Top 100 Young Players in World Football, 2010 (Don Balon)

Here on Just Football we like to keep a keen eye on youth talent in football and emerging young stars of the game, as we did at the Under-20 World Cup in 2009 and the Under-19 European Championships in France earlier this year. So it was with great interest that we pored over highly respected Spanish magazine Don Balon’s most recent, eagerly anticipated Top 100 Young Players List for 2010. To meet Don Balon’s criteria all players listed had to be born after January 1st 1989 (21 or under on January 1st 2010) and, of course, pretty decent with a ball at their feet.

Without dressing it up too much here is the list, in alphabetical order:

Top 100:

Dominic Adiyiah (Reggina)
Toby Alderweireld (Ajax)
Hamdan Al Kamali (Al Wahda)
Jano Ananidze (Spartak Moscow)
Andre Ayew (Marseille)
Khouma Babacar (Fiorentina)
Holger Badstuber (Bayern)
Gareth Bale (Tottenham)
Mario Balotelli (Manchester City)
Ben Sahar (Hapoel Tel Aviv)
Bojan (FC Barcelona)
Bo-Kyung Kim (Oita Trinita)
Ryad Boudebouz (Sochaux)
Dedryck Boyata (Manchester City)
Breno (Bayern Munich)
Sergio Canales (Real Madrid)
Mehdi Carcela-Gonzalez (Standard)
Luc Castaignos (Feyenoord)
Diego Contento (Bayern Munich)
Phillippe Coutinho (Inter)
David De Gea (Atletico Madrid)
Alvaro Domínguez (Atletico Madrid)
Giovanni Dos Santos (Tottenham)
Douglas Costa (Shakhtar Donetsk)
Alan Dzagoev (CSKA Moscow)
Gueïda Fofana (Le Havre)
Paulo Henrique Ganso (Santos)
Giuliano (Internacional)
Maxime Gonalons (Lyon)
Mario Götze (Borussia Dortmund)
Antoine Griezmann (Real Sociedad)
Eden Hazard (Lille)
Jordan Henderson (Sunderland)
Markus Henriksen (Rosenborg)
Abel Hernández (Palermo)
Ander Herrera (Real Zaragoza)
Lewis Holtby (Mainz 05)
James Rodriguez (Porto)
Stefan Jovetic (Fiorentina)
Vaclav Kadlec (Sparta Prague)
Shinji Kagawa (Dortmund)
Gael Kakuta (Chelsea)
Alan Kardec (Benfica)
Simon Kjaer (Wolfsburg)
Maksim Koval (Dinamo Kiev)
Ismail Köybasi (Besiktas)
Toni Kroos (Bayern)
Manuel Lanzini (River Plate)
Adem Ljajic (Fiorentina)
Dejan Lovren (Lyon)
Romelu Lukaku (Anderlecht)
Lukman Haruma (Monaco)
Federico Macheda (Manchester United)
Guido Marilungo (Sampdoria)
Marko Marin (Werder Bremen)
Emmanuel Mayuka (Young Boys)
Thomas Müller (Bayern)
Iker Muniain (Athletic Bilbao)
Marc Muniesa (FC Barcelona)
Ezequiel Muñoz (Palermo)
Yann M’vila (Rennes)
Tomas Necid (CSKA Moscow)
Neymar (Santos)
Sotiris Ninis (Panathinaikos)
Nikolas N’Koulou (Monaco)
Javier Pastore (Palermo)
Alexandre Pato (Milan)
Pablo Piatti (Almería)
Miralem Pjanic (Lyon)
Rafael da Silva (Manchester United)
Yaroslav Rakytskiy (Shakhtar)
Renan Diego (Cruzeiro)
Marco Reus (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
Emmanuel Rivière (Saint-Etienne)
Jack Rodwell (Everton)
Jose Rondón (Málaga)
Victor Ruiz (Espanyol)
Mamadou Sakho (PSG)
Davide Santon (Inter)
Georgy Shennikov (CSKA Moskow)
Xherdan Shaqiri (Basel)
Harmeet Singh (Valerenga)
Moussa Sissoko (Toulouse)
Robin Soder (IFK Göteborg)
Miroslav Stoch (Fenerbahçe)
Yannis Tafer (Toulouse)
Thiago (FC Barcelona)
Lacina Traoré (CFR Cluj)
Ricky Van Wolfswinkel (Utrecht)
Carlos Vela (Arsenal)
Jelle Vossen (Genk)
Ante Vukusic (Hadjuk Split)
Theo Walcott (Arsenal)
Vladimir Weiss (Rangers)
Georginio Wijnaldum (Feyenoord)
Jack Wilshere (Arsenal)
Danny Wilson (Liverpool)
Siyanda Xulu (Mamelodi Sundowns)
Andriy Yarmolenko (Dinamo Kiev)
Sercan Yildirim (Bursaspor)

Players are listed for the clubs they are playing at at the time the list was compiled so, for example, Dominic Adiyiah is listed as a Reggina player despite only being there on loan.

Over the course of the coming days and weeks on Just Football, and throughout November, we are going to be bringing you a series of articles focussing on youth football, player development, academies and the young prospects you need to know about. We have some fantastic guest posts in the pipeline, and we’ll also be looking at some of the players on this list in greater detail.

If you are interested in reading about all this and more and would like to keep updated please do follow Just Football on Twitter , subscribe to receive free updates via email or RSS and/or like us on Facebook. Whichever you prefer. Oh, and do your bit for good old-fashioned tradition as well – tell your friends!

Dominic Adiyiah, Gael Kakuta, Gareth Bale, Giuliano, Good Player Guide, Iker Muniain, Javier Pastore, Marc Muniesa, Mario Balotelli, Mario Goetze, Miralem Pjanic, Neymar, Romelu Lukaku, Thiago Alcantara, Xherdan Shaqiri, Youth Football