Barcelona have been forced to turn to their academy and in Pedri and Ronald Araujo’s cases, younger talents brought in, due to their finances in recent years. Yet the positive results could scarcely have been imagined, as illustrated by the Golden Boy award.
According Sport amongst others, Lamine Yamal will be announced as the winner of the award on Wednesday by Tuttosport, and will collect the award on the 16th of December at a gala event. That will make it three years out of the last four that the Blaugrana have had the winner of the award, following on from Pedri and Gavi in 2021 and 2022. The only player to break their monopoly was Jude Bellingham last year.
Fermín López and Pablo Gavi might have overtaken Frenkie de Jong in Hansi Flick’s midfield hierarchy. @sport
— barcacentre (@barcacentre) November 27, 2024
His Real Madrid teammates Arda Guler and Endrick Felipe were also nominated for the award, as were Pau Cubarsi, Valencia’s Cristhian Mosquera, Spain international Samu Omorodion, and ex-Girona winger Savio Moreira. Lamine Yamal seems the obvious choice this season though.
The 17-year-old locked down a starting spot in the Barcelona line-up in the latter half of last season, and was one of the inspirations behind Spain’s Euro 2024 triumph in Germany this summer. This year he has six goals and eight assists in 16 appearances so far this year, but has again been crucial for the Blaugrana.