Top 50 Most Exciting Teen Footballers (2007)

In football, nothing is more valuable than the wonderkid. Managers spent much of their time scouring the ends of the world for these rare gems. And that’s not the end of it, like a rare gem, the wonderkid needs to be polished and nurtured before it is ready for the world stage. In a sense then, he is the human equivalent of the Golden Chocobo.

In this month’s World Soccer magazine, they have compiled the ultimate manager’s buying guide featuring 50 of football’s brightest teenage stars. To make the ranking, a player must be under the age of 20.

Personally, I think it’ll be more interesting to see which one of these so-called “wonderkids” will end up being a majestic flop, like Denilson. I mean, you do remember Denilson, right?

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Rank	Name		Position	Country	Age
1		Sadick Adams	Striker	Ghana	17
2		Ismail Aissati	Attacking Midfielder	Holland	19
3		Alexandre Pato	Striker	Brazil	18
4		Anderson	Attacking Midfielder	Brazil	19
5		Giovani Dos Santos	Attacking Midfielder	Mexico	18
6		Gareth Bale	Left Back	Wales	18
7		Sergio Agüero	Striker	Argentina	19
8		Bojan Krkic	Striker	Spain	17
9		Breno	Defender	Brazil	18
10		Gerardo Bruna	Attacking Midfielder	Argentina	16
11	Angel Di Maria		Attacking Midfielder	Argentina
12	Diego Buonanotte		Attacking Midfielder	Argentina
13	Franco Di Santo		Striker	Argentina
14	Macauley Chrisantus		Striker	Nigeria
15	Karim Benzema		Striker	France
16	Dumitru Copil		Attacking Midfielder	Romania
17	Fabio		Left Back	Brazil
18	Kermit Erasmus		Striker	South Africa
19	Fabio Coentrao		Left Winger	Portugal
20	Marouane Fellaini		Midfielder	Belgium
21	Guilherme		Attacking Midfielder	Brazil
22	Damian Ismodes		Winger	Peru
23	Lorenzo De Silvestri		Right Back	Italy
24	Nour Hadhria		Midfielder	Tunisia
25	Rabul Ibrahim		Attacking Midfielder	Nigeria
26	Kerlon		Striker	Brazil
27	Toni Kroos		Attacking Midfielder	Germany
28	Juan Manuel Mata		Attacking Midfielder	Spain
29	Lulinha		Attacking Midfielder	Brazil
30	Sapol Mani		Midfielder	Togo
31	Cristian Nazarith		Striker	Colombia
32	Ransford Osei		Striker	Ghana
33	Aaron Niguez		Striker	Spain
34	Daniel Opare		Right Back	Ghana
35	Fran Merida		Midfielder	Spain
36	Nikolay Mihaylov		Goalkeeper	Bulgaria
37	Mesut Ozil		Attacking Midfielder	Germany
38	Andrea Russotto		Attacking Midfielder	Italy
39	Renato Augusto		Attacking Midfielder	Brazil
40	Henri Saivet		Striker	France
41	Micah Richards		Right Back	England
42	Alexis Sanchez		Winger	Chile
43	Sergio Tejera		Attacking Midfielder	Spain
44	Marek Suchy		Defender	Czech Republic
45	Ivan Rakitic		Midfielder	Croatia
46	Abdou Traore		Winger	Burkina Faso
47	Carlos Vela		Striker	Mexico
48	Theo Walcott		Striker	England
49	Gregory Van Der Wiel		Defender	Holland
50	Ever Banega		Midfielder	Argentina

Kenny maintains a blog personal called “The Meditation Chamber“

“Top 50” front image and player headshots by Marco Pantanella