Kylian Mbappé is the favourite to become the first player to win two Golden Boy awards after the France forward was named on the 40-strong shortlist to decide Europe’s best young player.
Organised by the Italian newspaper Tuttosport and awarded to Europe’s most impressive player under the age of 21, the Golden Boy award was founded in 2003 and relates to performances across a calendar year not a season, with the winner decided by a panel of 30 journalists.
Mbappé, who beat his France teammate Ousmane Dembélé and Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford to win the prize last year, was also crowned the best young player at the 2018 World Cup and is expected to see off competition from Christian Pulisic of Borussia Dortmund, the Ajax defender Matthijs de Ligt and Roma’s Justin Kluivert.
The shortlist
Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool); Kelvin Amian (Toulouse); Houssem Aouar (Lyon); Musa Barrow (Atalanta); Justin Bijlow (Feyenoord); Josip Brekalo (Wolfsburg); Patrick Cutrone (AC Milan); Dani Olmo (Dinamo Zagreb); Tom Davies (Everton); Matthijs De Ligt (Ajax); Moussa Diaby (PSG); Diogo Dalot (Manchester United); Moussa Djenepo (Standard Liege); Ritsu Doan (Groningen); Eder Militao (Porto); Odsonne Edouard (Celtic); Evander (Midtjylland); Phil Foden (Manchester City); Achraf Hakimi (Borussia Dortmund); Amadou Haidara (Red Bull Salzburg); Joao Felix (Benfica); Jota (Benfica); Jovane Cabral (Sporting CP) Dejan Joveljic (Red Star Belgrade); Boubacar Kamara (Marseille); Moise Kean (Juventus); Jules Keita (Dijon); Justin Kluivert (Roma); Alban Lafont (Fiorentina); Manu Garcia (Toulouse); Kylian Mbappé (PSG); Pietro Pellegri (Monaco); Christian Pulisic (Borussia Dortmund); Marcelo Saracchi (RB Leipzig); Ismaila Sarr (Rennes); Dayot Upamecano (RB Leipzig); Vinicius Junior (Real Madrid); Moussa Wagué (Barcelona); Timothy Weah (PSG); Nicolo Zaniolo (Roma)
The Liverpool defender Trent Alexander-Arnold is one of only three English players on the shortlist, along with Everton’s Tom Davies and the Manchester City teenager Phil Foden but there is no place for Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho or Fulham’s Ryan Sessegnon. Diego Dalot, who joined Manchester United in the summer for £19m, is the only other Premier League player to make the list – a significant reduction on last year’s nine in total.
Wayne Rooney and Raheem Sterling are the only English winners having picked up the prize in 2004 and 2014 respectively.
Other winners include Lionel Messi (2005), Sergio Agüero (2007) and Paul Pogba (2013).
The 40-man list will be reduced to 20 next month, with the winners announced in December. You can vote for your choice here.
