The Unicorn: Jérémy Jacquet
The Frenchman is one of the most coveted defenders on the planet - now, Liverpool have swooped
In the summer of 2025, Dean Huijsen and Ilya Zabarnyi - Bournemouth's first-choice centre-back pairing, aged 20 and 22 at the time - joined Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain for a combined €125 million, and netted a 135% profit for Bournemouth. The summer prior, French centre-back Leny Yoro moved to Manchester United for €65 million. This winter, a new young centre-back has moved to one of Europe's elite for a similar fee.
If these players are football's hottest commodity, it's because the position is perhaps the elite game's most taxing. Long gone are the days of booming headers, shin-kicking strikers and clearing lines; today, a centre-back is a pivot in possession, an auxiliary full-back, a lockdown one-v-one defender, a dynamic sweeper. Securing the position's standout talent is a vast investment of time and money and attention because the biggest clubs believe they are chasing not an array of specialists but a handful of fabled players who can do it all. These unicorns are rare, coveted, will all cost in excess of €60 million, and the next prospect is called Jérémy Jacquet - a 20-year-old France U-21 international currently playing at Stade Rennais but who, from this summer, will do so for Liverpool.
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