What’s more interesting than watching phenomenal young human beings grow up playing football? Like every January, on UltimoUomo, we have collected the best fifty young people to follow in the year that has just begun. We set 2006 as the maximum year and excluded the most famous of them from the list: Karl, Estevao, Lamine Yamal, Camarda, Cubarsì, Rodrigo Mora, Mastantuono. The list will be released in five installments and this is the second. Here, however, you will find the first part.
JOSEPH LITETA, 2006, CAGLIARI (ZAMBIA)
Cagliari seems to want to focus more and more on its Primavera, which is undervalued in relation to the size of the club, if we consider that in recent years it has produced many Serie A players. One above all Nicolò Barella, but also Murru, Deiola, Carboni, and slightly further back Francesco Pisano and Marco Sau. Names perhaps not prominent but nevertheless authors of a solid career in Serie A. And with the promotion of Fabio Pisacane from the Primavera to the first team, the Sardinian club seems to want to focus more on its “products”, and among these, in addition to Riyad Idrissi, there is also Joseph Liteta, who arrived in Cagliari in 2024 from Atletico Lusaka. The Zambian born in 2006 was immovable in Pisacane’s Primavera and the Neapolitan coach decided to promote him. He has already made two appearances, including one as a starter with Verona in October, and also made his debut with Zambia in the Africa Cup of Nations.
He can play midfielder or midfielder. He is not particularly tall (1.75) but makes up for it with his tactical intelligence as an already mature player, a factor particularly appreciated by Pisacane. He doesn’t have a particularly explosive first step, but he makes up for it with great resistance and above all great intensity put into play even in the space given by Pisacane against Verona, who praised him after the match. «Liteta is a boy I watched grow up, I needed his calm and cleanliness in the middle of the pitch from the start. He has a great future ahead.”
A video of Liteta when he was still a promising local player in Zambian football.
Liteta’s qualities are not just physical. The 19-year-old is very intelligent in his defensive readings, especially when it comes to having to protect the defense line, and is very precise when it comes to restarting the action. Quality in both phases that made him move to midfield in the Primavera, perhaps the most optimal role for future development in senior football. Pisacane is not afraid to let young people play. For now the results are proving him right, and it is likely that Liteta will find even more space in 2026.
JOÃO SIMÕES, 2007, SPORTING CP (PORTOGALLO)
Portuguese midfielders are generally divided into two categories. Small jars all technique practically infallible in the short game; huge cabinets designed only to destroy the opponent’s game. Moutinho and Vitinha are part of the first category, Danilo and Palhinha of the second. Joao Simoes has arrived to break this dichotomy, with a box-to-box midfielder game that is not entirely part of the Portuguese tradition. He is obviously a very technically gifted, left-footed player. His playing style, however, is rather vertical and based on ball-and-chain management, insertions and shots. He’s not very fast but he’s strong in duels, capable of jerks and sudden accelerations.
Last year he was already making his way into the first team, before a fractured metatarsal caused him to miss half the season. This year he resumed his involvement in Sporting. He is playing as a second midfielder in a 4-2-3-1 alongside a midfielder like Hjulmand, who holds his position and gives him plenty of freedom to move forward. The quality of his foot in the long and short game is remarkable. Simoes looks like the player the Premier League will be willing to cut a big check for.
IBRAHIM MBAYE, 2008, PSG (SENEGAL)
Ibrahim Mbaye came on half an hour from the end of Senegal-Congo and created panic. He didn’t accomplish anything, for goodness sake, but he seemed to be going at a different speed than everyone else. He can play on the left or right, as soon as he receives the ball he wants to dart towards the opponent’s goal. He has a low center of gravity, powerful legs, and is devastating on his first steps. Sometimes he goes so fast that he seems to struggle to stay upright. He has a good bag of tricks but he’s not Doué: he’s more direct. He trusts his speed a lot. In one against one not even a monster like Koundè was able to contain him.
