Lamine Yamal has won the Golden Boy award after a starring role for club and country in 2024.
The award is given to the best under-21 footballer each year. At 17 years and 4 months, he also becomes the youngest-ever winner in the award’s history. The previous record was held Yamal’s Barcelona team-mate, Gavi, when he won in 2022 at the age of 18 years and 77 days.
Yamal enjoyed a breakout year for Barcelona making 50 appearances in all competitions for the club despite not turning 17 until July.
He then announced himself on the world stage with his performances for Spain at Euro 2024 in the summer, scoring once and adding four assists as he helped La Roja lift the trophy.
⭐ 𝐆𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐁𝐨𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 ⭐ pic.twitter.com/Sf3cQp8W4E
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) November 27, 2024
Since the award was first given to Rafael van der Vaart in 2003, the winners have included Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Erling Haaland and Wayne Rooney.
Yamal succeeds Jude Bellingham, the Real Madrid and England midfielder, who took home the award a year ago. The Spaniard will pick up the honour officially at a presentation ceremony in December.
The award, handed out by Italian newspaper Tuttosport, is voted for by a group of 50 journalists.
Yamal also picked up UEFA’s equivalent, the Kopa Trophy, last month.
There was double success for Barcelona with Vicky Lopez of Barcelona Feminin taking home the Golden Girl award.
‘A talent far beyond his years’
Analysis by Barcelona correspondent Laia Cervello Herrero
Watching Yamal at this summer’s European Championship, it was easy to forget how old he is.
The Spain and Barcelona winger turned 17 the day before the July 14 final against England, but the talent and intelligence he showed while playing with such expectation was unbefitting of a teenager.
Most players in Yamal’s position would likely get carried away with their newfound fame. Not Yamal, who during the tournament told radio station Cadena Cope: “I only have one friend; and my cousin, who is also my friend.”
Sources at the club had long promised there was a “brilliant” player from their La Masia academy, the likes of which they had not seen since Messi. That player, Yamal, made his first-team debut at 15 years and 290 days old in April last year, becoming the club’s youngest-ever La Liga player.
Yamal’s talent would make him a star anyway, but Barcelona supporters have also got carried away because of their desire to find their ‘New Messi’. That was heightened by the emergence of photos, which have now gone viral, of Messi with a baby Yamal in December 2007, fuelling the sense that the kid really was the ‘chosen one’.
The experiences of Ansu Fati and other young players at the club show why Barca cannot take too many risks. But talent like Yamal’s also can’t be contained, and he is already a key player for Barcelona, just as he is for Spain.
He has scored six goals and provided eight assists in 16 games so far this season. Perhaps tellingly, Barca have started three games without him in La Liga — against Osasuna in September and against Real Sociedad and Celta Vigo this month — and won none of them.
(Alex Caparros/Getty Images)
