Every Tuesday, GOAL picks out the stand out performances from and news surrounding the top teenage talents on the planet
The new season is finally upon us, and that means new heroes are about to reveal themselves to the world over the next 10 months. There is nothing more exciting in sport than a teenager who is able to immediately show that they can mix it among seasoned professionals, and plenty of young footballers will be keen to mark themselves out as ones to watch over the course of the campaign.
Here at GOAL, we're experts when it comes to unearthing teenage talents. Over the past 10 years, we have collated the annual NXGN lists, which lay out the top 50 men's and top 25 women's wonderkids you need to know about. The likes of Jude Bellingham, Gianluigi Donnarumma, Lena Oberdorf and Linda Caicedo have gone on to become the very best players in the game having previously topped those NXGN lists, while Erling Haaland, Ousmane Dembele, Lauren James and Alyssa Thompson all appeared long before they became household names around the world.
We're always on the lookout for the next prodigies, too, and our weekly profile series takes an in-depth look into what the future might hold for the stars of tomorrow. In 2025-26, however, we're going to be furthering our commitment to covering the best teenage footballers on the planet with our new NXGN Weekly column. Every Tuesday, we will breakdown the biggest stories involving teenage footballers from around the world, keeping you up to date with the players who are going to define the game over the coming decade or two.
So, without further ado, here's the NXGN stories you need to know about this week: