Over the years, I've shared results from my PlayerRatings model with lots of people, including a number of professional football clubs, and everybody always comes back with the same question - who are the best young players?
Let's take a look!
Let's start off with the top 25 players aged 21 or under at the time of writing this article:
| Name | Team | Age | TransferMarkt Value £ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Matthijs de Ligt | Juventus | 21 | 75.00m |
| 2 | Phil Foden | Manchester City | 20 | 70.00m |
| 3 | Alphonso Davies | Bayern Munich | 20 | 75.00m |
| 4 | Jadon Sancho | Borussia Dortmund | 21 | 100.00m |
| 5 | Erling Håland | Borussia Dortmund | 20 | 110.00m |
| 6 | Perr Schuurs | Ajax | 21 | 8.00m |
| 7 | Sergiño Dest | Barcelona | 20 | 25.00m |
| 8 | Ryan Gravenberch | Ajax | 18 | 28.00m |
| 9 | Mitchel Bakker | Paris Saint Germain | 20 | 10.00m |
| 10 | Pedri | Barcelona | 18 | 70.00m |
| 11 | João Félix | Atlético Madrid | 21 | 80.00m |
| 12 | Callum Hudson-Odoi | Chelsea | 20 | 35.00m |
| 13 | Mason Greenwood | Manchester United | 19 | 50.00m |
| 14 | Kai Havertz | Chelsea | 21 | 50.00m |
| 15 | Bukayo Saka | Arsenal | 19 | 50.00m |
| 16 | Ferrán Torres | Manchester City | 21 | 50.00m |
| 17 | Justin Kluivert | RB Leipzig (loan from Roma) | 21 | 14.00m |
| 18 | Moussa Diaby | Bayer Leverkusen | 21 | 38.00m |
| 19 | Jonathan David | Lille | 21 | 30.00m |
| 20 | Jens Petter Hauge | Milan | 21 | 10.00m |
| 21 | Óscar Mingueza | Barcelona | 21 | 10.00m |
| 22 | Aurélien Tchouaméni | Monaco | 21 | 25.00m |
| 23 | Antony | Ajax | 21 | 25.00m |
| 24 | Myron Boadu | AZ Alkmaar | 20 | 14.00m |
| 25 | Owen Wijndal | AZ Alkmaar | 21 | 15.00m |
So that looks pretty reasonable to me. You may not agree with the exact list but there's nothing too controversial in there. They are all players who are getting regular first team minutes in some of the biggest leagues around Europe. Many of them are even full internationals despite being still being 21 or under.
They are also all already at big teams so if you are looking to recruit players with potential, then you are too late. These players have already been discovered and are probably on big contracts.
Let's try searching a bit younger and see if we can find the future stars before they hit the big time.
Below I've got the top 50 players aged 17 or under at the time of writing this article. A lot of these players won't be getting first team minutes yet and it may well be a few years until they make a name for themselves. Some of them may not even make it in the game.
So, since it's going to take a while for this list to mature I'm going to keep the players anonymised to start with to avoid the temptation of judging the predictions too early. If / when players become well known, get bought up by bigger clubs or their value on Transfermarkt goes to £10.00m or above I'll reveal their names.
A few of the players already meet this criteria so are de-anonymised to start off with.
| Name | Team | Age | TransferMarkt Value £ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florian Wirtz | Bayer Leverkusen | 17 | 45.00m |
| 2 | Youssoufa Moukoko | Borussia Dortmund | 16 | 10.00m |
| 3 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 4 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 5 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 0.8m |
| 6 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 1.8m |
| 7 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 8 | Anonymous | - | 15 | - |
| 9 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 0.54 |
| 10 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 4.5m |
| 11 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 12 | Anonymous | - | 16 | - |
| 13 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 0.18m |
| 14 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 15 | Jude Bellingham | Borussia Dortmund | 17 | 35.00m |
| 16 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 17 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 1.35m |
| 18 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 0.9m |
| 19 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 20 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 21 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 22 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 23 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 24 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 3.15m |
| 25 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 0.45m |
| 26 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 27 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 28 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 29 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 30 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 1.08 |
| 31 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 32 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 33 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 34 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 35 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 36 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 37 | Anonymous | - | 16 | - |
| 38 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 39 | Anonymous | - | 16 | - |
| 40 | Anonymous | - | 16 | - |
| 41 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 0.27m |
| 42 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 1.35m |
| 43 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 44 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 45 | Anonymous | - | 16 | - |
| 46 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 47 | Anonymous | - | 16 | - |
| 48 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 0.585m |
| 49 | Anonymous | - | 17 | - |
| 50 | Anonymous | - | 17 | 1.08m |
I have no idea what a good hit rate is here, one out of the 50 going on to have a good career? Five? Ten? More?
The model is already flagging the players who are well known (to me at least), such as Florian Wirtz and Jude Bellingham, which is reassuring. However, the model only has information on youth football for many of the players so I'm really intrigued as to how predictive these types of fixtures will actually be!
Submit your comments below, and feel free to format them using MarkDown if you want. Comments typically take upto 24 hours to appear on the site and be answered so please be patient.
Thanks!