Starlets from Real Madrid, PSG, Barcelona, Juventus and Manchester City are competing with Arsenal’s Ethan Nwaneri for the 2025 Golden Boy award.
Barcelona’s Lamine Yamal claimed the award last year, following in the footsteps of Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland and Jude Bellingham.
The race for the Golden Boy award looks wide open, with several contenders from some of Europe’s top clubs. Without further ado, here are our power rankings of the 10 most likely contenders. We’ll be keeping this one updated throughout 2025.
Note: Only players under the age of 21 are eligible to win the award and anyone who turns 21 in 2025 is ineligible. To be in contention, a player must be in a top-flight European league, while previous winners such as Yamal can’t win it twice.
10. Endrick
Given all the hype about him being the next big thing out of Brazil, we’re not going to pretend Endrick’s first season in Europe hasn’t been a tad (lot) underwhelming.
Having made a total of one start in the Champions League and La Liga, the 18-year-old Brazil international doesn’t appear to be the new Pele or Neymar just yet.
He’s followed a similar path to Vinicius Junior, who was also used sparingly as a fringe player when he first arrived at the Bernabeu as a fresh-faced teenager back in 2018. And nobody back then was talking up Vini for the Golden Boy award.
But the season is long and Endrick may yet have a big role to play. Los Blancos are competing on three fronts and Carlo Ancelotti may look to use depth more with the packed schedule ahead.
The rising star has had his moments, scoring in La Liga, the Champions League and Copa del Rey – including the match-winner in a rare start against Real Sociedad.
Endrick will have to do a lot more in 2025. Play, for starters. But he has the talent to make an impact and we wouldn’t write him off just yet.
9. Claudio Echeverri
“He arrived yesterday, he has good skills,” says Pep Guardiola of the Argentinian wonderkid, who has just joined up with the Manchester City squad ahead of the run-in.
“Welcome, we’re going to have him and we’ll see. I don’t know (when he will play), this is the decisive part of the season, every game is a final.”
Like Endrick, we’re hedging our bets a bit with this one. Echeverri is yet to make his Premier League debut, and he isn’t eligible until he does.
But the 19-year-old attacking midfielder from River Plate looks immensely exciting and we wouldn’t be surprised if he has a part to play in the coming weeks and months.
Guardiola was guarded about throwing Echeverri in too quickly, but he did hint the Argentinian might feature prominently in this summer’s expanded FIFA Club World Cup.
There’s a stage on which he can shine.
8. Tom Bischof
Not the most glamorous selection here, Bischof is far from a household name.
But he’s been quietly brilliant for Hoffenheim this season. So good, in fact, that Bayern Munich have already agreed to snap up the teenager once his contract expires in the summer.
The midfielder has made a particularly good start to 2025. He’s scored three goals in his last six appearances in all competitions and is on the shortlist for Bundesliga Player of the Month for February.
Of all the players in Europe’s five major leagues eligible to pick up the Golden Boy award in 2025, Bischof actually has the highest average WhoScored rating. One to watch.
7. Dean Huijsen
The last six Golden Boy award winners have represented the following clubs: Atletico Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Barcelona, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Barcelona.
So with no disrespect to Bournemouth, Huijsen probably doesn’t have the platform to launch a serious challenge for the award.
But you’d have to say he’ll be in with a serious shout if Andoni Iraola’s Cherries cap off a remarkable season and qualify for the Champions League – which isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
Bournemouth snapped up Huijsen from Juventus last summer, but you get the sense his stay on the south coast won’t last all that long.
It’s widely reported that the 19-year-old centre-back has a £50million release clause.
Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Chelsea are said to be among the clubs eyeing up his signature. Maybe he will end up representing one of European football’s glamour clubs by the time the award gets handed out later this year.
6. Eliesse Ben Seghir
Monaco have produced countless brilliant players over the years, from Thierry Henry to Kylian Mbappe. And now they boast another gem.
Twenty-year-old Morocco international Ben Seghir has notched six goals and three assists in Ligue 1 so far this season. That’s the most of any eligible player in Europe’s major leagues.
5. Desire Doue
Prior to the smash-and-grab defeat at home to Liverpool, Luis Enrique’s PSG have looked the most formidable side in European football in 2025.
Doue, signed from Rennes last summer, is a big part of the perennial Ligue 1 champions’ post-Mbappe attacking riches. The 19-year-old winger is not yet a guaranteed starter, but he always makes himself useful.
He’s notched four goals and five assists in his last 11 appearances in all competitions.
Kingsley Coman infamously scored the winner against PSG in the 2020 Champions League final.
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4. Kenan Yildiz
Thiago Motta has endured a strange, up-and-down first season in charge of Juventus.
The Old Lady don’t look nearly as dynamic as his Bologna side, while a Champions League elimination at the hands of PSV still stings.
On the other hand, they’ve only suffered one Serie A defeat all season and aren’t completely out of the Scudetto picture, just six points off league leaders Napoli.
One of the unquestionable merits of Motta’s reign so far has been the progress of 19-year-old Turkey international Yildiz, who has shone since making the step up from Juventus’ Next Gen youth ranks.
Yildiz’s career highlight to date was coming off the bench to score twice away to reigning champions Inter back in October.
The brace capped off a famous 4-4 comeback and demonstrated this is one wonderkid worth getting excited over.
3. Ethan Nwaneri
It’s over two and a half years since Nwaneri became the youngest debutant in Premier League history.
Mikel Arteta has been patient with the Hale End wonderkid, waiting until this season to properly integrate him into the first-team setup.
An injury crisis in the attack department has given Nwaneri a run of starts and he’s taken that opportunity and run with it.
He turns 18 later this month but already has some special goals for the Gunners, while his emphatic finish against PSV made him one of the youngest-ever players to score in the Champions League knockout stage.
17-year-old goalscorers Champions League knockout stage, Arsenal's Ethan Nwaneri joins exclusive club including Bojan Krkic of Barcelona
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2. Pau Cubarsi
Seldom can we remember a centre-half bursting onto the scene and taking senior men’s football in their stride so comfortably.
The La Masia graduate only turned 18 in January and he’s a mainstay of Hansi Flick’s side, with over forty appearances under his belt already this season.
We’ll dock a point or two for his mistimed last-man challenge against Benfica. He was fortunate that his team-mates rallied to victory in his absence, which means that the uncharacteristically rash will likely soon be forgotten.
1. Warren Zaire-Emery
This would feel a bit like the time James Milner won PFA Young Player of the Year in 2010 – eight years after first making his debut for Leeds United.
Zaire-Emery wouldn’t be quite so egregious. But it’s easy to forget that he’s still only 18, given he’s already notched over a hundred games for boyhood club PSG.
The definition of a prodigious talent, the composure with which he plays the game is downright uncanny for a teenager.
He’s almost certain set to win another Ligue 1 title and while PSG have a mammoth task on their hands at Anfield, you wouldn’t totally write them off in the Champions League.
In a year where there aren’t (yet) any Yamal-esque mega-obvious candidates, Zaire-Emery would be a safe bet. The field remains wide open, though.
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