After seeing Kenan Yildiz named to the list of Golden Boy award finalists for the past two years, a different Juventus teenager is now taking over that distinction as the Bianconeri’s representative amongst some of the best young players in the game today.
From off his big summer move from Germany to Italy and more specifically Juventus, Bosnian teenager Kerim Alajbegović has been included in the 25-player list of finalists for the annual Golden Boy award. The Tuttosport-hosted award has long been the gold
standard for naming the best player under the age of 21 in the European game, with a handful of Juve players prior to both Yildiz and Alajbegović being included in the list in previous years.
Alajbegović is one of three Serie A players to be included in the list, with Roma’s own talented summer signing, Rodrigo Mora, also being named to the 25-player list of potential honorees. Fiorentina playmaker Franco Mastantuono, on loan from Real Madrid, is also part of the group of Golden Boy finalists.
Neither are expected to win but it very much is a nice thing to see happen for a player Juventus have very high hopes for — including his manager, Luciano Spalletti, who will be relying on the young Bosnian until Yildiz returns from injury at some point next month or early December.
The entire 25-player list of finalists is as follows:
- Pau Cubarsí (Barcelona)
- Ayyoub Bouaddi (Manchester City)
- Warren Zaire-Emery (PSG)
- Yan Diomande (Real Madrid)
- Luka Vuskovic (Brighton)
- Victor Froholdt (Porto)
- Myles Lewis-Skelly (Arsenal)
- Rayan (Bournemouth)
- Jorrel Hato (Chelsea)
- Lennart Karl (Bayern Munich)
- Estevao (Chelsea)
- Endrick (Real Madrid)
- Junior Kroupi (Bournemouth)
- Gianluca Prestianni (Benfica)
- Konstantinos Karetsas (Borussia Dortmund)
- Said El Mala (Koln)
- Jon Martin (Real Sociedad)
- Marc Bernal (Barcelona)
- Kerim Alajbegović (Juventus)
- Finn Jeltsch (Stuttgart)
- Charalampos Kostoulas (Brighton)
- Joane Gadou (Borussia Dortmund)
- Franco Mastantuono (Fiorentina)
- Rodrigo Mora (Roma)
- Xavi Espart (Barcelona)
Pretty good list to be a part of, right? Yep, think so.
Alajbegović has been getting a whole lot of praise lately — be it from Spalletti in multiple interviews, from new Juve CEO Giovanni Carnevali or the former Bianconeri midfielder and fellow Bosnian who played a key role in him signing in Turin rather than heading to the Premier League, Miralem Pjanic. And while we certainly don’t have the same kind of amount of time watching Alajbegović in bianconero as we do with somebody like Yildiz, it’s been pretty easy to see what this young man is capable of during his short time in Turin.
And, like Yildiz when he was still a teenager, now we get to see what his upward trajectory looks like over these next few months and well beyond that.
The Golden Boy award will be announced in November. Barcelona star Lamine Yamal and Paris Saint-Germain’s Désiré Doué have won the award the last two seasons.
