The 2025 summer transfer window has delivered more than just blockbuster deals; it’s reshaped the tactical landscape of world football.
From La Liga and the Premier League to Serie A, the Bundesliga, and the Champions League elite, this year’s biggest signings are less about marketing and more about evolution on the pitch. These are transfers that shift systems, redefine pressing structures, and spark entirely new tactical blueprints.
We rank 10 summer signings that will have the biggest tactical impact in world football during the 2025/26 season, analyzing how they’ll influence formations, possession structures, and the balance of power across Europe.
10. Jonathan Burkardt to Eintracht Frankfurt
Eintracht Frankfurt have made three of the biggest transfers in European football in three out of the past four transfer windows. They produced Randal Kolo Muani and sent him to Paris for 95 million euros, had the best player in the first half of the 2024/25 Bundesliga season and sold him to Manchester City for 75 million (Omar Marmoush), and now they’ve made another 95 million euros off Liverpool-bound star striker Hugo Ekitike.
And that’s after they already had a golden troup of attacking talents about five years ago in Luka Jovic, Sebastien Haller, Ante Rebic, and Filip Kostic. Eintracht know what they are doing, and to replace Ekitike, they’ve brought in Jonathan Burkardt, who nearly fired Mainz to an unlikely Champions League berth with 18 goals. Yes, more than Ekitike.
9. Alex Baena to Atletico Madrid
Finding out how and where Alex Baena will play under Diego Simeone is exciting, because he’s the kind of game-breaking playmaker who can produce chances out of nothing and from any angle, sliding crosses into the box when he’s in the middle of the park.
That’s perfect for Atleti’s counterattacking system, and Baena’s average of three key passes per game at Villarreal last season will translate well to a Rojiblancos side with much better goal-scoring options like Julian Alvarez, Antoine Griezmann, and Alexander Sorloth.
Maybe Baena is the missing piece who brings the title back to the Wanda Metropolitano in 2026, and both he and Griezmann on opposite axes with Alvarez and Sorloth manning the middle is the more efficient counter to the big names in Barcelona and the Valdebebas.
8. Simon Adingra to Sunderland
Simon Adingra is one of the most talented young wingers in English football, and the signing from Brighton is the kind of player who can flourish as the focal point of a newly promoted Premier League side.
Sunderland are going to base their attack around Adingra’s speed and explosiveness, and if he can combine goals with his one-on-one ability as he occasionally flashed in Brighton, then he could be the breakout signing of the summer.
7. Martin Zubimendi to Arsenal
A double pivot of Martin Zubimendi and Declan Rice anchoring the Arsenal midfield is downright scary, and with the top option on this list manning the striker position, Mikel Artetea may have the perfect positional dominance and 1-0 and 2-0 result-machine he dreamed of back when he first started the project.
Very much influenced by Pep Guardiola, Arteta now has the best up-and-coming holding midfielder to maintain possession and provide further defensive stability, and that, in turn, will allow Martin Odegaard to focus significantly more on the playmaking as a more true 10 as the supply line for the forwards.
6. Luis Diaz to Bayern Munich
The synergy of having two world-class wingers cannot be underestimated, and who better than to attest to the virtues of having multiple options out wide than Bayern Munich, a club that boasted the most envied partnership of the 2010s in Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben.
Michael Olise was so good in his first season at Bayern that he was just as influential to the team as Harry Kane and Jamal Musiala, and with another legitimately world-class winger addition from the Premier League in Luis Diaz, Olise is going to have even more room to roam inside and score goals for Die Roten.
5. Mohammed Kudus to Tottenham
Mohammed Kudus is one of the highest-upside signings of the summer 2025 transfer window and a welcome departure from Tottenham’s usually more boring business exploits.
The West Ham man is one of the elite dribblers in the Premier League and can give Jeremy Doku a run for his money in one-on-ones while adding even more creativity. Kudus could be the man, especially under Thomas Frank, who unleashes the entire Tottenham attack into one of the league’s best.
4. Rayan Cherki to Manchester City
Rayan Cherki on the same team as Erling Haaland, Savinho, and Tijjani Reijnders is downright scary, and with the dual left-footed magic of Cherki supplying Haaland as the, essentially, Kevin De Bruyen replacement, Pep Guardiola ensures that he still has plenty of wizardry in his attack.
The Lyon man was one of the stars of the Europa League campaign and seems to always come up with the clutch goods. Lyon brought the now 21-year-old along slowly and never changed his game, so he has the tactical acumen of a great French player with the same street smarts that Zinedine Zidane, who once scouted him heavily at Real Madrid, and others trained by the less formal grounds can boast.
3. Dean Huijsen to Real Madrid
Real Madrid had to sign a new center back this summer, specifically someone based more on calmly reading the game in front of him and keeping the ball secure at his feet without making mistakes with his passing.
Dean Huijsen is not even 21 years old, yet he is a more reliable center back than any of the starters from the last season. If Eder Militao is healthy, he and Huijsen could turn one of the worst center back pairings of a top club in Europe into one of the best.
2. Florian Wirtz to Liverpool
Florian Wirtz pulling the strings at the top of the Liverpool midfield gives the Reds an embarrassment of riches, and he’s the perfect modern No. 10 with his electric dribbling ability, agility in short areas, technical quality, eye for the invention, ability to navigate tight spaces, knack for scoring goals, and willingnesst to distribute the ball with any style of pass – and with perfect timing.
Mohamed Salah and Hugo Ekitike will both be that much more dangerous in the 2025/26 season with Wirtz manning the middle, and, really, all the wide players will benefit most from having Wirtz sucking in defenders before he funnels the ball out sharply into the channels.
1. Viktor Gyokeres to Arsenal
Arsenal look like an entirely new team with Viktor Gyokeres bringing his 38 Primeira Liga goals with him to the Premier League, and as much as people will deride the Swedish superstar for not even doing it in a top five league, his hat trick against Manchester City paints an entirely different picture of the athletic tools and clinical finishing that could soon take the English game by storm.
Just by having Gyokeres’s box presence, Martin Odegaard has so much more to work with as a creator, and both Bukayo Saka and the beleagured Gabriel Martinelli will, likewise, have that much more space to shoot and score in a previously underperforming Arsenal attack.
Joe Soriano is the editor of The Trivela Effect and a FanSided Hall of Famer who has covered world football since 2011. He’s led top digital communities like The Real Champs (Real Madrid) and has contributed to sites covering Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, and Schalke. Joe’s work has appeared in ESPN, Bleacher Report, and Sports Illustrated. He also helped manage NFL Spin Zone and Daily DDT, covering the NFL and pro wrestling, respectively.