FIFA’s Top 38 Teenage Football Prospects

By: Daryl | February 26th, 2010

balotelli FIFA put out a call on their website this week, asking fans to name their top teenage footballing prospect. To get things started FIFA listed 38 suggestions, presumably the 38 best teenage soccer players in the world right now, in the opinion of either FIFA or whoever wrote the article. Makes for interesting reading.

Here are the the 38 players in alphabetical order:

Zhano Ananidze (Georgia)
Mario Balotelli (Italy)
Nassim Ben Khalifa (Switzerland)
Jeffery Bruma (Netherlands)
Sergio Canales (Spain)
Jonathan dos Santos (Mexico)
Douglas Costa (Brazil)
Wilson Cuero (Colombia)
Alan Dzagoev (Russia)
Stephan El Shaarawy (Italy)
Sani Emmanuel (Nigeria)
Kermit Erasmus (South Africa)
Fabio (Brazil)
Joseph Gyau (USA)
Lukman Haruna (Nigeria)
Eden Hazard (Belgium)
Gael Kakuta (France)
Ben Kantarovski (Australia)
Batuhan Karadeniz (Turkey)
Rene Krhin (Slovenia)
Romelu Lukaku (Belgium)
Iker Muniain (Spain)
Neymar (Brazil)
Sotiris Ninis (Greece)
Thomas Oar (Australia)
Philippe Coutinho (Brazil)
Miralem Pjanic (Bosnia)
Rafael (Brazil)
James Rodriguez (Colombia)
Jack Rodwell (England)
Eduardo Salvio (Argentina)
Yaya Sanogo (France)
Davide Santon (Italy)
Daniel Villalva (Argentina)
Georginio Wijnaldum (Netherlands)
Jack Wilshere (England)
Chris Wood (New Zealand)
Franco Zuculini (Italy)

Some of those names we’re all very familiar with. Mario Balotelli and Davide Santon of Inter, or Rafael and Fabio of Man Utd for example. Some we’ve featured here on The Offside, like Chris’ posts about the almost unspellable Georginio Wijnaldum, about Sergio Canales last month, or Alan Dzagoev back in 2008.

Truth is, potential is just potential. Only some of these players will go on to have the high wattage superstar careers their YouTube videos would seem to suggest. So my question to you is: Which of these players is most likely to succeed? Which of these guys have you seen in action, and what can you tell us about them?

Personally I’m a big fan of Kermit Erasmus. Have never seen even one second of Feyenoord’s 19 year old South African striker in action. Just love his name.

- The West Brom blog disagrees with the inclusion of a West Brom player: 17 year old New Zealander Chris Woods.

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Category: World Football

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Phalah

Where did they put ramon azeez and christiantus they ar better than haruna,emmanuel
Bentolino

Christian Eriksen from Ajax and Simon Kjaer from Palermo
Johonna

Pato is still a prospect, but, sadly, no longer a teenager.
Aleksander

Where's Pato? Or doesn't he count like a "prospect" anymore?
tom

Alan Dzagoev, too.
tom

For me, Ninis will take the footballing world by storm. He tore Roma apart on Thursday(25/02). He won the penalty and had a goal and an assist for Panathinaikos. Also Balotelli and Lukaku are kick-ass.
kabir

Pedro, Defederico, and Immobile are not teenagers by the way. Pedro is already 22...
Lippi-kai-yay

Christian Eriksen!

And Ramsey is better than Wilshire.
ish

dzagoev is already a staple member at cska and a great technical player, as soon as his physical stature catches up he will be a monster.

if lukaku is 16 he is a massive prospect as well.

balotelli is immense and will be an amazing player.

the rest are decent but have a way to go.
soccer world cup dates

Great list! I personally love Rafael and Sergio Canales from all of them
Richard

Miralem Pjanic all the way
Teoh

I suppose Pedro is too old to be called "teenage".
Omario da Silva

What about Barcelona's Pedro, and Arsenal's Aaron Ramsey? For me Balotelli is the pick of the bunch.
giampiero

If El Shaarawy is on this list Ciro Immobile should be too.
Helge

I hope Lukaku and Hazard can become real stars!
Alex

Contento and Alaba from Bayern Munich didn't make the cut?
Ryan McManus

Although now I must hide from the cules, these days you just can't get away with saying such things about Barca.
Ryan McManus

Maybe because Barca has basically passed Bojan over... Last I heard there were doubts about his future at Barca but like a good little cule, he rubbished those reports.
Daryl

That's a good point John. No idea why he's missing.

As for the new Messi, new Maradona etc thing, I wonder how far back you can go with that?
bhoy67

James Forrest (Scotland)
victor

There's also Matias de Federico, the Argentinean currently playing for Corinthians, who is said to be 'the new Messi'. Who was said to be 'the new
Maradona'. So on and so forth.
john

Anyone else find it strange that Bojan Krkic is not on that list? He's 19 years old, in case FIFA forgot.
Abdullah

Ben Khalifa is a great player, he was chosen as the best player on the last WC U-17 in Nigeria + Switserland won the WC, i'm hoping he will represent Tunisia in the future.
Khones

DAVID ALABA (Austria, Bayern Munich).
jots

Santon will take over the footballing world....Balotelli would be amazing if he can keep his head out of his ass for more than five minuets
Rob

Rambo
Thomas

Hazard, Kakuta, and Pjanic.
Jonas

Hazard and Lukaka,rememeber those names ladies and gents
shehan

this really is a wonderkid list from football manager.
Ryan McManus

I personally like Muniain the most. I don't know what the chances are that he would want to leave Bilbao any time soon though. Also Lukaku looks impressive.
Luka

I don't for a second believe Luka(ku) is 16.
Mustafa

oh, and btw, after looking at the list again, i've decided that Kermit Erasmus is my new favorite player, just based on his name alone
Mustafa

This looks like a Football Manager all-star team

From personal experience, I can say that Hazard, Lukman Haruna, Miralem Pjanic and Franco Zuculini are all monsters (or at least they become monsters in a few years in FM)