It was just a few short weeks ago that Juventus forward Kenan Yildiz was all styled up, rocking a slick Armani suit and pulling up to the Ballon d’Or ceremony in Paris. While Yildiz didn’t win the Kopa
Trophy, the simple fact that a player who is still months away from turning 21 years old has gone from barely playing for the senior squad at this point of the season two years ago to now one of the best players in his age group is a testament to the talent he has already shown to have.
On Wednesday, Yildiz was put forward for another one of the biggest awards a young player in football can receive.
For the second year in a row, Yildiz has been included in the 25-man shortlist for the Golden Boy award, the annual honor handed out by Tuttosport for the best player under the age of 21 in the European game. Yildiz is included in a field that also has the likes of Paris Saint-Germain’s Desire Doué, Turkiye teammate and Real Madrid midfielder Arda Güler as well as former Juventus teammate (and one of his best friends) Dean Huijsen, who made the big move from Bournemouth to Real Madrid this past summer.
Young Inter Milan striker Francesco Pio Esposito and Liverpool defender Giovanni Leoni were part of the five-player wild card list to go along with the original 20-player list.
Last year’s winner was Lamine Yamal — who also took home the Kopa Trophy last month — after his otherworldly 2024-25 season with Barcelona. Lamal, like other Golden Boy winners, are not eligible for the award once they have won it.
Yildiz is in the midst of a start to the 2025-26 season in which he has recorded nine goal contributions for club and country. After a pair of relatively quiet games for his already high standard going into the international break, Yildiz went and scored three goals in Turkiye’s two fixtures, wins over Bulgaria and Georgia in World Cup qualifyng.
It’s just further evidence of how Yildiz’s stock only continues to rise — and how he’s now firmly entrenched as one of the best young players in the world. And he just so happens to be wearing a Juventus jersey.
Then again, that’s not breaking news that he is such a talent and force to be reckoned with. He’s shown that to be the case during his quick rise through the Juventus youth setup, going from the primavera to Next Gen squads in virtually no time, and making his first team debut a little more than a year after arriving from Bayern Munich. (And, thanks to Max Allegri, getting a haircut shortly thereafter.)
We’re still less than two full years since Yildiz’s first senior team goal against Frosinone, the kind of glimpse into the future of what things will look like as he got a little more experience under his belt. And even as there’s been a pair of managerial changes going on over the past year and a half, Yildiz has only continued to show that he’s a vital piece to the Juventus puzzle, with multiple contract extensions — and hopefully one more to come soon — showing how much the club knows they need to keep ahold of one of their best assets for the long term.
No matter where he finishes in the Golden Boy voting later this year, it only further cements what we already know about Yildiz — he’s a budding star that is still so, so young and with so much more room to grow.
