10 transfers that defined football in 2025
Players being transferred from one club to another is a very common practice in football. While some players make an instant impact at their new club, some take time to gel in with the new system.
Often, we see a single player transfer having a massive impact and helping the team drastically improve results, from saving a bottom-placed side from relegation to leading teams to big trophies, turning out to be that final piece of the puzzle that completes the picture.
Here, we present our pick of the top ten transfers that defined football in 2025. While most of these transfers came about in the summer of 2024, their definitive impact could only be discerned towards the end of the season earlier this year.
Note: The stats mentioned below have been taken from Transfermarkt, FBref, and StatMuse.
10. Vangelis Pavlidis | AZ Alkmaar to SL Benfica for €18 million
Greek centre-forward Vangelis Pavlidis had a superb debut season with Benfica following his arrival from the Dutch club Alkmaar. In the second half of last season, he scored 15 goals and bagged five assists in 18 league games. He was also mighty impressive in the UEFA Champions League and scored six goals and provided two assists in the six games Benfica played in 2025. His most notable performance arrived at a home game against Barcelona, where he scored a hat-trick, causing mayhem in the Barça backline every time he went forward.
Pavlidis has again started the 2025/26 season with a bang, having already bagged five goals and two assists in eight league games. Even though Benfica didn’t win the Primeira Liga last season, Pavlidis had a major role to play in helping his side go toe to toe with Sporting, only losing the title by two points.
The 26-year-old has proved to be a shrewd recruitment by the Portuguese club, having showcased his skills and talent not just in the Portuguese top flight but also against Europe’s elite in the Champions League.
9. Dean Huijsen | AFC Bournemouth to Real Madrid CF for €62.5 million
Dean Huijsen joined Bournemouth from Juventus ahead of the 2024/25 season, and such was his impact on the team and the Premier League that he started to attract massive interest from top clubs even before finishing his first season at the Vitality. Ultimately, the Spanish centre-back moved to Real Madrid ahead of the 2025/26 season.
Over the past year and a half, the 20-year-old has been impressing one and all with his defending and ball-playing abilities, having helped the Cherries keep six clean sheets in the 18 matches in 2025. He isn’t just a superb defensive operator, but also exceptional on the ball, capable of dispatching long passes and line-breaking balls. His progressive passes, shot-creating actions, interceptions, tackles, and clearances per 90 last season were comparable to some of the best defenders in Europe.
Huijsen has also had a decent start for Real Madrid in the 2025/26 season, with Los Blancos leading the way in LaLiga, sitting pretty at the top of the table.
8. Mikel Merino | Real Sociedad de Fútbol to Arsenal FC for €32 million
Mikel Merino joined Arsenal from Real Sociedad ahead of the 2024/25 season. The Spanish midfielder, widely considered a defensive operator, was even deployed as a centre-forward by Mikel Arteta due to Arsenal’s injury crisis, and duly he came in clutch on several occasions.
Since the start of this year, Merino has been scoring some vital goals for Arsenal. Last season, he got six goals and two assists in 20 league games. He performed superbly in the Champions League as well, scoring two goals and bagging three assists. Thanks to his performances in front of goal, Arsenal got out of many tricky situations and ended the season in second place, while also reaching the Champions League semi-finals. His performances for the Spain national team have been inspiring too, with Merino having registered four goals in two World Cup qualification games.
Arteta has continued to trust Merino in advanced positions so far this season, with his consistent performances helping Arsenal top the Premier League table with a five-point gap.
7. Mika Biereth | SK Sturm Graz to AS Monaco for €13 million
22-year-old Danish striker Mika Beireth has been another phenomenal transfer story this year. Beireth joined Ligue 1 side Monaco during the 2025 winter transfer window and instantly hit the ground running.
Having been brilliant for Sturm Graz in the first half of the season, Biereth was snapped up by Monaco in January itself, a move that proved to be a masterstroke for the Monégasque outfit.
In his first half-season in the Principality, Beireth helped Monaco secure a third-place finish in Ligue 1 and, with it, a spot in the 2025/26 UEFA Champions League. The 22-year-old scored three hat-tricks alone in the month of February, overall scoring 13 goals in just 16 appearances to end as the eighth-highest top scorer despite playing less than half the games compared to the other players on the scoring charts.
Beireth has already made his mark in Ligue 1 and proved to be a defining transfer move.
6. Serhou Guirassy | VfB Stuttgart to Borussia Dortmund for €18 million
Guinean striker Serhou Guirassy marked an impressive debut for Borussia Dortmund after signing for the German Bundesliga club ahead of the 2024/25 season.
Since the start of this year, Guirassy has pulled off phenomenal numbers, grabbing 15 goals and two assists in 19 league appearances. He also ended up as the top scorer in the Champions League, scoring seven goals and bagging three assists in 2025 alone. He was second only to Harry Kane in the Bundesliga’s top scorers’ list, and was also part of the Bundesliga team of the season for 2024/25.
Guirassy helped Dortmund seal Champions League qualification with a top-four finish in the league. In addition, his goals in the Champions League helped BVB reach the quarter-finals, where they narrowly lost to Barcelona, though not before giving them a scare in the second leg.
The 29-year-old has continued his exceptional form into the new season, having already made nine goal contributions in eight appearances for the German outfit. Despite his age, he has proved to be a top-class recruit for Dortmund and may help them rebuild their fortunes in the short term immensely.
5. Julián Alvarez | Manchester City FC to Club Atlético de Madrid for €75 million
A treble winner with Manchester City, and having lifted the Copa America and the World Cup with Argentina, many would say Julián Alvarez has already completed football.
