All Golden Boys performances during the 2023/2024 season
The league season 2023/2024 is now over (even though the Italian Serie A still has one match to play) and we will here take a look at how our "Golden Boys" performed during the past season. We list the players in backward chronological order and divide them into two sections, the ones that won league titles, and the ones that didn't.
Golden boy award winners that became champions 2023/2024
Out of all active award winners it was actually only three of them that played in a team that won their league.
Jude Bellingham - award winner 2023
Last year’s award winner Jude Bellingham played his first season in Real Madrid and what a successful season it has been. Bellingham won La Liga with Real Madrid in style, deciding the league title already with four rounds to go, and Bellingham scored 19 goals. He has also the chance to win the UEFA Champions League title as Real plays Borussia Dortmund in the final on Saturday this week, and he has as icing on the cake also been awarded the best player in La Liga this season.
Erling Braut Haaland - award winner 2020
Manchester City's Erling Braut Haaland had a marvellous first season 2022/2023 in his current club, winning a treble (Premier League, UEFA Champions League and the FA Cup) as well as winning the golden boot title in both Premier League (36 goals) and UCL (12 goals). This season Haaland has been a bit more "human" and scoring a bit less frequently. With that said, he still have had a pretty decent season. Manchester City won the Premier League title and Haaland did ones again win the top scorer title in EPL, but this season with "only" 27 goals. In the Champions League City were knocked out by Real Madrid in the quarter-final.
Kylian Mbappé - award winner 2017
Kylian Mbappé is closing in for his bespoken move to Real Madrid, even though nothing is official yet, so this was Mbappé's last season playing for Paris Saint-Germain, at least for this session. As usual, PSG won the league title in Ligue 1, but ones again he couldn't lead his team to a Champions League title as PSG surprisingly were knocked out by Borussia Dortmund in the semi-final. For the sixth consecutive season he won the French league top scorer title, this season scoring 27 goals.
All other Golden boy award winners performances
We continue with the award winners that did not play for a team that became league champions with their clubs.
Gavi - winner 2022
Gavi started off the season well and played in Barcelona's 12 first league game and three Champions League games. However, in November Gavi suffered a knee injury during a national team game for Spain. This injury forced him to undergo surgery and because of this he missed the rest of the season, and he will unfortunately also miss this summer’s Euro Championship.
Pedri - winner 2021
Pedri have been having some injury issues as well during the season, but not as serious injuries as Gavi. He missed a total of 14 league matches and four Champions League matches due to these injuries, in three different sessions. When he has fit he has been a regular in Barcelona’s starting eleven, and he scored 4 league goals in total.
João Felix - winner 2019
João Felix is the third Barcelona player on this list as he has been there on loan from Atlético Madrid the whole season. He has been starting most of the matches on the bench but have been playing a lot as a substitute. He scored 7 league goals and 3 in the Champions League, which is less than Barcelona had hoped for. There are indications that Barcelona will not release him from his contract with Atlético, so at the moment it seems like he is back in Madrid for next season.
Matthijs de Ligt - winner 2018
The Bayern Munich defender Matthijs de Ligt has not had his best season. He has been suffering from some injuries and have also been benched several matches. At his best he is considered one of the best defenders in the world, but neither him nor his team have not performed as expected.
Renato Sanches - winner 2016
The Paris Saint-Germin midfielder Renato Sanches career has been a rollercoaster and this season he was not part of PSG’s plans and was instead loaned out to Roma. His year in Roma have not been a success, and this is mostly due to minor injuries. He has had no less than seven different injury sessions, including various muscle problems, a strained hamstring and influenzas. Because of this he has only been on the pitch at 12 occasions in total and scoring one goal against Empoli. Roma have already announced that they are not willing to activate his release clause, so at the moment he is looking to be a PSG player again for next season.
Anthony Martial - winner 2015
Yet another player with injury issues in Mancehster United’s Anthony Martial. He started off playing most of the matches this season, mostly as a substitute, but after he got ill in December, followed up by a groin surgery keeping him away for a while, he was not even in the match squad anymore. It has also been confirmed now that Martial will leave United after nine seasons, meaning his very last match for United was a 0-3 defeat against Bournemouth on the 9th of December 2023.
Raheem Sterling - winner 2014
Chelsea have had a lot of ups and downs this season, and so has Raheem Sterling. He started off the season as a regular starting player but the second half of the season he started a lot of matches on the bench, and in some matches even stayed there for the whole match. Chelsea did finish their season strongly though, and so did Sterling by scoring in two of the last three league games. He scored 8 league goals in total and assisted to 4. His less good season has led to him being rejected from England’s Euro 2024 squad.
Isco - winner 2012
Isco had a poor season in 2022/2023 in Sevilla, the club he joined after leaving Real Madrid, that led to them ending the contract halfway through the season. For this season he joined the other Seville club, Real Betis, and the 32-year-old have had kind of a revival in his new club. Despite missing a few matches due to minor injuries he scored 8 goals and assisted to 5, being one of the most important players for Real Betis this season.
Mario Götze - winner 2011
It feels like Mario Götze has been around forever, but he is actually only 31 years old, and he is still going strong in Eintracht Frankfurt. He has been a regular starting player the whole season for Eintracht Frankfurt and he scored 3 goals and assisted to 2 in the league.
Mario Balotelli - winner 2010
The Italian troublemaker Mario Balotelli is still going strong and he started the season in the Swiss team Sion but he re-joined his old club, the Turkish team Adana Demirspor in September 2023, after Balotelli and Sion mutually terminated his contract. In Adana Demirspor he missed a lot of matches due to a knee injury but performed well when he was fit, scoring 7 goals in 16 matches.
The other active Golden Boy award winners
Of all the active Golden Boy award winners, that are still active, we left out three in our list above for various reasons.
First it is Lionel Messi, who won the award back in 2005, and nowadays plays in the American MLS. The reason we left him out is that MLS have a different season setup, where they play all matches during a calendar year, and not starting in the end of the summer and ending in late spring as most leagues in Europe. So how is Lionel Messi doing over there then? Well, not too bad actually. His Inter Miami is in the top of the Eastern Conference and is the team that have gahtered most points of all teams, taking the Western Conference into consideration as well. So far he has scored 10 goals and has 9 assists in 10 matches, a pretty decent score so far.
The second one we left out is the 2013 award Paul Pogba. Technically Paul Pogba is still active and has a contract with Juventus (who didn’t win Serie A by the way), but at the moment he is suspended for four years due to a doping ban that was announced on the 29th of February 2024. Considering Pogba is 31 years old right now, it is very possible that we have seen the last of him on a football pitch.
And finally, we have Alexandre Pato. Officially, Pato is still an active player, at least he has not officially declared that he has retired, but he does not have a contact with any club at the moment. Last club he played for was the Brazilian São Paulo, but they decided to not extend his contract as it expired on the 31st of December 2023.