Mastantuono up for Golden Boy 2025: why Lamine Yamal can't win | OneFootball

The Italian newspaper Tuttosport distinguishes the best young players in European football, and in this edition, Franco Mastantuono is the only Argentine aspiring to win the award that has been given since 2003.

The peculiarity is that Mastantuono was not among the contenders for the title recently because he played for River, but his move to Real Madrid positions him as one of the candidates for the Golden Boy 2025.

The Golden Boy Football Benchmark Index is a ranking of the most outstanding players born from January 1, 2005, and in the latest update, one of the novelties is precisely Mastantuono.

The Argentine, 18 years old, is in 20th position with a valuation of 73.4 and is the second among South Americans behind Estevao: the Brazilian former Palmeiras player, who joined Chelsea in this transfer market, is in 17th place with 73.5.

What do they consider for a player's valuation? Performance, time on the field, and also the hierarchy of the team they play for in case of a tie in percentage. Additionally, they also consider what has been achieved in their respective national teams.

Mastantuono was a starter in two of the three matches he played for Real Madrid (in the last one he stayed on the bench), while he also started with the Argentine National Team against Venezuela and came on at the end of the South American Qualifiers against Ecuador, where he also "inherited" Lionel Messi's number, who was not present in Guayaquil.

So far, only two Argentine footballers have won the Golden Boy, the first being Lionel Messi in 2005 and the other Sergio Agüero, a couple of seasons later.

Some notable footballers who have won the award include Wayne Rooney (2004), Paul Pogba (2013), Kylian Mbappé (2017), Erling Haaland (2020), and Jude Bellingham (2023).

Last year, Argentina had three candidates for the Golden Boy: Alejandro Garnacho, who played for Manchester United; Facundo Buonanotte, a player at that time for Brighton, and Valentín Carboni, who stood out at Monza.

The Golden Boy Football Benchmark Index ranking has Spanish Lamine Yamal at the top, but he will not be able to win the trophy this year. Why?

The Barcelona player already won the Golden Boy last year, and the rule states that someone who has already received the distinction cannot win it again.

Behind Yamal is Frenchman Désiré Doué from Paris Saint-Germain, while the top three are completed by another young Barcelona player, Pau Cubarsi.

The candidates for the Golden Boy 2025

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.