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Ryan O’Hanlon
Last year was not impressive.
When I initially began assessing the prospects of America’s leading, uh, talents a couple of years ago, it was promising. Two years prior, Joe Scally, Gio Reyna, Malik Tillman, Ricardo Pepi, and Yunus Musah were all included.
As time went on, they aged, and no one stepped up to fill their shoes. With those individuals in play, my leading tier for the under-21 rankings was termed «USMNT stars — and perhaps European stars, too.» By the previous year, that tier had no names. My secondary tier was labeled «Fringe USMNT starters, mid-tier European professionals» and surprise: that was also devoid of names! The first entry in the third tier was Kevin Paredes, who has scarcely featured in professional soccer since that article was published.
Much can evolve in a year — in either direction. So, has it done so? Have any new leading prospects emerged? Or will the top two tiers remain vacant for a second consecutive year? Though the U.S. men’s national team has ended its January camps — typically an opportunity for fringe players to vie for positions and the catalyst for this January list — it’s time to reevaluate the top players aged 21 or younger in the current player pool.
– Premier League standings forecast: How will all 20 teams conclude the season?
– What U.S. Soccer can achieve with a $100m influx
– January transfer evaluations: The major moves
Tier 1: USMNT luminaries — and potentially European talents, too
1. Noahkai Banks, 19, center back, Augsburg
Assessors of prospects are generally fixated on tools — what abilities do you possess that might translate to higher levels? I won’t claim that «tools» aren’t significant, but instead argue that pinpointing «tools» is quite challenging at the youth level, where competition and athleticism differ vastly from what is found in Europe’s top leagues. Moreover, even when identifying a player’s «tools,» grasping how these tools will transition to the elite level is notably difficult.
No one has truly mastered predicting the movement of senior players between leagues — or even between teams within the same league — and the transition from youth to professional is considerably more substantial.
I won’t provide a list of 16-year-olds who might become the next USMNT star, since until a player commences playing professional matches, the variability in outcomes is far too broad to justify such attempts. Americans populate the youth systems of nearly every major club globally, and this is likely to yield a few that eventually become USMNT fixtures, but the chances of any particular player becoming a USMNT or European standout are slim.
Instead, my focus is primarily on players who engage in the one activity that forecasts future success: playing high-level professional soccer at a young age. Currently, there is one American doing just that: Augsburg’s Noahkai Banks. This 19-year-old center back has already accrued 1257 Bundesliga minutes, while no other American under 21 has played even 300 minutes in a Big Five league. Among all players in the Big Five leagues, irrespective of nationality, only eight players aged 18 or younger at the season’s start have surpassed Banks in terms of playing time.
Furthermore, these are the only American players who had accumulated more minutes in a Big Five league by the conclusion of their age-18 season than Banks has currently:
• Christian Pulisic
• Yunus Musah
• Gio Reyna
• Joe Scally
• Weston McKennie
If he maintains his current trajectory, Banks will finish the year with more minutes than all except for Pulisic, Musah, and Reyna. Plus, he’s excelling at a position where players typically reach their peak later in their careers.
Augsburg currently sits just two points above the relegation zone in the Bundesliga, but they have performed considerably better when Banks is on the pitch. It wouldn’t surprise me if he earned a spot on the World Cup roster, and it wouldn’t astonish me if he actually participated in the World Cup matches.
Tier 2: Fringe USMNT starters, mid-tier European professionals
2. Alex Freeman, 21, fullback, Orlando City
At American Soccer Analysis, they utilize a more sophisticated version of Stats Perform’s expected possession value. This model rewards players for their actions with the ball and how that enhances their team’s chances of scoring, but it also acknowledges players for receiving passes and undertaking actions that lessen their team’s risk of conceding.
According to this model, termed Goals Added (G+), Alex Freeman just enjoyed the finest season for a fullback in MLS since 2012, the earliest year for which the G+ dataset is available.
In other terms: one could argue that Freeman represents the best fullback MLS has ever produced, and he won’t turn 22 until after the World Cup. It’s quite likely he’ll be competing in one of Europe’s Big Five leagues by this time next year.
So why was he absent from last year’s list? He had logged a mere 11 professional minutes prior to the last season. Projecting development is incredibly challenging.
Tier 3: Can they thrive in Europe?
3. Caleb Wiley, fullback, 21, Chelsea
4. Damion Downs, forward, 21, Hamburg
5. Cole Campbell, winger, 19, Hoffenheim
6. Benjamin Cremaschi, midfielder, 20, Parma
These players all seem less thrilling than some of those we’ll encounter in the subsequent tier. However, despite the enhancements MLS has made, there’s still a significant gap between playing for Real Salt Lake and Real Sociedad, Real Betis, and Real Madrid. Therefore, I favor those players who have made the transition to Europe, even if they’ve since stagnated.