He has a remarkable ability to kick and doesn’t mind finishing with his left foot. Once he reaches the trocar he is also good at phrasing in the narrow, at looking for spontaneous associations. In short: he is strong, very strong. Very strong even by the standard of this list made up of strong young people. We will have to see what his career choices will be, whether Luis Enrique will focus on him continuously or whether he will have to try to find playing time elsewhere. The PSG coach said he is already playing at a very very high level. He became the youngest player to play and win a UEFA Super Cup (a record that belonged to Ryan Giggs). Senegal, which he represents, is his father’s country, while his mother has Moroccan origins.
It’s actually been a while since a PSG phenomenon who grew up in the Ile de France came out, thanks.
YAN DIOMANDE, 2006, RB LIPSIA (COSTA D’AVORIO)
It’s January and Yan Diomandé already has 7 goals and 4 assists in 16 games and above all without even always being a starter. The young Ivorian, another talent on the wings of the African national team like Amad Diallo, arrived in the summer from Leganés for 20 million euros. An even high figure considering that Diomandé had played just ten games for the Spanish club, which was then relegated, but these were enough for Leipzig to believe in him.
Diomandé can play on both flanks, although his favorite side is clearly the right, where he has scored and made almost all the assists. There’s more to it than the numbers, and it’s the sense of threat that manages to bring the ball to his feet. He is by far the best dribbler in the Bundesliga and among the best in Europe this season. The numbers are remarkable: Diomandé completes 3 dribbles per game and overtakes his opponent in 58% of attempts. Not only that, he is also the second player in the Bundesliga for meters gained carrying the ball (the so-called progressive carries) and above all he is third for balls brought into the opponent’s penalty area.
Who knows, the Ivorian will be the protagonist of a big transfer as early as 2026.
MATTEO PALMA, 2008, UDINESE (GERMANY)
Udinese is not a team that usually focuses on young Italians, and theoretically this is not the case either, as Palma has an Italian father and in the past an Under-15 international, but at Under-16 and Under-17 level he has decided to represent his country of birth, Germany. However, something is changing in the Friulian club, and this is demonstrated both by the summer purchase of the promising goalkeeper Nunziante from Benevento and above all by the opportunities given to Palma, who at 17 has already had the opportunity to take the field in 4 Serie A matches this year, even as a starter against Sassuolo at the beginning of the season. A rarity at this age, especially in our league, but Runjaic seems to have confidence in him.
Palma has an imposing physique (1.94) which combines good agility but above all overflowing physical strength, perhaps the factor that has contributed most to making him ready for football at high levels. A quality that stands out even in a majestic team like Udinese. His physical strength, combined with a good first step, make him an aggressive back three on the direct marker. However, in the Italian Cup match against Juventus we saw the difficulty in choosing the timing of interventions, and in managing the one against Yildiz (of course).
To bring him to Udine the Friulians snatched him from Hertha Berlin’s academy, and in a defense that will probably lose Oumar Solet in the summer this year he is above all an apprenticeship for Palma. We don’t know whether Runjaic will still be there next year, who seems to particularly believe in him, but he is a player to keep an eye on both for this second part of the season and above all for next year, where he could establish himself among the starters.
OSKAR PIETUSZEWSKI, 2008, JAGIELLONIA (POLONIA)
Jagiellonia is not only Afimico Pululu, but from this year also Oskar Pietuszewski, who is still a minor and already plays in Europe. You see his thighs and understand what a player he is. Left winger who plays with inverted foot and dribbles a lot. He’s already playing and scoring a lot. He already has 4 goals in 4 appearances for the Polish Under-21 team. In Poland he is considered predestined, and in fact he is breaking all records for precocity and there is talk of him for important transfers (he has been linked to Porto, for example, and a potential transfer worth 11 million).
He dribbles too much, often lets the ball go too late (if you look at Jagiellonia there are often intransigent teammates around who scold him) and with his back to goal he still suffers from the physical pressure of his opponents. But when he turns he is not easy to stop: he has really lightning-fast changes of direction and when he aims for the goal he is dangerous. He has a really high mental intensity, which at times turns him into a frenetic and somewhat clumsy player.
