August 28 – Barcelona starlets Lamine Yamal and Pau Cubarsí are the two highest ranked under 20 players in the world, according to the latest ranking from the CIES Football Observatory.
Yamal and Cubarsí who have both become starters for Barcelona are both ranked significantly ahead of third ranked PSG and French international Warren Zaïre-Emery. Yamal is more than five ranking points ahead of Cubarsí and almost 15 ranking points ahead of Chelsea’s sixth placed Dutch defender Jorrel Hato.
With Europe’s biggest clubs now focussing recruitment on younger players – or at least more successfully bringing youth players into their first teams than previously – it is notable that all top six players in the ranking are already at those clubs. The top two are at Barca, two are at Chelsea with one each at Real Madrid and PSG.
Seven of the top 10 ranked players and 13 of the top 20 are playing in Europe’s Big 5 leagues.
Roger Fernandes (SC Braga) ranked seventh, is the highest-placed footballer not playing in the big-5, just ahead of 10thranked Geovany Quenda(Sporting CP, already signed by Chelsea).
“The highest value for a footballer playing outside Europe was recorded for Elías Montiel(CF Pachuca). The Mexican ranks ahead of Brazilian Rayan Vitor (Vasco da Gama) and Argentine Santino Andino (Godoy Cruz). No fewer than 48 leagues are represented in the top 200. The three youngest players listed are Mexico’s Gilberto Mora (Club Tijuana), Poland’s Oskar Pietuszewski (Jagiellonia Bialystok) and Serbia’s Vasilije Novičić (IMT Belgrade),” note the report authors.
The data ranks the top 200 footballers worldwide who have not yet turned 20 with the best CIES ratings for matches played in 2025. The score is the average of two values : a performance index calculated from the data collected by CIES partners Impect, and an experience index taking into account minutes played, weighted by the sporting level of the matches.
To see the full ranking, click here.
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