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2025 Golden Boy power rankings: Nwaneri, Cubarsi, Zaire-Emery leading contenders…
Mar 7, 2025
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.
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