22/08/2026
While not the recipient of the Ballon d’Or, there is only one player who can currently top this list, and it is Barcelona’s new number 10: teenage superstar Yamal.
Making his Barca debut at 15, and becoming a regular at 16, Yamal was one of the first names on Spain’s teamsheet at a victorious Euro 2024 after an impressive breakout season in 2023-24, and after being named Young Player of the Tournament, and scoring one of the competition’s greatest goals in the semi-final versus France, he has gone from strength to strength.
A domestic treble followed, where Yamal was a shining light for the Catalan club, and even though they fell to a 7-6 aggregate defeat to Inter in the 2024-25 Champions League semi-finals, it will be tough to find a better pair of performances from a single player across two legs of a knockout tie in the competition’s history - that is how special a talent the 18-year-old is.
Yamal continued his sparkling form in the 2025-26 season, and despite recently picking up a campaign-ending injury, his exploits leave little room for doubt about his place at the top of the footballing ladder.