Caleb Wiley accumulated considerable minutes as a teenager in MLS, but he never quite matched the level that Freeman showcased. Moreover, it’s not a positive sign that Chelsea loaned him out to Watford instead of their unofficial development team, Strasbourg. Additionally, it’s not encouraging that they’ve decided to terminate his loan early and bring him back to Stamford Bridge this month. It seems unlikely he will feature much, if at all, for the remainder of the season.
Damion Downs joined Southampton over the summer, saw limited action in the Championship, and is now back on loan at Bundesliga, currently with Hamburg. Wiley and Banks are the only 21-and-under Americans who have outplayed Downs in Big Five career minutes — though that total stands at only 251. Nonetheless, he started his first game back with Hamburg last week, so that number is likely to grow.
Cole Campbell is fourth on that list for Big Five minutes with … 36 minutes. Admittedly, he’s only 19 and plays for a significantly stronger parent club than these others. We will see if his loan to Hoffenheim for the remainder of this season leads to increased playing time.
Benjamin Cremaschi secured the Golden Boot at the Under-20 World Cup last fall, yet he has played merely 19 total minutes and completed three passes since joining Parma over the summer.
Tier 4: Alright fine, this 16-year-old makes the cut
7. Cavan Sullivan, attacking midfielder, 16, Philadelphia Union
Previously, I declined to include Cavan Sullivan on the list because there’s minimal correlation between being the top 15-year-old soccer player and becoming the best 24-year-old soccer player. The research on youth development, in fact, seems quite clear regarding this aspect: athletes who specialize at a later age often reach the highest ceilings, whereas those who shine in their teens at a single activity may plateau.
This isn’t to imply that Sullivan can’t or won’t rise to stardom, but rather that a lot will change over the upcoming five years, much less the next decade.
Since we conducted this ranking last, however, Sullivan has made 11 appearances for one of MLS’ stronger teams. Among all leagues in the Stats Perform database, only one player aged 16 or younger, Leicester City’s Jeremy Monga, has accumulated more professional minutes than Sullivan’s 449.
Tier 5: Young goalkeepers at major clubs who rarely play
8. Gaga Slonina, goalkeeper, 21, Chelsea
9. Diego Kochen, goalkeeper, 19, Barcelona
Gaga Slonina last participated in a league match on Oct. 22 … of 2024. And Diego Kochen last appeared in a league game — just kidding, he has yet to log a single minute as a professional.
Simultaneously, evaluating goalkeepers across the same timeline as outfield players poses challenges, as only one keeper can participate in a match.
Slonina did amass significant playtime in MLS prior to his move to Chelsea at age 18, where he then gained various minutes on loan for a season and a half at Belgian club Eupen and later Barnsley in England’s second tier. He remains only 21, and most starting keepers in the Big Five leagues and beyond are considerably older.
Kochen, on the other hand, had received numerous call-ups to Barcelona‘s matchday lineups, which is of some value anyway, yet that has not transpired at all this season. Still, he is 19 — quite some time away from when most keepers become starters in a prominent European league.
There’s a scenario where both could emerge as starters in the Champions League; conversely, there’s also a scenario where neither makes a significant impact on the USMNT at any time. Therefore, I’m placing them both squarely in the middle of the rankings.
Tier 6: Can they ascend?
10. Rokas Pukstas, midfielder, 21, Hadjuk Split
11. Quinn Sullivan, winger, 21, Philadelphia Union
12. Luca Bombino, fullback, 19, San Diego FC
13. Peyton Miller, fullback, 18, New England Revolution
14. Zavier Gozo, winger, 18, Real Salt Lake
15. Joshua Wynder, center back, 20, Benfica
Rokas Pukstas seems poised for a breakthrough — of some sort. He has been securing good minutes with a solid team that has a credible youth development track record for a few years now. He may transition to a Big Five league, land in the Eredivisie or the Belgian Pro League, or end up in MLS. Nothing would surprise me.
Quinn Sullivan holds the record for most career goals and assists among players eligible for this list. Regrettably, he suffered an ACL tear back in September.
Additionally, Luca Bombino, Peyton Miller, Zavier Gozo, and Joshua Wynder were all part of the under-20 World Cup squad.
I’ve placed Bombino the highest because young players who effectively progress the ball tend to become solid professionals, and he ranked in the 93rd percentile for progressive passes among MLS fullbacks last season. Miller is younger, more athletic, and has accumulated more career minutes than Bombino. Gozo had substantial activity as an attacker in his age-17 MLS season, while Wynder hardly features for Benfica, but would undoubtedly have racked up plenty of minutes at center back in MLS had he not moved to Portugal two years ago. He played nearly 3,000 minutes in the USL before turning 19.
As always, this tier concludes with a much more arbitrary cutoff than the others. There are numerous additional players who could easily fit into this segment but are excluded because I limit the list to 15 annually. In fact, this tier (if we were to expand it) is more likely to yield a USMNT starter than our third or fourth tiers, but many in this tier may not progress as far as those in the third or fourth tiers have.
Such are the intricacies of youth development: Nothing fundamentally alters in the world, yet the composition of the list shifts every year.
