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The Golden Boy is awarded every calendar year to the best football player in Europe under the age of 21. The Golden Boy awardees have always had a large amount of hype around them. After all, being labelled the best young player in Europe will obviously come with a mountain of pressure. More often than not, the awardees have gone on to shine but, there have been a few who haven't quite lived up to their potential.
In this article, let us look at the last five Golden Boy winners and where they are now, to see if they have truly lived up to their billing as the best young player in the world.
#5 Paul Pogba
Paul Pogba may now seem like a Manchester United player through and through. However, there was a time when he was the golden boy of Italian football, at Juventus. In fact, it was during his time there he was the winner of the Golden Boy award, in 2013.
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Since then, he went on to complete a then world record transfer of €105 million back to Manchester United. Now 25 years old, he has shown glimpses of his potential at Manchester United and is generally considered a world class midfielder. He has yet to become the best midfielder in the world though, and that was what was expected of him.
Despite helping France to win the World Cup in 2018, at club level his performances are yet to reach the heights that were expected from him.
#4 Raheem Sterling
Once the darling of Anfield, Raheem Sterling broke many hearts when he swapped the Reds for the blue of Manchester City. After all, he had won the golden boy award at Liverpool and with Luis Suarez and Steven Gerrard, was one of the key players responsible for Liverpool's second-place finish during the 2013-14 season. But, one year later, in 2015, he left for Manchester City, presumably due to contract issues.
That's where he is now. Despite earning his fair share of criticism at Manchester City due to poor form, under Guardiola, he has been excellent. He scored 18 goals in the Premier League, his highest yet in the 2017-18 season as City strolled to the title. He has since become a key player in Guardiola's Manchester City, forming a fierce wing partnership with Leroy Sane. Mahrez's arrival will see him facing more competition this season to retain his position.
#3 Anthony Martial
Anthony Martial is undoubtedly one of those players who hasn't yet lived up to their full potential. He showed such promise at Monaco, scoring eleven goals for them in forty-nine appearances during his two seasons there. In 2015, Machester United pounced, paying what was then the highest transfer fee for a teenager to bring him to their club. He did go on to a bright start there, scoring a memorable goal against Liverpool, in his Premier League debut. Continuing to perform brightly, he went on to win the Golden Boy award that year.
Things have gone sideways for Martial under Mourinho though. The signings of Lukaku, Ibrahimovic, Mkhitaryan and now Sanchez have regularly demoted him to the bench and these signings have seen both Martial and fellow Manchester United Wonderkid Marcus Rashford see less game time than either would like. The 2018-19 preseason has seen Martial's relationship with Mourinho take a new dip, with Mourinho upset with the fact that Martial left midway to be present for the birth of his second child. It remains to be seen if he can turn it around and earn Mourinho's trust again this season but, as far as the first two fixtures of the Premier League go, it does not look promising.
#2 Renato Sanches
If Anthony Martial has failed to live up to his true potential after winning the Golden Ball, Renato Sanches is a player who has straight up buried it. 2016 was an amazing year for Renato Sanches. He shone for Benfica during the first half of the year, was a key part in Portugal's Euro winning squad that summer and then went on to earn a transfer to Bayern Munich in a deal that could have potentially cost them €80 million. It didn't, because that's where it all went wrong.
Renato Sanches struggled for game time at Bayern Munich due to the presence of established midfielders such as Thiago and Vidal. He did go on to win the Golden Boy award later on that year, but it was a downhill slope from there. Even when he did get playing time Sanches failed to reproduce the kind of form he exhibited for Portugal at the Euro. At the end of the season, he failed to score a single goal or grab a single assist, playing in only 25 matches throughout the season. Bayern decided to send him out on loan to Swansea City to gain more first-team experience. It was a disaster. He had a poor season, even by his previous standards and failed to play a single competitive match from January through to the end of the season.
He's since returned to Bayern Munich as new coach Nico Kovac hopes to get him playing at a world-class level again, but it might just be a lost cause.
#1 Kylian Mbappe
The most recent Golden Boy winner, Kylian Mbappe took home the award in 2017 and, if anything, his stock has only risen since then. He had a breakout 2016-17 season, forming a deadly partnership with Falcao to help Monaco win its first League One Title and reach the semifinals of the Champions League. Following a summer of intense discussion as to where he'd end up, Mbappe went on to sign a one-year loan deal with Paris St. Germain that has since been made permanent for an astonishing €180 million, firmly setting him as the second most expensive player ever, behind teammate Neymar.
After winning the Golden Boy later that year, he has gone from success to success, playing a key role in PSG's domestic treble in the 2017-18 season and going on to be one of the best players in the World Cup, helping France become world champions during the summer. It has been just a year since his Golden Boy win, but he's already being hailed as a future Ballon d'Or winner and either way, his future seems bright.
