Today, we decided to find the best players in Europe’s Big Five Leagues aged 21 or under. To do that, we of course used our FotMob player ratings for the 2019/20 league seasons in England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France.
The resulting team features at least one player from each league but that got us thinking about the old adage from legendary Manchester United manager, Sir Matt Busby – ‘if you’re good enough, you’re old enough.’ So which of Europe’s top leagues is actually best for young players?
Firstly, the rules! As usual, we’ve run through the player ratings in each league and worked out the highest ranked player per position in our basic 4-3-3 formation. Instead of spending a month studying the age qualification guidelines that FIFA have in place for U21 level football, we decided to simplify it to players who were aged 21 or under at the start of the 2019/20 season.
So Italy’s top flight is not traditionally known as a hotbed for young talent, apart from perhaps as a destination for the best South American teenagers moving to Europe. The only Serie A player to make our team is in goal – where Milan’s Gianluigi Donnarumma averages a FotMob rating of 6.77 per game.
Elsewhere, there is actually a groundswell of U21 stars – South Americans (of course), Lautaro Martínez at Inter qualifies under our rules but misses out in terms of average rating whilst Juve’s Rodrigo Bentancur would have been included but turned 22 just prior to the season’s start. On top of that, the likes of Ismael Bennacer, Justin Kluivert and Dejan Kulusevski also came close.
France provides a single player for our line-up, but then Kylian Mbappé is something of a one-off. Way back in 2018 he became the second teenager ever to score in a World Cup Final, and now having turned 21 in December he’s currently the top scorer in Ligue 1, bagging 18 goals in just 20 appearances.
His FotMob rating of 8.13 puts him ahead of almost every centre-forward in Europe, let alone those falling in the U21 bracket.
Ligue 1 perhaps features more U21 players than any other we looked at here – we counted 10 who all rate at higher than 6.9 per game, including the most sought after teen in the upcoming transfer window – 17-year-old Eduardo Camavinga.
We’ve also only picked one representative from La Liga. And despite the breakthroughs made by Real Madrid trio, Federico Valverde, Vinicius Junior and Reinier, it’s actually a player loaned out by the club that makes the grade. And he’s one of our own!
Martin Ødegaard famously left FotMob’s native Norway aged 16, back in 2005 but it’s only now that he’s finally making the world take notice of his undoubtably talent. His work at Real Sociedad this season has seen the Basque club up to 4th in the league, with him scoring 4 and providing a further 5 along the way.
England’s elite clubs fare slightly better in our team here, with 3 players from the Premier League selected.
One may be a surprise – Burnley’s Dwight McNeil but he is the most consistent left-sided midfielder that we came across when studying the rankings. Breaking it down, he has a pass success rate of 78%, makes a tackle with 68% of his attempts and has featured in all 29 league matches for his club this season, scoring him an overall rating of 6.80.
Marcus Rashford probably needs no introduction and we’ve put him into the left side of our attack thanks to his sparkling form before suffering a back injury in January. He has 14 goals and 4 assists for the season.
Liverpool’s right-back, Trent Alexander-Arnold is pretty much guaranteed a place in any team we draw up based on statistics, with his form this season carrying on where he left off in a famous 2019 for his club.
The 5 remaining spots in our line-up all come from clubs in the Bundesliga. And we’re not just using sheer weight of numbers to decide that Germany is currently the best league for young players in Europe, but it certainly helped us come to that conclusion!
With 3 players hailing from Borussia Dortmund alone, it’s perhaps no surprise that Norway’s great hope for whenever we finally get to play that Euro 2021 Play-Offs against Serbia – Erling Braut Haaland made his move there in January when a host of other suitors where making their advances!
Dortmund’s more attack minded pair of Jadon Sancho and Achraf Hakimi have 25 assists and 17 goals between them this season whilst at the back, Dan-Axel Zagadou has provided telling performances in each of his 13 appearances.
Zagadou is joined in the heart of our defence by another French centre-back, Dayot Upamecano who’s started every game in what’s been a big season for RB Leipzig. Such is his form, he’s now being touted as Real Madrid’s number one defensive target.
The last name on our list just so happens to be one of our favourite players. So much so, we’ve already written about him once today already – here!
Alphonso Davies moved to Bayern München, from Vancouver Whitecaps in his adopted Canada last January for what was a record transfer for the MLS. And his breakthrough at left-back in the defence at one of Europe’s elite clubs has to be one of the success stories of the season. ?
If you fancy a deep dive into any of the countless statistics we cover on various league around the world, simply search by country, select a league profile and swipe right to the stats tab.
For more of this kind of thing, make sure you give us a follow on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
