40 young players shortlisted for the 2015 Golden Boy Award

Both Hector Bellerin (L) and Anthony Martial (R) have been nominated for the Golden Boy award this year

The Golden Boy award is an award which is given to the best European young footballer under the age of 21. This year there are a large number of players from the Premier League and La Liga in the 40-player shortlist.

The prestigious award which was first awarded to Rafael van der Vaart in 2003 while he was playing in Ajax has seen 12 people win the award over the years. Raheem Sterling, who currently plays for Manchester City, won the award last year for his outstanding performance for his former team Liverpool. Some of the other stars who have won the award include Lionel Messi, Sergio Aguero, Mario Gotze and Cesc Fabregas.

Although Sterling is still eligible for the award being under 21 years of age, the pacy midfielder has not been shortlisted for the 2015 edition of the award. This year his former teammate Jordan Ibe and current teammate Kelechi Iheanacho have made the list.

Some of the other players to be part of the list include Manchester United’s Luke Shaw and Anthony Martial as well as Liverpool’s Divock Origi. Other players like Barcelona’s Munir El Haddadi as well as on-loan Manchester United player Adnan Januzaj has made the list.

This year could also cause a lot of confusion during the award ceremony if Adama Traore wins the award as there are two players with the same name on the list. One of them being the Aston Villa player and the other being the Monaco player.

The winner of the award, which is voted for by journalists from 30 newspapers around the world, will be announced in December.

Raheem Sterling won the 2014 Golden Boy Award while he played for Liverpool

Shortlist for Golden Boy 2015 award

Premier League: Nathan Ake (Watford; on loan from Chelsea), Dele Alli (Tottenham), Héctor Bellerín (Arsenal), Jordon Ibe (Liverpool), Kelechi Iheanacho (Manchester City), Ruben Loftus-Cheek (Chelsea), Anthony Martial (Manchester United), Divock Origi (Liverpool), Luke Shaw (Manchester United), Adama Traoré (Aston Villa).

La Liga: Marco Asensio (Espanyol), Zakaria Bakkali (Valencia), Ángel Correa (Atlético Madrid), Danilo Barbosa (Valencia), Munir El Haddadi (Barcelona), Alen Halilovic (Barcelona), Sandro Ramírez (Barcelona),

Bundesliga: Kingsley Coman (Bayern Munich), Dahoud Mahmoud (Borussia M’gladbach), Francisco Rodríguez (Wolsfburg), Pierre-Emile Hojberg (Schalke), Adnan Januzaj (Borussia Dortmund; on loan from Manchester United), Max Meyer (Schalke),

Serie A: Ricardo Kishna (Lazio), Sergej Milinkovic-Savic (Lazio), Alessio Romagnoli (Milan)

Ligue 1: Mario Pasalic (Monaco; on loan from Chelsea), Adrien Rabiot (PSG), Adama Traoré (Monaco)

Turkish Super Lig: Jason Denayer (Galatasaray; on loan from Manchester City)

Dutch Eredivisie: Anwar El Ghazi (Ajax Amsterdam), Gaston Pereiro (PSV), Tonny Vilhena (Feyenoord)

Portuguese Primeira Liga: Goncalo Guedes (Benfica), Ruben Neves (Porto)

Kazakhstan Premier League: Nemanja Maksimovic (Astana)

Croatian Prva Liga: Marko Pajca (Dinamo Zagreb)

Belgian Jupiler Pro league: Moses Simon (KAA Gent), Youri Tielemans (Anderlecht)

Serbian SuperLiga: Andrija Zivkovic (Partizan Belgrade)