Due to the lack of regular game time at Manchester City, Alvarez decided to move to Spanish club Atlético Madrid ahead of the 2024/25 season. There was a lot of noise about his exorbitant transfer fee, but the 25-year-old silenced his doubters within a few months and is now regarded as one of the best centre-forwards in Europe.
Alvarez had a phenomenal first season at Atletico Madrid. In the second half of the 2024/25 season, he registered 10 goals in 19 LaLiga games, got another two goals and two assists in the Copa del Rey as Atleti reached the semi-finals, and bagged three goals and an assist in four Champions League games. His form has continued in the same manner in the 2025/26 season, and he has already scored seven goals and bagged three assists in the first nine games of the season.
Even though the Colcheneros struggled with form and didn’t win any trophies last term, Alvarez was their top performer and also one of the best players in LaLiga this year. It’s difficult to transition from one team to another. It’s even more difficult when it’s a new league, but Alvarez has already proved to be worth every single penny of the €75 million Atleti paid to Man City for his services.
4. Scott McTominay | Manchester United FC to SSC Napoli
From struggling with Manchester United in the Premier League to becoming a Serie A champion with Napoli, Scott McTominay’s redemption story within one year of leaving Old Trafford has been inspirational, to say the least.
Unwanted at Man United, McTominay joined Antonio Conte and the Partenopei in the summer of 2024, and what a signing he turned out to be! McTominay’s performances, especially after the turn of the year, made everyone take notice, as the Scot played a key role in taking Napoli to the Scudetto on the last day of the season.
McTominay outperformed every other midfielder in Serie A, registering nine goals and three assists in 19 league games in 2025 alone. Such was his impact on the league that he was voted as the Serie A Player of the Season as well as the league’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) at the end of his debut season.
He is again playing a vital role in Napoli’s title defence this season, with the Neapolitan outfit currently sitting top of the Serie A table with five wins and a loss.
3. Michael Olise | Crystal Palace FC to Bayern Munich
Despite Premier League sides like Manchester City and Liverpool being interested in his services, Olise preferred to make a move to Germany, joining Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich ahead of the 2024/25 season. And so far, he has proven to be an absolutely superb signing for Die Roten.
Olise made crucial contributions in the second half of the season. In 19 league games, he scored seven goals and provided 11 assists to help his team reclaim the league crown from Bayer Leverkusen. He also helped Bayern reach the Champions League quarter-finals. He capped off his debut season by winning the Bayern Munich Player of the Season and Bundesliga Rookie of the Season awards, ending the 2024/25 season with a staggering 43 goals and assists combined in 55 appearances.
On the international front, Olise helped France register a third-place finish in the UEFA Nations League, scoring a goal in the third-place play-off.
The 23-year-old hasn’t disappointed in the new season either and is already proving to be more than a handful, having already registered five goals and six assists in ten appearances for Bayern.
Olise is proving to be a telling signing for Bayern Munich. He is a complete winger, who’d improve any top team. Despite showcasing his talent in no small amount in the Premier League with Crystal Palace, it has been remarkable to see how quickly he has become an indispensable part of a team as storied and ambitious as Bayern Munich.
2. Kylian Mbappé | Paris Saint-Germain FC to Real Madrid CF
The most high-profile transfer that happened in the summer of 2024 was arguably that of French forward Kylian Mbappé, who moved on a free transfer to Real Madrid.
Mbappé was seen as that last piece of the puzzle to make Los Blancos unbeatable. The beginning wasn’t as smooth as everyone hoped, but as the season progressed, with the team struggling for form and injuries galore, Mbappé started making consistent vital contributions, coming in clutch with important goals for his side in the title race in LaLiga.
After the New Year, Mbappé’s form hit new heights. He registered 21 goals in 15 league games in the second half of last season. He also scored five goals in eight Champions League appearances in 2025, helping his team reach the quarter-finals of the tournament.
Even though Real Madrid ended up without major silverware during the business end of the season, collectively performing well below their exceptionally high standards, Mbappé ended with a tally of 44 goals and five assists in 59 appearances across all competitions in his debut season, marking an unbelievable campaign on an individual level.
Mbappé has started the 2025/26 season with a bang, having already scored five goals in two Champions League matches and nine goals and two assists in eight LaLiga games for Real Madrid. Without a doubt, he is one of the most exciting forwards in world football. After finally bringing an end to his long dramatic transfer saga last summer, the star Frenchman has proved once again that it doesn’t matter which league and club he moves to — he will always be the top performer.
1. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia | SSC Napoli to Paris Saint-Germain FC
Some signings may or may not make a difference right away, but with some players you instantly know that they’ll make a season-defining change, which is exactly what happened with PSG when they signed Georgian forward Khvicha Kvaratskhelia in the January transfer window this year.
The Parisians weren’t exactly struggling in the domestic tournaments, though in the Champions League it was a different story. Having never lifted the continental trophy, PSG finished 15th in the new league phase table with four wins, a draw, and three losses after eight games and had to play the play-off tie to make the knockouts. It was here that Kvaratskhelia had a massive impact.
After struggling in the league phase, PSG would go all the way in the Champions League, with Kvaratskhelia scoring three goals and providing two assists in eight games for them, also scoring a goal in the final. He helped PSG achieve an unprecedented continental treble, also winning the Ligue 1 and Coupe de France titles. In the French top flight, he contributed seven goals and assists in 14 games. Kvaratskhelia may not have scored a huge number of goals, but his impact on the wings can’t be understated.
Though he has been a little underwhelming in the new season, Kvaratskhelia is undoubtedly one of the top wingers in football right now and has proven to be a defining signing not just for PSG, but also Napoli before them. He proved to be the final piece of the puzzle that helped PSG finally secure that elusive continental crown, which they failed to win even with superstars like Kylian Mbappé, Neymar Júnior, and Lionel Messi in the team.
