Mastantuono in Golden Boy 2025 race: why Lamine Yamal can't win | OneFootball

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

The peculiarity is that Mastantuono was not among the contenders for the title 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 that is made with the most outstanding players born after January 1, 2005, and in the latest update, one of the novelties is precisely Mastantuono.

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

What do they take into account for a player's valuation? Performance, time on the field, and also the hierarchy of the team in which he does it in case of a tie in the percentage. In addition, they also take into account what they have done in their respective national teams.

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

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

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

Last year, Argentina had three candidates to win 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 in Monza.

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

The Barcelona player already won the Golden Boy last year and the rule indicates that whoever has already won the distinction, cannot win it again.

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