20 plus 5 candidates for the Golden Boy award 2025 nominated

The selection of the winner of the Golden Boy award is coming closer, and the next awaited step was to create a short-list of 20 players of nominees, which is now a completed task. New this year is that the creators of the award, the Italian Tuttosport, have selected their own five wild-card players apart from the 20 nominees, which leaves us a list of total 25 players.

The shortlist is all well and good – but who can actually win the award?

As usual, even though the list consists of many great and promising players, there are only a few that truly has a chance to win the award in the end. If we look at the Golden Boy Football Benchmark Index the number one player is actually last year’s winner Lamine Yamal, but since previous winners are not eligible to win again he is not on this final list. Instead, we have the Barcelona defender Pau Cubarsí on second place, followed by Paris Saint-Germain’s Désiré Doué, and most likely one of these two players will win the award this year.

Even though it would be surprising if Cubarsí or Doué did not win since there is little time left for other players to prove themselves worthy of the prize, but we do want to sound a note of caution for the two Turkish players on the list – Real Madrid’s Arda Güler and Juventus Kenan Yıldız. Both these players are not only getting more and more playing time in their clubs, but they have also had solid performances with their national team.

Kopa Trophy as an indicator of the winner

A very strong hint about who will grab the award is the winner of the Kopa Trophy, the best under-21 player award that is handed out during the Ballon d’Or ceremony. The last four years the winner of the Kopa Trophy did also win the Golden Boy award that same year. Since Kopa Trophy has no restriction about winning the award twice, Lamine Yamal received the award for the second time a few weeks ago. Since he cannot win the Golden Boy award a second time, it is more interesting who the runner-up was - and that was Désiré Doué. This of course does not mean that Doué will win this year for sure, but it is nevertheless a strong indication.

Clubs, nationalities and leagues on the list

If we look at which clubs has the most nominees, we can see that Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain both have three players each on the list, and Tottenham, Arsenal and Porto all have two players each.

When it comes to nationalities of the players, England and France are the most represented – both countries have five players each on the list, while Portugal, Italy, Spain and Türkiye all have two players.

Finally we look at what leagues are mostly represented on the list, and the English Premier League is clearly dominant by having nine players nominated. Both Spanish La Liga and French Ligue 1 have four players each. Next following is actually the Portuguese Primeira Liga with three players, while both German Bundesliga and Italian Serie A has to settle with two players each. And finally there is a player from the Belgian Pro League as Club Brugge’s Sebian midfielder Aleksandar Stanković has one of Tuttosport’s wild cards.

The 20 nominated players for the Golden Boy award 2025

Below you find all the 20 players that have been selected to the short-list of winning this year’s award, including their basic data such as current club, age and main position.

5 wild card players

These are the five players that apart from the nominees above have received a wild card to win the award by Tuttosport.