The Wonderkid Power Rankings: future Chelsea star shines in stellar week for young talent

Welcome back to our weekly Wonderkid Power Rankings, 3 Added Minutes’ ranking of the ten best young players in the world right now – based not just on their talent and skill but on how they’re playing right now.

And it’s been a huge week for the game’s young guns, with shedloads of goals and some absolutely stunning performances to pour over. Since we started putting these lists together, this might be the most quality we’ve seen from a top ten. The world’s under-21s have been putting on a show for us. So without further ado, let’s jump right in and see who came out on top…

10. Eduardo Camavinga – Real Madrid (re-entry)

Camavinga ended last season on the very top of the pile, but slipped out of the top ten entirely after a quiet campaign which has seen him bouncing between bench and pitch without making much of a mark – but the Frenchman had his best week yet with two big games against Braga and Barcelona.

He was quite brilliant in the Champions League, with a 97% pass completion rate and more successful tackles (a remarkable seven) than turnovers for the opposition – which it’s fair to say is a very rare achievement indeed. Had he not been on the field, it’s fair to say Real wouldn’t have run out 2-1 winners – and that could be said of his substitute showing in El Clásico too. Real were losing when Camavinga came on but it all came together once he was on the field. He lost the ball just once in 40 minutes of action and didn’t misplace a single pass as Real sorted their act out and turned it around against their greatest rivals.

9. Alejandro Balde – Barcelona (⬇️ from 5)

The Spanish left-back was second in the rankings a couple of weeks back, but has plunged down our listings after a week he’ll probably prefer to forget, and while Balde won’t take too much of the blame for Barça’s derby defeat to Real – but he didn’t make much of a difference, either.

Balde’s week began with a forgettable 20-minute cameo in Barcelona’s 2-1 Champions League win over Shakhtar Donetsk and ended with a pretty supine showing at Lluis Companys. He did the basic tidily enough, but failed to make any kind of impact going forward down the left flank and didn’t make a single tackle, block or interception across the entire game.

8. Gavi – Barcelona (⬇️ from 3)

Many of the comments on Balde apply to Gavi, too – they’ve both been brilliant this season, but neither really managed to get their teeth into Real over the course of a hard-fought game. Still, Gavi was one of the more effective players for the home side, using the ball well and getting involved all over the midfield, even if he wasn’t able to contribute as much as he so often does in the final third.

He was rested in the Champions League, too, so we just have to chalk this one down as a mildly disappointing week for a player who’s been excellent for some time now. Normally, we wouldn’t catapult him or Balde quite so far down the ladder for one very slight dip in form – but everyone else was just that good.

7. Warren Zaïre-Emery – Paris Saint-Germain (re-entry)

It takes a special talent to break into the PSG first team at the age of just 17, and Zaïre-Emery showed off every ounce of his precocity against both AC Milan and Brest over the past seven days, starting with a remarkable display of midfield generalship in the Champions League when he worked the Milanese midfield over and wound up with assists for both Kylian Mbappé and Lee Kang-In.

But the real cherry on top of a brilliant week’s work was his stunning goal in Ligue 1, outmuscling his marker against Brest before unleashing a fearsome 20-yard driver into the top corner. An all-action midfielder who’s strong in defence, great with the ball at his feet, a fine passer and can score the occasional screamer as well – god alone knows how good he’ll be by the time he’s a grown adult.

6. Joško Gvardiol – Manchester City (⬇️ from 4)

Gvardiol can feel rather hard done by to be shoved out of the top five after an impressive performance against Manchester United, but that’s just a reflection of how good this week’s best have been – the Croatian was superb again in the Manchester derby, snuffing out attacks left, right and centre and never being beaten for strength, speed or awareness.

He also got a few testing forays down the left flank in while putting Bruno Fernandes on ice for large periods of the game – it was another quality display of strong defending and good, progressive work on the ball. A heck of a player, who seems to have been almost custom-built for Pep Guardiola.

5. Xavi Simons – RB Leipzig (⬆️ from 10)

Simons finally put a couple of quiet weeks behind him with a stellar display in Leipzig’s 6-0 thrashing of 1.FC Köln, picking up two assists in a game in which he ran the show from behind the forwards, teeing up a string of big chances and creating a few for himself – and really, the only bad thing you can say about his showing was that he didn’t get a goal despite working up an xG of 0.53. Still, he got on the scoresheet against Crvena Zvezda in the Champions Legaue, a stunning 25-yard strike curled with power into the corner of the goal.

It’s no coincidence that his sudden upturn in form follows manager Marco Rose’s decision to put him back into the number ten position after he spent several matches marginalised by an unfamiliar role on the wing. A life lesson there – if you have an incredibly good player, just play where he’s incredibly good.

4. Kendy Páez – Independiente del Valle (⬆️ from 6)

The 16-year-old Ecuadorian has already agreed to join Chelsea in a couple of years’ time – and my word have they got a gem on their hands. Kendry scored for the third game in a row, this time against Deportivo Cuenca, racing onto a through ball and cooly standing up the goalkeeper before slotting into an empty net.

He’s lightning fast, has mazy dribbling skills, remarkable close control, and probably should have an assist from one of his pinpoint through balls. He even gets back to join in defence effectively, too. The sky really does seem to be the limit for an absolutely exceptional talent.

3. Florian Wirtz – Bayer Leverkusen (⬆️ from 7)

In a normal week, the gloriously gifted German playmaker would have done enough to earn the number one spot. This simply wasn’t a normal week. Wirtz got the ball rolling in suitably ridiculous fashion in the 5-1 Europa League win over Qarabağ, picking up now fewer than three assists and slotting home the opening goal in a masterful display – but the best was yet to come.

Leverkusen stayed top of the Bundesliga with a 2-1 win over Freiburg and Wirtz got the ball rolling again with a magnificent goal, sending two defenders for a loop before sitting one down and slamming the ball across goal and into the side netting from a narrow angle – all before teeing up Jonas Hoffman for his side’s second. An unbelievable week for one of the most aesthetically-pleasing players in the game.

2. Jamal Musiala – Bayern Munich (non-mover)

Another young player playing at an amazing level who could easily be number one in a more just world – Musiala was on the scoresheet three times this week as he finally got two starts in a row under Thomas Tuchel. The German press had been reporting that he was unsatisfied with the amount of time he’s been spending on the bench of late, but he took his chance with both hands this week.

First up was Galatasaray in the Champions League, with Musiala sliding a shot home from just outside the area to put Bayern 3-1 up, and then came the extraordinary match against Darmstadt 98 – a match which stood at 0-0 at half-time with three red cards shown wound up as an 8-0 thrashing, with Musiala bagging two, sweeping one in from 18 yards out through a crowd of defenders then later playing a lovely one-two to get in behind the Darmstadt defence for his second. A superb showing.

1. Jude Bellingham – Real Madrid (non-mover)

There’s nothing left to say about Bellingham, really. Any attempts to discuss him quickly fall into breathless cliché. Having failed to find the net for one whole week, he was right back to his very best both in front of goal and everywhere else on the field, and the vicious strike with which he equalised against Barcelona will go down in Clásico folklore.

Throw in the eventual winner from close range and what turned out to be the decisive goal against Braga and there’s really nothing more to add. Bellingham was awarded the Kopa Trophy for the best young player in the world yesterday, and there’s simply no basis on which to disagree with that assessment, this week or any other. At 20 years of age, he’s already Real’s most important player, the man who won the biggest game in Spanish football, and shows no signs of slowing down in the slightest.