The Golden Boy award once again gathers a wide field of candidates. Past winners include Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney, Kylian Mbapp\u00e9, Erling Haaland and Lamine Yamal, and the 2025 list contains a mix of established youngsters and fresh faces who have made notable moves or produced important minutes.<\/p>\n
Warren Za\u00efre-Emery: A breakout figure across 2023\u201324, he made 32 starts for Paris Saint-Germain in a season that delivered four major pieces of silverware. Despite that, his minutes in the Champions League were limited as Luis Enrique favoured a midfield trio of Vitinha, Jo\u00e3o Neves and Fabi\u00e1n Ru\u00edz. Za\u00efre-Emery finished 2024\u201325 with five goal contributions.<\/p>\n
Franco Mastantuono: The young Argentine earned a reputation at River Plate and moved to Real Madrid in the summer. Mastantuono shone at the Club World Cup and Xabi Alonso entrusted the creative teenager with significant responsibility on arrival in Madrid.<\/p>\n
Ethan Nwaneri: Called upon amid Arsenal injury problems, Nwaneri stepped in at the turn of the year. The Premier League\u2019s youngest-ever player in 2022 delivered key performances in victories over Leicester City, PSV Eindhoven and Manchester City, operating off the right or infield.<\/p>\n
Arda G\u00fcler: Carlo Ancelotti gave him only rare chances, but after impressing at the Club World Cup Xabi Alonso has made G\u00fcler a regular in the Madrid midfield. He is a versatile playmaker brought in to help replace the control lost with the retirements and departures of senior midfield figures.<\/p>\n
Myles Lewis-Skelly: The Hale End graduate emerged as Arsenal\u2019s breakout late in 2024, displacing Riccardo Calafiori and earning an England call-up in March, when he scored on his debut. His strength and fit for an inverted role helped his rise.<\/p>\n
Est\u00eav\u00e3o: Seen on social clips and at the Club World Cup, the Brazilian agreed to join Chelsea after the tournament. He finished fourth in the 2025 Kopa Trophy and opened his Stamford Bridge account with a late strike that beat Liverpool before the October international break.<\/p>\n
Dean Huijsen: After Bournemouth accepted Juventus\u2019s offer, Real Madrid paid \u00a350 million ($66.5 million) a year later. Huijsen was one of the Premier League\u2019s standout defenders for the Cherries, though his early Madrid spell included two harsh red cards.<\/p>\n
Pau Cubars\u00ed: Barcelona\u2019s defender finished seventh in the Kopa Trophy. He played a key part in a side that won three pieces of silverware and nearly reached the Champions League final, forming a strong partnership with I\u00f1igo Mart\u00ednez.<\/p>\n
Kenan Y\u0131ld\u0131z: After his 2023\u201324 breakthrough, Y\u0131ld\u0131z was given Juventus\u2019s No. 10 shirt and delivered consistent performances down Juve\u2019s left flank, with several notable contributions coming in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A concise ranking of the 10 leading Golden Boy 2025 contenders based on performances and moves. 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4008,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,1031,987],"tags":[1081,1064,1019],"class_list":["post-4009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-paris-saint-germain","category-real-madrid","tag-adaptation","tag-ballon-dor-2","tag-creative-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}