A little one-dimensional, at this point in his development, and we will need to understand if he can become a more complex player than a winger who dribbles and comes in on the right. He has to improve a lot in the last step, for example. In the meantime, however, Poland seems to have truly found a treasure, given that Europe is not exactly full of players with these characteristics.
Besides Porto there are other teams interested: it is really difficult to imagine that Pietuszewski could spend 2026 in Poland.
ABDELHAMID AIT BOUDLAL, 2006, RENNES (MAROCCO)
For once a North African, Moroccan talent to fall in love with, who is not a dribble-maniac midfielder or a winger who only plays with a heel. Ait Boudlal is a right-footed central defender who has just started playing professionally: a handful of games last year with Amiens, in Ligue 2, a handful this year with Rennes, in Ligue 1. He has scored two goals and made one assist and had been starting a few games in a row before Regragui called him up for the Africa Cup of Nations. For the moment he hasn’t played a minute yet for the home team and favorites to win, but considering he turned 19 last summer it’s not bad.
Especially considering the delicate role. Ait Boudlal is 1.90 meters tall, slim and very technical, in fact he looks like any Moroccan midfielder, he anticipates using his sole and dribbles past the pressing attackers without a safety net behind him. When he sets, he does so with his head held high and almost always chooses the most difficult and ambitious passage to make. He loves to throw long by cutting the ball by the neck.
But he is skilled in ground duels (it goes without saying that he is very strong with his head) and often comes out of one-on-one duels with the ball at his feet. Physically he doesn’t seem to have fully developed yet but he is one of those defenders who reads the trajectories of the ball well and anticipates the opponent’s movements by going to the ball. There are videos on YouTube in which he wins tackles with the heel of his recall foot. He has no experience and it’s difficult to say what his maximum level is, but it costs nothing to dream. Considering that Leny Yoro (perhaps the profile most similar to his, although much more explosive) was paid 70 million by Manchester United after a season and a half with Lille, it will not be surprising if Ait Boudlal also attracts the attention of some big names next summer.
SAID EL MALA, 2006, COLONIA (GERMANIA)
About a month ago the Bundesliga dedicated a video to him on its YouTube channel with a rather emphatic title: “Said El Mala: the most exciting European talent?”. Last year he played in the third division, this year in 15 games for Cologne he scored 6 goals and made 3 assists. But it is come El Mala scored and made assists, or more generally come he has wreaked havoc on the left flank, making him one of the most exciting young talents in European football. If not, in fact, the most exciting of all.
Said El Mala looks like one of those fighting spinners that are launched with a kind of knurled plastic band. He starts straight, explosive, and once he starts he never slows down, with his socks high above his knees he also passes through a couple of opponents, with sudden and very fast changes of direction, using both feet like a basketball player who slips under the basket. If he scored or assisted every time the ball arrived near the penalty area, sometimes just a few meters from goal, he would already be in double figures in both statistics. Every now and then there is just no space left to pass the ball, or he takes the post, the goalkeeper saves, or he kicks out – because he always kicks with power, both right and left – or maybe it’s his teammate who makes the mistake, but sometimes it seems impossible to prevent him from reaching the end of his action.
He seems like a kind of Doku, just less technically clean, with the ball less glued to his foot, but even more vertical than the Belgian, with a stronger desire to kick on goal in his head. Against Augsburg he scored by kicking a mine under the crossbar, diagonally from the left where he likes to start, with a full neck; against Hoffenheim he slipped between two players and then missed a third at the height of the penalty spot, before bayoneting the goalkeeper with a low kick; against Werder Bremen he scored by mistake, with a shot deflected by the defender who caught the goalkeeper at the counter time. He also scored goals from pure and simple finishing, running in front of the defender, who was too fast. He always tries, he gets as far as he can.
