From Aston Villa’s Jhon Duran to Manchester City’s new winger Savinho, a couple of Premier League stars made the cut of the list of the best U21 players in the Champions League. A couple of rising stars in the Bundesliga from Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund joined them, but nobody has more great young talent to watch in European football’s premier competition than PSG and Barcelona.
It wasn’t easy to rank all the players, and there were a number of standouts, such as Endrick and Arda Guler, who haven’t gotten enough chances to merit a spot in the top 10.
But here is a ranking of the 10 best U21 players in the Champions League here in the new-look 2024/25 campaign, with the list based on a mix of overall ability and success in the current season.
10. Aston Villa ST Jhon Duran
Jhon Duran has already provided some very fine finishes in the 2024/25 Champions League season despite only playing 160 minutes, as he’s scored two goals in the UCL to add to his 4 goals in 300 Premier League appearances (all off the bench) for Aston Villa.
An explosive athlete and one of the sharpest finishers in world football, Duran is coming for Ollie Watkins’s job, and he has all the traits to become one of the best strikers in the world within a few years.
9. Bayern Munich DM Aleksandar Pavlovic
Aleksandar Pavlovic’s broken collarbone came as a huge blow to Bayern Munich, and the midfield hasn’t been stable since the young man’s absence, meaning Die Roten haven’t been nearly at their best over the last several weeks.
The good news is that the 20-year-old German international should be returning soon, and the word on the street is that Pavlovic could be back in the Bayern Munich lineup as early as Christmas.
With his intelligent covering defending, willingness to crunch into challenges, intelligent marking, goal threat from distance, and sharp passing, he is a perfect complement to Joshua Kimmich and may be on the road to exceeding the Bayern icon’s influence in midfield.
8. PSG CM Warren Zaire-Emery
Warren Zaire-Emery is a phenom who has been a regular for PSG in the Champions League since the 2021/22 season, though it seems that his fine work as one of the best young box-to-box midfielders in European football has been largely overlooked.
Because PSG have been so poor in the Champions League thus far in 2024/25 and are actually in one of the spots to miss out on the next round entirely, Zaire-Emery hasn’t been able to shine at his best.
But he’s still been decent, averaging 1.6 tackles and 1.2 key passes per game with a goal scored as one of the better all-around midfielders on the continent. It’s scary to think he’s still only 18 years old despite his experience.
7. Monaco CM Lamine Camara
Lamine Camara has been an even better young midfielder in Ligue 1, as the 20-year-old has been arguably the best player in his position during the league campaign thus far.
He has carried over those performances into the Champions League for one of the tournaments best darkhorse sides, averaging 2.4 fouls drawn and 2.2 tackles per game as a real energetic handful for any opposition midfield.
6. Dortmund LW Jamie Bynoe-Gittens
After making a fool out of himself for years by dribbling the ball out of bounds or falling over the ball like Bambi on ice, Jamie Bynoe-Gittens has exploded into the most dangerous forward for Borussia Dortmund at the Champions League level.
Now that he is growing into his final form as a footballer, Bynoe-Gittens has more control over his body and is able to explode or glide past defenders with one of the most unique and devastating dribbling styles in world football.
JBG has scored a jaw-dropping four goals in four starts and one bench appearance this season, putting up an almost Jadon Sancho-esque 2.8 dribbles completed per game for the Black and Yellows.
Out of anyone on this list, Bynoe-Gittens is the one with the best shot at shooting up into the top two, which should be considered rarified air.
5. Juventus AM Kenan Yildiz
Kenan Yildiz is now the great hope of Juventus in 2024/25, because they really don’t have a whole lot going for them in the attack with how inconsistent Dusan Vlahovic is at striker and how underwhelming the wing options are.
So Yildiz is often forced to start in Federico Chiesa’s old position on the left wing, and he honestly looks like a better prospect than Chiesa did, even if that would have sounded blasphemous about three years ago.
Yildiz has great technique and a real eye for goal. He is so difficult to stop with the ball at his feet in tight spaces, averaging 2.8 dribbles completed and 1.8 fouls drawn per game.
We know he is just scratching the surface, but what would help the 19-year-old Turkish international the most would be having one more star attacker nearby him to combine with.
4. Manchester City LW Savinho
Savinho was one of the best pure dribblers in world football last season for Girona, and he honestly should have received a little bit of Ballon d’Or love when you factor his importance to the team as a primary creator and secondary scoring option.
At Manchester City, Savinho has been one of the few bright spots while everyone else crashes and burns, and, at the end of the season, Erling Haaland should cut off a big chunk of his paycheck and give it to the Brazilian winger, whose tireless work has been instrumental to the Norwegian’s gaudy goal-scoring statistics.
3. Barcelona CB Pau Cubarsi
Pau Cubarsi is the best young center back in world football, end of discussion. Sorry Leny Yoro, but Cubarsi has been doing it at the Champions League level for multiple seasons now, and he is one half of the best performing center back partnership in Spain right now (Inigo Martinez is, somewhat surprisingly, the other half).
With a pass completion percentage of nearly 94, the 17-year-old Spanish international already has an interesting case for being the best ball-playing central defender in the world, and he is so intelligent for his age that he rarely has to make interventions defensively.
Cubarsi is a special player, and if Barcelona are to win this whole competition, they will need the teenager to continue to play at this world-class level against the best of the best in the knockouts.
2. PSG DM Joao Neves
Manuel Ugarte was a talented footballer, but new Liga NOS star signing Joao Neves has been an immediate upgrade and has taken Ligue 1 by storm. More fans around the world need to be effusively praising Neves for what he’s doing this season, even if his Champions League starts have been a bit tougher by virtue of PSG’s overall struggles.
Neves has two goals and six assists in Ligue 1 and is already arguably the best player in the entire French top flight. He’s not been half bad in the Champions League either with 2.8 tackles and 1.4 fouls drawn per game, putting in all the work he can to prevent PSG from getting badly overrun.
1. Barcelona RW Lamine Yamal
The best it gets. Lamine Yamal can give anyone in the world a run for their money when it comes to ranking the best overall players. The best way to sum up Yamal’s quality is in the importance he holds, as Barcelona have suffered heavily in La Liga without the superstar right winger in the XI.
Yamal has scored five goals with seven assists already in La Liga this season, and he’s currently at two goal contributions in four Champions League matches with an average of 2.8 dribbles completed per game, providing the on-the-ball defensive destabilization that opens the attack up for everyone else.
The managing editor of The Trivela Effect, Kevin has 15 years of experience in digital media. He covered Real Madrid from 2019-2022 for The Real Champs as a site manager. You can contact him at the site’s official Twitter handle @TrivelaEffect or via the site’s official email thetrivelaeffect@gmail.com.