Myles Lewis-Skelly has made the 25-player shortlist for the 2026 Golden Boy award, putting him in line to be Arsenal’s first winner since Cesc Fabregas.
The shortlist for the 2026 Golden Boy award has been confirmed, with the award’s intent to celebrate the best under-21 men’s player in Europe.
Myles Lewis-Skelly has been included on this year’s shortlist, along with a number of other Premier League players.
Manchester City summer signing Ayyoub Bouaddi, Chelsea’s Estevao and Jorrel Hato, Brighton’s Charalampos Kostoulas and Luka Vuskovic, and Bournemouth’s Eli Junior Kroupi and Rayan are the other Premier League contenders.
If Lewis-Skelly could fight off the competition and win the award, he would be the first Arsenal player to win it since Cesc Fabregas in 2006. Fabregas is the Gunners’ only winner since the award’s inception in 2003.
England haven’t had too many winners either, with Wayne Rooney, Raheem Sterling, and Jude Bellingham the only three from the previous 23 awards.
English clubs have been a little more successful, with Arsenal’s one winner joined by one from Everton (Rooney), one from Manchester City (Mario Balotelli), one from Liverpool (Sterling), and three from Manchester United (Rooney, Anderson, and Anthony Martial).
But it’s now been over a decade since a player at an English club won the award, so this year’s eight Premier League nominees will be looking to change that.
Golden Boy 2026 nominees
- Kerim Alajbegović (Juventus)
- Marc Bernal (Barcelona)
- Ayyoub Bouaddi (Manchester City)
- Pau Cubarsí (Barcelona)
- Yan Diomande (Real Madrid)
- Endrick (Real Madrid)
- Xavi Espart (Barcelona)
- Estêvão (Chelsea)
- Victor Froholdt (Porto)
- Joane Gadou (Borussia Dortmund)
- Jorrel Hato (Chelsea)
- Finn Jeltsch (Stuttgart)
- Lennart Karl (Bayern Munich)
- Konstantinos Karetsas (Borussia Dortmund)
- Charalampos Kostoulas (Brighton)
- Eli Junior Kroupi (Bournemouth)
- Myles Lewis-Skelly (Arsenal)
- Saïd El Mala (Köln)
- Jon Martin (Real Sociedad)
- Franco Mastantuono (Fiorentina, on loan from Real Madrid)
- Rodrigo Mora (Roma)
- Gianluca Prestianni (Benfica)
- Rayan (Bournemouth)
- Luka Vuskovic (Brighton)
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