El Mala, of a German mother and Lebanese father (a former defender), with a brother who is also a footballer (one year older and plays in Cologne’s second team), seems like the perfect product of German football: born to destroy the crumbling defenses of a championship that wants to consider itself as spectacular (and in a certain sense it is). How he would adapt to a different type of football is difficult to say, but there aren’t many who have the physical and technical qualities that he has at nineteen.
GABRIEL MEC, 2008, GREMIO (BRAZIL)
In Brazil it is still possible to see these still shapeless human beings playing, moving around the pitch with feeble energy, with the grace of someone who still resembles a child more than a man. Gabriel Mec drags himself with an incomprehensible lightness, as if his body were made of cream, and the air causes less friction.
In August a year and a half ago Chelsea tried to kidnap him from his cradle. He offered 24 million. Mec, who is assisted by Neymar’s father, has signed a contract renewal with Gremio. He already looks like a footballer: when he scores he puts his index fingers to his ears, as if he doesn’t want to listen to criticism. Lol. There is already quite a bit of noise, and therefore interest, around Mec. There are already some videos of him dribbling in training, published only if there is someone who can really engage. Once a week an article appears in the English press in which some journalist wonders whether it’s time to pick him up and secure him forever. What a strange historical moment: Brazilian football has more money than ever, but English football has so much, and with such a predatory mentality, that the best talents leave the country when they still don’t have a beard. The Under-17 World Cup risked being a decisive showcase for him, but Mec played little and didn’t shine – despite wearing number 10.
Mec’s technique is absolute: first control, body rotations, balancing in conduction. When he carries the ball he still keeps his head high in search of solutions, even if dribbling is always the first thing that comes to mind. He is creative, he can also use his left foot: when he is deployed on the right he uses his weak foot to return towards the center. In his first steps he isn’t exactly electric and for someone like his characteristics it could be a problem in a more physical championship: will his technical qualities be able to hide his possible physical limitations? Keeping him in the central area of the pitch could be wise and his future could be in a midfield role, if he manages to develop some physical quality. However, we are talking about one of the most technical young people in the world.
ABUBACARR SEDI KINTEH, 2006, TROMSO (GAMBIA)
Between the end of the 90s and the beginning of the 2000s Tromso was in the geography of European football, and forced opposing teams into one of the most difficult away games. In the following years, Tromso experienced an inexorable decline, until the relegations of 2013 and 2019. Since the last time, however, something seems to have changed, and this year Tromso finished the championship in third place, behind Bodo/Glimt and Viking.
And among the protagonists of this rebirth is the Gambian defender born in 2006 Abubacarr Sedi Kinteh, for whom in Norway they say that Tromso have already refused 5 million euros, which would have been the historic record for the Norwegian club. Arrived thanks to partnership between Tromso and the Senegalese Mawade Wade Academy, Kinteh immediately established himself as one of Tromso’s best players and almost immediately earned a call-up to Gambia. If they had qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations, Kinteh would almost certainly have seen him at work with his national team.
What kind of player is Kinteh? A fast centre-back, strong in body-to-body duels with attackers but with a quality left foot that allows him to set up the action from behind. The Gambian plays as a left-hander in Tromso with the freedom to break the line in order to go early and start transitions. Kinteh wins six duels per game in Eliteserien and with his aggressive game made of advances and gusts allows Tromso to always keep the line high and aggressive.
At least in Norway, Kinteh plays with a confidence that other 18-year-old center backs don’t have.
And if his high interceptions steal the eye, his real quality is with the ball at his feet. Kinteh is very good at executing line-cutting passes, and in fact he has 0.5 chances created per 90 minutes and above all 0.12 expected assist for 90 minutes. He is very good at carrying the ball, and is the best center back in the league for dribbles completed per game, 1.9, and completes them at an astonishing rate of 83%. It’s still Norwegian football, but these are all numbers indicative of its quality.
For now, Tromso has rejected all offers, convinced that they can count on a further growth in the Gambian centre-back’s valuation. And it seems like the right choice, even if due to the level and characteristics shown by Kinteh it is only a matter of time before he lands in the main European leagues. The feeling is that if you want to make a deal without spending excessive amounts, this is the right time.
