THE 100: ONE YEAR ON
‘The next big thing........’
How many times have you heard that?
At IBWM, we thought long and hard about compiling a comprehensive directory of the most exciting young players in world football. It is, after all, always good to have a handle on where the next global superstar is coming from, don’t you think?
But we decided not to.
Each year (up until this, ironically) the Spanish football publication Don Balon fastidiously collated their own record of the 100 best young (aged 23 and under) players on the planet, and, to be frank, we could do absolutely nothing to improve on this. So we won’t even try.
The list always included a good mix of names that we knew, but also lots that we wanted to know more about. For every Theo Walcott, there would be a Bo-Kyung Kim. Don Balon called the best 100 as they saw it, and we liked that. It was concise, well thought out and had a real global feel.
As each year passed, we were always interested to see which players were really blossoming and who had become ensnared in a spiral of terminal decline. However, no website or publication ever really chronicled this, not even Don Balon themselves.
The seed of an idea was planted.
The 100: One Year On
We’ve taken the final Don Balon list, which was published in November 2010, and spent the last few months reviewing how the last year has panned out for each of the players included on it. The 100 is the outcome of our review.
We’ve recorded our observations and opinions - for what they are worth - and asked a number of individuals whose opinion matters to us to provide a view. We also invited our wonderful twitter followers to offer an angle on how the year has worked out for each of the 100 players and selected the best assessments for publication.
Each player also receives a mark based on their development over the last twelve months. Just like an end of term school report, a grade from A to E is awarded. There’s no great science here, there’s no 7/10 for tackling, 9/10 for stamina etc, just a straight call from us. We’re not experts on every player; we’ve just taken a good look and made a judgement on how things have gone.
The Grades
We consider C to be the norm, a straight line, a ‘good’ that suggests the player is performing well and their development is on track. This group have been deemed one of the best 100 young players in the world, so we expect high standards.
C+ indicates that a player is outperforming on this scale and while not quite ready for a higher marking, they are progressing slightly better than we had expected when the list was originally announced by Don Balon in November 2010.
Conversely a C- marking suggests that while a player is still on track, they have slipped back marginally and really need a positive 12 months from now to prove that they can make it to the very top.
The other markings are a little more straightforward.
B indicates that the player is not only developing well, but has become an integral part of his team and/or has cemented a place at international level. An excellent performance.
D is awarded to those whose last twelve months has disappointed. This may not be the player’s fault, often injuries or competition for places may have hampered development. A D marking does not suggest that an individual has become a bad player; it’s just that they haven’t yet attained the level we would have hoped given early promise. As mentioned, we expect high standards.
E is awarded to players who have fallen badly, those highly rated teenagers that have stumbled into a position where there is no immediate indication that things are going to improve. They’ll still have a career of course, but it could have been much more than just that.
A is an easy one to assess, all of the characteristics of B, but not just an integral player, someone that has excelled over the last year and become the catalyst for their team achieving success. We consider that only two players are worthy of this mark in 2010-11; Mario Götze for his defining season in Germany which was the major factor in Borussia Dortmund winning the Bundesliga, and Eden Hazard, the main protagonist behind Lille’s title success in France. These are the players who aren’t just on the way to great things, great things are happening now and it’s down to them.
The Small Print
A couple of caveats. The main thing we want to get across is a reminder that all of these players are still very young, none are older than 22, and we are very aware that players develop at different rates. We’ve awarded grades based on how the last twelve months have gone, and a low marking may not be down to the player’s own performance, it may be that opportunities have been limited for them. We don’t consider Gio Dos Santos to be a worse player than, say, Jordan Henderson, but we think Henderson has perhaps overachieved while Dos Santos has underachieved.
The reasons for under or over achieving can be down to a number of factors, we’ve just tried to call it as we see it right now. Players that have been awarded an A or B in this report may well be nowhere in five years time, while players awarded D or E in this list may turn out to be the very best in the world in 2016. These are indicative marks only, time will tell.
We've looked at 100 players and will add twenty to this page each week for the next five weeks. Clicking on a name from the list to the right of your screen will take you to a separate page covering that player.
We’d love to hear your opinions so please be sure to add comments, you don’t need to leave your e-mail address. You can get us on Twitter too.
We'd like to thank hundreds of people for their support in this but especially all the guys at SpanishFootball.info, French Football Weekly, Slavic Football Union, Jonathan F from Just Football, Tom Williams, John Dobson, Jack Lang, James Appell, Adam Digby, Sam Kelly from Hasta El Gol Siempre, Michael Cox from Zonal Marking, Luke Moore from the Football Ramble, James Horncastle and Steve Welsh for the sublime artwork. Oh, and you for sticking with us.
Here’s to the class of 2011.....