Six Wonderkids Already Too Good to Keep Calling Wonderkids

Every season throws up a handful of teenagers and early-twentysomethings who stop being "promising" and start showing up as first names on the team sheet.

This year's crop is heavy on center-forward pedigree, packed with connections to two of Europe's best academies, and includes one transfer saga messy enough to leave three European giants empty-handed. 

Here are six players already forcing their way onto the main stage.

Jérémy Jacquet — Liverpool (centre-back)

Rennes's academy has now been excellent for almost a decade, and Jacquet is its latest export. He came through the Bondy-born pipeline via Joinville and Rennes's own youth system, spent a loan year at Clermont in Ligue 2, then got recalled early after his parent club paid nearly a million euros to cut the loan short.

Liverpool beat Chelsea to his signature for £60m in a deal agreed in February and finalised in July, with Jamie Carragher calling him "the real deal" before he'd kicked a ball in England.

[Courtesy - French Football]

Nine months later, that verdict already looks conservative. Against Nottingham Forest, Jacquet won nine of ten one-on-one duels, forced four turnovers, made three interceptions, and threw in a last-ditch block that stopped Igor Jesus from scoring at Anfield. 

He's 21, already first-choice alongside Virgil van Dijk, and Liverpool might’ve thought it would take at least half a year for him to settle in properly, but it looks like the Virgil van Dijk succession plan has just been fast-forwarded.

Konstantinos Karetsas — Borussia Dortmund (attacking midfield)

Genk's academy recently produced the attack-minded Bilal El Khannouss; Karetsas might end up the bigger sale. 

Born in Genk to a Greek family that emigrated to Belgium in 1970, he made his debut at 16, became the youngest goalscorer in Belgian pro-league history, and then delivered a genuinely absurd breakout campaign: 49 appearances, three goals, 14 to 18 assists depending on which competition you count, and a Europa League run to the last 16 where he set up the winner against Freiburg. 

Only Michael Olise, Luis Díaz, Bruno Fernandes and fellow Greek international Christos Tzolis created more across Europe's top ten leagues last season.

[Courtesy - UEFA]

Dortmund paid Genk a club-record fee to get him this summer, and he scored an assist on his Bundesliga debut against Hamburg before Guirassy had even broken a sweat. Switched his international allegiance from Belgium to Greece, where his great-grandfather was from, and is already a regular starter for his country at 18.

Yan Diomande — Real Madrid (right wing)

This one got ugly before it settled down. Diomande spent last summer telling anyone who'd listen that PSG were his boyhood club, agreed personal terms on a five-year deal, and left Liverpool's €100m bid gathering dust after RB Leipzig rejected it. 

Arsenal and Manchester City also made calls, but got nowhere. Then, days before he was due to fly to Paris for a medical, PSG walked away entirely, releasing a statement saying Leipzig's asking price and his salary demands were "completely disproportionate and distortive." 

Real Madrid, who'd already had two bids knocked back, swooped in within days, agreed a fee, and made him the most expensive African footballer in history. Liverpool and PSG were both approached again once the Madrid deal stalled over add-on structures; both said no, convinced he'd already made up his mind.

The football underneath all that noise is just as dramatic. Three years ago he was playing for an amateur outfit in Florida. 

Two years ago, he made his La Liga debut for Leganés as a late substitute against Real Madrid, of all teams. Then came 12 goals in 33 Bundesliga appearances, a Rookie of the Season award, and a World Cup with Ivory Coast that ended in their first-ever knockout stage. 

[Courtesy - Madrid Xtra]

He's started quietly in Madrid, one assist in seven appearances behind Vinícius and Mbappé, but nobody who watched that transfer saga unfold thinks patience is what he's short of.

Lennart Karl — Bayern Munich (attacking midfield/winger)

Karl's rise has been almost comically fast even by Bayern academy standards: five goals and five assists in 26 appearances last season, most of them off the bench, was enough to get him a senior Germany call-up before his 19th birthday and a World Cup squad place, cut short by injury before it could turn into a breakout tournament. 

Vincent Kompany has kept faith regardless, and Karl's response this season has been an assist inside ten minutes of coming on against Bodø/Glimt in the Champions League.

[Courtesy - Bayern & Germany]

At 168cm and left-footed, he's built more like a street footballer, and that's exactly the point. Bayern's academy hasn't produced someone this instinctive since Jamal Musiala, and the comparison is already being made in Munich.

Charalampos Kostoulas — Brighton (striker)

Brighton beat Real Madrid, Arsenal and Manchester United to sign an 18-year-old off the back of seven goals in 22 Greek Super League games, which tells you everything about how highly Olympiacos and half of Europe rated him. 

Son of a former Greek international defender, an academy graduate at Olympiacos since age 12, and already nicknamed "Babistuta" back home before he'd left Athens.

[Courtesy - The Overlap]

The adaptation period was brief. Four goals last season in a difficult debut campaign have become two goals, an assist and a 7.27 average rating in three matches so far this term, including a goal and an assist against Tromsø. 

Brighton's whole business model is to find this exact profile and sell it for triple the fee three years later. Whoever eventually pays that fee should start saving now.

Francesco Pio Esposito — Inter (striker)

Esposito grew up in Inter's academy under Cristian Chivu, who coached him from Under-14 through the Primavera side and now manages him in the first team. 

On loan at Spezia, he scored 14 goals in 27 Serie B games; back at San Siro last season, he went straight to nine goals and six assists in 41 appearances, earned seven Italy caps and three goals, and took the club's number nine shirt seriously enough that Inter never considered selling.

[Courtesy - The Rising Stars]

This season he's kept improving, not just in goalscoring but overall: two goals, an assist and a 7.36 rating through his opening league appearances, plus two goals and two assists in nine Champions League outings. He missed a penalty in the shootout that knocked Italy out of World Cup qualifying and was candid about how much it hurt afterwards, which says something about a 21-year-old who still talks like he's got more to prove than he actually does.

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