Who are the best teenage wonderkids 19 or under??

Apart from the obvious like Zouma, Marqinhos etc.

I'd say

Tonny Sanabria & Tin Jedvaj (Roma)
Alen Halilovic (Barcelona B)
Bruma (Galatasaray)
Lucas Ocampos (Monaco)

Lucas Ocampos & Halilovic trump it for me. Halilovic willl one day be the best player in the world.

Bakkalli (PSV), Bazoer (Ajax), Doria (Botafogo), Goretzka (Schalke) also deserve a mention.

(edited 9 years ago)

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Reply 1

Micah Richards

Sterling is 19 until December...

Also inb4 this descends into hordes of Football Manager encyclopedias walking in

Reply 2

Manchester United

Adnan Januzaj is 19 year old.

Reply 3

AdamCee

Ryan Gauld in my opinion has fantastic potential. Just left Dundee United and I cannot remember who he joined... Was it Sporting Lisbon? Think so. And I think he's 17 or 18...

Also Bentaleb iirc is 19 ish and he could be brilliant

Martin Ødegaard

Wouldn't call Sanabria a wonderkid, at least not one of the best. He's quite a talent but I doubt he would have gotten the same hype if he wasn't a la Masia product and hadn't publicly pushed for first team action this much. Even then, he wasn't necessarily better than other attacking talents from la Masia in his age group (cf. Adama, El Haddadi etc), just seems to be more recognised than those because he was one of the very, very few emerging true 9s and a not a wide player. He's done alright in the few minutes he got at Roma so far, but he was never as spectacular at the youth level as the whole transfer saga & Arsenal rumours suggested.

I'd always put Meyer over Goretzka as well. Goretzka, Sanabria etc are very talented but if that's the definition of 'wonderkid' then we'd need to include a hundred players per league/country in the list. There are too many worth mentioning anyway.

From the players mentioned I'd particularly agree about Halilović, Meyer, Sterling though (but those happen to be the ones I've watched the most as well). Ødegaard looks great but the hype about him at the moment is a bit OTT.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 6

username912610

Max Meyer of Schalke.

Reply 7

username917703

Dan Crowley at Arsenal is one to watch, they stole him off us. I'm looking forward to seeing Jack Grealish play for our first team this season, he looks to be a real player but I don't want to get carried away.

Then there is Nathaniel Chalobah at Chelsea but the problem is he is at Chelsea...

Reply 8

niceguy95

Joseph Minala

Gonna blow up this year

Inb4 To Madeira

meyer would be firmly #1 for me. never seen halilovic play tbh, i just assumed he was all hype.

Reply 11

samba

Tah is going to be a beast. Thorgan Hazard too if he works harder. Werner looks promising too, though qua probably knows more about that one.

Reply 12

ELBOYZ

Raheem Sterling!!!
Me and him were in the same form class let alone the same school believe it or not!
I think he is going to be england's best player soon

Reply 13

Vae

Original post by Kim-Jong-Illest

meyer would be firmly #1 for me. never seen halilovic play tbh, i just assumed he was all hype.

A lot of is deserved imo. Of course, the 1 HNL isn't a top league and he'll play in the Segunda for another year so it's easy to jump to premature conclusions, but he does seem amazing. Not sure how I'd rank him compared with Meyer given that Meyer has proven himself a lot more but is also one year older; don't think there's a lot between them though.

In his case the Messi comparisons aren't even that far-fetched, obviously not in terms of quality but in terms of style, as certain elements in his play do resemble the way Messi plays. Dribbling is probably the strongest & most striking part of his play and his movement in that is a lot like Messi's, i.e. the way he uses his balance to change directions and get past & shield off defenders (similar heigth as Messi so they have the same centre of gravity) and how he moves the ball around with his feet. Then again, he doesn't have the pace & ball control of Messi when at full speed, also drops deeper and isn't as attacking-minded, so his future probably lies in the attacking mid position and not on the wing/false 9. He got compared with Silva, I think that's actually very fitting.

Original post by samba

Tah is going to be a beast. Thorgan Hazard too if he works harder. Werner looks promising too, though qua probably knows more about that one.

Werner is a wonderkid in the Bundesliga, yes, but not sure I'd rank him among the overall best prospects in Europe/the world/whatever dimensions we're talking about. Also depends a lot on where he's played tbh; in that CF role he's certainly the best Germany has produced in a while, but on the wing (where he mostly plays at Stuttgart), there are better prospects. No doubt that he's a great talent though, the records & numbers he has to his name at that age speak for themselves. Also think he'll fare better this season without having school/graduation stress to focus on.

I agree about Tah, but we'll see how it goes on for him at HSV. Last season was a bit forgettable with them forcing him to concentrate on school etc

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 14

barneystin

Original post by ELBOYZ

Raheem Sterling!!!
Me and him were in the same form class let alone the same school believe it or not!
I think he is going to be england's best player soon

lolwhat

any good stories?

Reply 15

cBay

I don't know people can suggest anyone other than Sterling. He's on another level to all other teenagers in world football right now.

Reply 16

ELBOYZ

Original post by barneystin

lolwhat

any good stories?

loool I have some
at the time he was a very fast and incredibly strong yet short guy. I remember when we were in yr 9 we played a football match against the yr 11s and he was in the corner holding of 2 big strong black guys and then a third guy got pissed and took out his legs (our school was in a ghetto area so this was the norm lol)
He also used to invite me and some friends over at his house to play CoD and FIFA and that was usually a good laugh. Raheem was a top guy

Reply 17

barneystin

Original post by ELBOYZ

haha

do you still keep in touch? fb/ twitter or whatever?

Reply 18

Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Hachim Mastour. No further argument needed. He's only just turned 16, and is already better than Sterling.

Reply 19

ELBOYZ

Original post by barneystin

haha

do you still keep in touch? fb/ twitter or whatever?

yeah I talk to him sometimes on facebook but he takes weeks to answer lool (guess to many people are trying to talk to him) but I haven't seen him for about two years now. He left halfway threw yr 11 so that will be about Jan 2011, and he came back to visit time to time. Ive got a few friends that go visit him in his mansion every now and then. I didnt go yet :frown: