Where are they now? The 10 youngest players from the 2022 World Cup | OneFootball

Lamine Yamal, Kendry Paez, Yan Diomande and Luka Vuskovic are among the teenage wonderkids looking to steal the show at the 2026 World Cup. But what became of the youngest players who made it to the tournament in Qatar back in 2022?

Making it to a World Cup as a teenager is the mark of a special talent. Of the 832 footballers who went to the last World Cup, just 19 (about 2%) were under the age of 20. But while they were prodigious enough to represent their nations on the biggest stage of all, have they kicked on and reached their potential?

Three and a half years on from the Qatar World Cup, we’ve checked in on how the 10 youngest players at the tournament have progressed.

10. Jude Bellingham

29 June 2003 (aged 19)

Sneaking into the top 10 ahead of fellow 19-year-olds Yunus Musah, Hannibal Mejbri and his former Young Lions team-mate Jamal Musiala is the Real Madrid Galactico.

Since the last World Cup, he’s signed for Real Madrid in a €103million deal, been one of their key players as they completed a La Liga and Champions League double, and he became the first Englishman to make the Ballon d’Or podium since Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard in 2005. Not bad.

Ridiculously for a 23-year-old, the 2026 World Cup is already his fourth major tournament and his 50th England cap is fast approaching.

9. Alejandro Balde

18 October 2003 (aged 19)

The Barcelona left-back had just broken through for his boyhood club and looked like their future when Luis Enrique gave him a surprise call-up for the tournament in Qatar.

He made his Spain debut in their 7-0 thrashing of Costa Rica and featured in every successive game as they exited the competition at the Round of 16.

While he’s played over 100 times for his club, Balde’s momentum has been frustratingly set back by injuries. He’s played just three times for Spain since the last World Cup, his last cap coming way back in 2023.

8. Zeno Debast

24 October 2003 (aged 19)

Unlike all the other names on this list, Debast didn’t actually make it onto the pitch in Qatar. But he was part of Roberto Martinez’s Belgium squad.

The defender has kicked on since then, becoming a regular for his country, as well as a title winner with Sporting Lisbon.

A hamstring injury has left him sidelined for Belgium’s warm-up friendly victories, but he’s on the cusp of returning to fitness and has been talked up as a potential breakout star of the 2026 World Cup.

7. Antonio Silva

30 October 2003 (aged 19)

Another 22-year-old centre-back who plies his trade in Portugal, Silva has notched over a hundred games for boyhood club Benfica and will surely be among their next big-money sales.

He played 45 minutes in both of Portugal’s friendlies over the last international break, helping keep clean sheets against the USA and Mexico, but he was a shock omission from Martinez’s final 26-man squad this time around.

Silva is on the standby list if injury strikes.

6. Abdul Fatawu

8 March 2004 (aged 18)

League One footballer Fatawu is not something we ever expected to write.

The talented Ghanaian winger was among Leicester City’s standout players when they topped the Championship with a hundred points under Enzo Maresca a couple of years back.

But he struggled amid the club’s wider dysfunction as they suffered back-to-back relegations.

Fatawu remains an important player for Ghana, and this World Cup gives him your classic “shop window”.  He surely won’t be playing third-tier football next season.

5. Bilal El Khannous

10 May 2004 (aged 18)

Another one-time Leicester City hot prospect.

The Moroccan playmaker was probably the Foxes’ standout player in their otherwise miserable Premier League relegation campaign. Too good to be playing in the Championship, he was loaned out to Stuttgart and has recently made the move permanent.

Current Morocco boss Mohamed Ouahbi favours a more front-foot attacking style than his predecessor, and you imagine El Khannous will be central in realising that vision.

4. Jewison Bennette

15 June 2004 (aged 18)

The Costa Rican winger was a Sunderland player when the mid-season Qatar tournament took place, but he never really kicked on beyond the fringes when the Black Cats were in the Championship.

After an inauspicious loan to Aris Thessaloniki, he joined Ukrainian Premier League side LNZ Cherkasy – quite the move, given the situation there, with most high-profile players going in the other direction.

Bennette featured in all three of Costa Rica’s group stage games at the last World Cup, from the low of losing 7-0 to Spain to the high of beating Japan 1-0, but he’s barely played in the last couple of years.

He’ll be watching from home with the rest of us this summer after Costa Rica failed to qualify.

3. Gavi

5 August 2004 (aged 18)

Luis Enrique absolutely loved Gavi.

The midfielder became Spain’s youngest-ever debutant back in 2021, just 62 days after his 17th birthday. The record has since been broken by his fellow La Masia graduate Lamine Yamal.

As with Balde, his early progress has been blighted by injuries – in particular an ACL injury that saw him sidelined for almost a year, including the Euro 2024 tournament, while surgery ruled him out for most of the 2025-26 campaign.

Since returning, he hasn’t quite nailed down a spot in Hansi Flick’s favoured Barcelona midfield, but he remains a more than useful squad option and ended their title-winning 2025-26 campaign looking strong.

His reaction to getting the call-up for Luis De La Fuente’s 2026 World Cup squad was nothing short of a joy to behold.

2. Garang Kuol

15 September 2004 (aged 18)

Quite the story, this one.

Kuol was born a South Sudanese refugee in Egypt. He moved to Australia as a baby and was raised in Victoria.

Newcastle United had already agreed a pre-agreement to sign the talented prospect from the Central Coast Mariners before Qatar 2022, where he caught the eye with an electric cameo in Australia’s gutsy 2-1 defeat to the eventual champions Argentina in the Round of 16.

It doesn’t appear that Kuol will quite live up to that early hype, though. He had a decent record for Newcastle’s Under-21s, but he never made an appearance for the Magpies’ first team and failed to kick on during loans at Hearts and Volendam.

The winger hasn’t played for Australia in over three years, is absent from their 2026 squad, and is currently plying his trade at Sparta Prague.

1. Youssoufa Moukoko

20 November 2004 (aged 18)

You might remember Moukoko being talked up as the next big thing when he burst onto the scene for Borussia Dortmund back in 2020.

As a late substitute for Erling Haaland, a day after his 16th birthday, he became the youngest debutant in Bundesliga history.

The prodigy made his debut for Germany in their warm-up friendly against Oman before coming on as an injury-time substitute as they chased a goal in their shock 2-1 opener defeat to Japan. He was an unused substitute in the next two group games and hasn’t featured for his country since.

Moukoko left Dortmund for FC Copenhagen last summer, and scored 18 goals in his debut season for the Danish outfit. He’s still only 21.