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#3 Jesus Ferreira
Age: 18 Club: FC Dallas Market Value: €750,000
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Jesus Ferreira was born on Christmas Eve of 2000 in Santa Marta, Colombia and is the son of ex-Colombia international David Ferreira, who represented the country 39 times between 2001 and 2008. David still plays club football in his native Colombia, turning out for Union Magdalena at the age of 40.
David was an attacking midfielder, whereas Jesus is a forward, more concerned with goalscoring rather than chance creation. Along with fellow youngsters Paxton Pomykal, Brandon Servania, Edwin Cerrillo, Reggie Cannon and Thomas Roberts, Ferreira is part of a talented group who could well become the next big thing in American soccer.
Despite being born in Colombia, Ferreira holds American citizenship, and in 2019, was called up to the American U-23 squad for the qualifying games for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. He joined the FC Dallas youth academy in 2009, when his father signed for the senior side, and played for them for four years.
After spending seven years in the academy, Ferreira signed a homegrown player contract with Dallas in November 2016, before making his senior debut in June 2017 as a substitute against Real Salt Lake, where he scored the last goal in a 6-2 victory for his side. He was in and around the senior squad that season, but was sent out on loan to the Tulsa Roughnecks for the 2018 season.
He scored six goals in 14 appearances at the age of 17 for the Roughnecks, and returned to Dallas, ready to make himself a key member of the squad. There is no doubt that he has achieved that, as he was Dallas' top scorer in the 2019 season, with eight goals in 35 games. He also provided five assists, the second most in the squad, behind Michael Barrios' 14.
He played 80% of the minutes available to him, something that not many 18-year-olds can claim to have done, and his total of 13 goal involvements meant that he was directly a part of 24% of Dallas' league goals, and his minutes per goal involvement ratio of 194.76 is decent enough, but will surely improve as he gets older and his all-round game improves.
By the time the 2022 World Cup rolls around, Ferreira will be 22, and could well be plying his trade in Europe by then, so he could potentially be one of the key players for the U.S. for years to come.
