The 20 Spain youngsters with the most potential

Martin Macdonald

21 Oct 2022 14:57 BST

Spain remain one of the elite footballing nations in the world and one of the major reasons for their continued success is their ability to produce outstanding young players.

Article continues under the video

This has been underlined by the fact that Gavi picked up the 2022 Golden Boy award, and it is therefore fitting that he is also the Spanish player with the greatest potential aged 21 or under, according to SciSports.

The Barcelona midfielder has taken over the mantle from team-mate Pedri, who has dropped to second in the ranking. Both players are considered among the most promising midfielders in the world game and come through an academy that has earned a reputation for creating some of the best technical players in history.

Coming in third is promising Villarreal winger Yeremy Pino. At youth level, Yeremi was at Huracan and Las Palmas before joining Villarreal in 2017. At that time, he reportedly had the opportunity to sign for Barcelona but turned the Blaugrana down. The fact Barcelona were so keen to sign him in his mid-teens provides an indication of what type of player he is.

Barca dominate the leading players, with the top five rounded out by Eric Garcia and Ansu Fati.

Player	Parent Club	Potential SciSports Skill
1. Gavi	Barcelona	145.7
2. Pedri	Barcelona	140.1
3. Yeremy Pino	Villarreal	129.7
4. Eric Garcia	Barcelona	118.2
5. Ansu Fati	Barcelona	116.8
6. Unai Vencedor	Athletic Bilbao	111.7
7. Nico Williams	Athletic Bilbao	107.4
8. Arnau Martinez	Girona	107.4
9. Ander Barrenetxea	Real Sociedad	105.9
10. Alejandro Balde	Barcelona	102.5
11. Nico Gonzalez	Valencia (loan from Barcelona)	98.2
12. Fer Nino	Villarreal	98.1
13. Bryan Gil	Tottenham	96.9
14. Stefan Bajcetic	Liverpool	94.2
15. Mahamadou Susoho	Manchester City	94.1
16. Nico Melamed	Espanyol	93.1
17. Alberto Moleiro	Las Palmas	93.0
18. Alvaro Fernandez	Preston (loan from Man Utd)	92.6
19. Alvaro Leiva	Real Madrid	91.8
20. Alex Baena	Villarreal	91.1

How is the SciSkill ranking calculated?

SciSports explains how our development ratings are gathered:

“Among others, a positive development could be boosted by more playing time, playing time on a higher level or better performances on the pitch.

“A negative development could be due to the player being active on a lower level than he used to play, bad performances or the fact that he does not play that often as he used to do.

“A SciSkill Development of 0.0 could indicate that a player is performing exactly like our algorithm expects him to do. Another reason could be inactivity (e.g. a long-term injury or suspension).”