4 Worst Golden Boy winners
Where there is light there is also shadow. The coin has two sides. There are many expressions that can be used but the intention is to say that just as there are great successes in choosing the Golden Boy like Messi, Rooney or Mbappe, there are also some that have not turned out to be so successful. This, on the other hand, is quite understandable since when choosing under-21 players, they still have more than 10 years of career and it can go in different directions.
In this sense, we made a selection of the 4 Golden Boy winners who simply did not meet expectations or at least have not done so to date. We have opted for the most obvious cases since others like Pogba or Isco can generate more controversy. For example, the Frenchman was an important player in his first stint at Juventus as well as in 2018 with France in the FIFA World Cup. The Spaniard, for his part, in addition to his outstanding time at Malaga, also had an important role at Zidane's Real Madrid. So, below, we have the four worst winners of the Golden Boy award.
Anderson - 2008
Between 2004 and 2006, Ronaldinho was at his peak at FC Barcelona. The gaucho had started his career in his country's Gremio which, in those years, he saw how a young player of only 16 years began to stand out both with the Porto Alegre club and with the under-17 Brazil national team. This logically began to create parallels and comparisons between Anderson and Ronaldinho. When he was only 17 years old, FC Porto signed him and just a year and a half later he would sell him to Manchester United for three times the money he paid to Gremio.
Anderson's career was going meteoric and it seemed like he would be the star that was expected. In 2008, after a season and a half in the English club, he won the Golden Boy. Up until then everything seemed to be going well, however he began to have injury problems that, in themselves, were not the problem. The real problem was that because of this, Anderson stayed away from the pitches and that led to him starting to gain weight since the Brazilian did not take much care of his nutrition.
His physical condition, both due to his weight and his injuries, ended up causing his career at United to take a nosedive. Upon leaving England, he had spells in Italy, Brazil (he would play for Internacional, Gremio's eternal rival) and Turkey, before retiring in 2020. Several of his former teammates publicly declared that due to talent, Anderson could have been the best player in the world and he just didn't seem to care.
Alexandre Pato - 2009
Pato is another young Brazilian who, at 17 years old, was already playing in the first team of Internacional de Porto Alegre and managed to have world exposure by winning the 2006 FIFA Club World Cup. AC Milan would get ahead of many big teams in Europe and sign him for 24 million euros when Pato was about to turn 18. In 2009, when he reached his peak at Milan, he received the Golden Boy award. Starting in 2011, he began to have injury problems that frustrated his career in the Italian club and in 2013 he returned to Brazil, first with Corinthians and then with Sao Paulo.
When he managed to have some continuity and recover part of his best version, he returned to Europe with Chelsea and Villarreal, in the latter he had a good performance however, the economically powerful Chinese football took him away. From there, his career went through the MLS and a couple of returns to Brazil, where he continues with Sao Paulo.
Mario Balotelli - 2010
Clearly, these years were not the best for the award. In 2010, Balotelli won it, just when he moved from Inter Milan to Manchester City for just over 21 million euros, on his 20th birthday. Already at this point, the striker had had several controversies in his career, however, those were few things compared to what would come later and it would take us several articles to be able to mention them all.
At City he left good moments of specific performance and after a couple of seasons he would return to Italy with AC Milan where he had considerable growth and this earned him a return to the Premier League, this time with Liverpool, where he did not play well at all. . These ups and downs were a constant throughout Balotelli's career. He would have a very good time in France (Nice and Marseille), a not so good one in Italy and would continue in Turkey and Switzerland. Currently, he is at Adana Demispor. The Italian had a career of good moments that were overshadowed by his bad moments and especially by the extra-sports controversies.
Anthony Martial - 2015
Anthony Jordan Martial made his professional debut for Lyon at the age of 17 and the lack of playing time led him to sign for AS Monaco at the age of 18. In the Monegasque team he had a gradual progression that led him to reach a very good level and spark comparisons with a French icon like Thierry Henry. In the summer of 2015, Manchester United paid 40 million for the Monaco player, although with clauses that could lead to the signing being considerably higher.
The manager of the Red Devils at the time, Louis Van Gaal, saw Martial as a player for the future of the club. However, the player began to play well, making his debut with a goal against Liverpool. Martial went from strength to strength at the Old Traford club, being affected by the same inconsistency and irregularity as United. Remembering that, beyond his price, he arrived at the Red Devils when he was only 19 years old and deserved a certain training and development that in the current Manchester United was going to be difficult to achieve.