MATT BARLOW: The teenage sensations hurtling along the fast track… future Real Madrid star is spearheading Palmeiras’ title charge, while ‘complete midfielder’ is PSG’s ‘diamond’
- Football is preparing for the next generation of international superstars
- A Brazilian set to play for Real Madrid and a PSG midfielder are showing class
- Why we should get excited about Cole Palmer – Listen here to It’s All Coming Up
Brace yourselves for the week of the wonder kids in international football. Endrick, who will join Real Madrid from Palmeiras next year, is the youngest player called into Brazil’s senior squad since Ronaldo in 1993.
Closer to home, Warren Zaire-Emery of Paris Saint-Germain will take Eduardo Camavinga’s record as France’s youngest post-war international if he makes his debut this week against Gibraltar or Greece.
Both are 17, born in 2006 and hurtling along the fastest of fast tracks.
They would qualify for the U17 World Cup, now under way in Indonesia, but they are long since beyond that level.
Endrick broke into the Palmeiras first team last year and his performances have matured under boss Abel Ferreira to the point where he is spearheading their latest title challenge, and excelling against the best teams in Brazil.
Future Real Madrid man Endrick (L) and PSG’s Warren Zaire-Emery are two future superstars
Mail Sport’s Matt Barlow outlines why the two talents are being so highly rated so early on
The young centre forward inspired a spectacular fightback earlier this month with two goals and an assist as they came from three down against title rivals Botafogo to win 4-3 in the 99th minute.
He scored the only goal against Athletico Paranaense three days later and scored another in a 3-0 win against Internacional.
Real Madrid agreed a deal worth up to £52.5million last year for Endrick to join them when he is 18, in July, although there could be a delay if he secures a place in the Brazil squad for the Copa America tournament in the United States.
‘A player who has the potential to be one of the great talents,’ said Brazil boss Fernando Diniz as he called him up for World Cup qualifiers against Colombia and Argentina. ‘It’s not pressure, it’s a reward and a future vision of what this kid can be.’
His debut is thought to be more likely against Colombia, although there will be symbolism if he makes his debut against Argentina, like Pele and Ronaldo.
Brazil starlet Endrick is leading the charge for Palmeiras with some spectacular displays
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Zaire-Emery, a central midfielder, has also burst into his club side and proved impossible to leave out.
Further evidence, if required, that teenagers will have developmental surges and, if the road is clear, they can make spectacular progress in no time at all, rising to every new challenge and improving with better players around them.
PSG sold a 30-year-old Marco Verratti to Al Arabi in Saudi Arabia, enabling Luis Enrique to let the teenager he calls his ‘diamond’ sparkle.
He is an exceptional prospect, even in a nation like France with its prolific talent factories.
France boss Didier Deschamps claims Zaire-Emery’s promotion from the Under-21s is not a direct result of an injury to Aurelien Tchouameni. ‘Everything is moving very fast for him but he has the ability to take on these responsibilities,’ said Deschamps, who won 103 caps, most of them in a midfield with Zinedine Zidane, and ought to be a good judge.
‘There are players who can be mature at 30 and others who get there younger. He is a complete midfielder at his age. He should be able to express that with the France senior team.’
Zaire-Emery is already seen as a ‘diamond’ and a ‘complete midfielder’ at the age of just 17
There have always been teenage sensations, from Duncan Edwards and Pele to Wayne Rooney and Diego Maradona.
Sometimes, however, football in 2023 does feel more than ever like a young man’s sport.
Lamine Yamal is in the Spain squad having scored on his international debut in September aged 16 years and 57 days, breaking a record set by Gavi only two years earlier. At 19, Gavi has 25 caps.
Sixteen-year-old Kendry Paez is another who could be at the U17 World Cup but is already part of Ecuador’s senior squad. There are more.
Look at Chelsea to see how the value of potential drives the Premier League transfer market while established stars in their 30s turn to Saudi Arabia and the US to preserve their earning power.
Lamine Yamal (L) and Gavi are two of Barcelona’s brightest talents at the Nou Camp
Market forces meet sophisticated talent-identification software, advanced training and medical facilities and modern elite coaching.
Albeit still with random chance in play because players will always need the opportunity and the threat of injury lurks.
At Tottenham, there is great excitement about the progress of Mikey Moore, who turned 16 in August and has produced some outstanding performances since resisting attempts to lure him away from the club in the summer.
He scored three for England U17s in a 5-1 win against Croatia on Thursday, and it will be interesting to see if injuries at Spurs will accelerate the development curves of him and others.
Leo Snowden became Oxford United’s youngest ever player when he made his debut in a 5-0 win against Chelsea U21s in the Bristol Street Motors Trophy. Snowden was 15 years and 157 days.
He takes the record from Louis Griffiths, who was 16 and two days on debut in the same competition against Northampton in September. Exciting times at the League One club’s academy, where Robbie Fowler’s son Jacob is also a scholar.
Perhaps the antidote to the wonderkid clamour is 35-year-old Argentinian striker German Cano, voted the best player of the Copa Libertadores after leading Brazil’s Fluminense to the title, beating Boca Juniors in the final.
He scored 13 in a dozen games in South America’s elite club competition, and his reward will be to spearhead the team at the Club World Cup next month.
Cano, with a journeyman career through 10 clubs, has never received a call-up for his national team. He went to the Qatar World Cup as a fan, and named his daughter Leonella in homage to Lionel Messi.
The antidote to the wonderkid is German Cano – who inspired Fluminense to the Copa Libertadores title
England scored 10 in their U17 World Cup opener against the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia on Saturday, less than 48 hours after a different England team scored five against Croatia in a qualifier for the U17 Euros.
All very confusing as the international youth ranks can be. Those at the World Cup are last season’s U17 crop, now actually U18s.
Also recording double figures on Saturday, Lyn in Norway, who won 10-1 against Fram Larvik and missed automatic promotion from the second tier by a single goal, pipped by Egersund who won 5-0 on the final day. Lyn go into the play-offs.
Hard to know what more Matt Taylor could have done at Rotherham. Appointed in October last year when popular boss Paul Warne left for Derby, he kept the Millers up on one of the smallest budgets in the Championship, then lost top scorer Chiedozie Ogbene to Luton.
He was sacked yesterday, after a 5-0 defeat at Watford with his team 22nd, four points behind Huddersfield above them. Panic reigns in the lower reaches of the second tier and the spectre of an out-of-work Neil Warnock looms large.
Taylor is the seventh managerial dismissal in the Championship this season, including the bottom four and Birmingham, who are dropping fast.
It’s difficult to think what more Matt Taylor could have done after being axed by Rotherham
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