Four Brighton players nominated for European Golden Boy Award
Four Brighton & Hove Albion players have been included amongst the 100 nominations for the European Golden Boy Award 2023.
Evan Ferguson, Julio Enciso, Kacper Kozlowski and Facundo Buonanotte all made the cut, along with Levi Colwill who spent the 2022-23 season on loan with the Seagulls.
The Golden Boy award was created by Italian newspaper Tuttosport in 2003 and is awarded to the best player under the age of 21 playing in a European top flight.
Journalists from across Europe vote for their top five from the Golden Boy Index, which rates the top 100 young stars based on analysis and data.
A points system based on those votes then decides the overall winner. Some winners go onto have long and glorious careers after being crowned Golden Boy, like Wayne Rooney and Lionel Messi.
For others, it turns out to be one of their career highlights as they never quite live up to the hype. Whatever happened to Alexandre Pato?
Colwill is the highest ranked Albion player, sitting 23rd on the list. Colwill enjoyed an excellent campaign at the Amex, impressing to such an extent that he ended the season training with the full England squad.
As a left footed centre back who is comfortable enough in possession to look totally at home playing DeZerbiBall, he seems destined for the top.
What Colwill needs next season for that to happen is regular first team football. Brighton can guarantee that whereas Chelsea cannot – and what a waste of talent if Colwill were to go from European Golden Boy nomination to sitting on the bench at Stamford Bridge.
Ferguson is 44th on the list having exploded onto the scene following the World Cup winter break. He scored nine times in all competitions with eight of those coming from Boxing Day onwards.
Almost every goal involved a different type of finish. Amongst Ferguson’s haul was a bullet header at Leicester City any target man would be proud of.
Southampton were undone at the Amex by pure power. The back heel at Plucky Little Bournemouth was cheeky beyond belief. Against Grimsby, Ferguson showed an incredible first touch to control a difficult pass fizzed in at pace by Alexis Mac Allister.
Ferguson is the complete striker with no noticeable weaknesses in his game. Those comparisons to Erling Haaland, Alan Shearer, Duncan Edwards and the best of them all, Glenn Murray, are entirely justified.
Four places lower than Ferguson comes Enciso in 48th spot. Whether the 19-year-old from Paraguay would have featured so highly based on his form before April is an interesting question.
Up to that point, Enciso had on occasions looked lightweight and frequently made the wrong decisions. Something clicked though ahead of the final two months of the campaign.
Four goals followed including spectacular strikes against Chelsea and Manchester City, the latter of which won the Premier League, Match of the Day and WAB Goal of the Season awards.
Enciso also contributed two assists. When Brighton racked up their biggest ever top flight win by beating Wolves 6-0, he was heavily involved in four of the goals.
The feeling is the Albion have only just begun to scratch the surface with Enciso. It would not be a surprise to see him take the Premier League by storm in 2023-24.
Kozlowski was on the 100 player shortlist for last season’s European Golden Boy award too but he has not yet been given an opportunity at Brighton after signing in 2021 for £8 million.
Whilst Simon Adringa has earned plenty of headlines for his season on loan at Union Saint-Gilloise, Kozlwoski has gone somewhat under the radar at Vitesse Arnhem.
In 28 games, he scored three times and assisted a further four. That form was good enough to earn a recall to the Polish international squad.
With De Zerbi unafraid to chuck in young players, it will be interesting to see what happens with the 19-year-old for the coming season.
Buonanotte is the final Brighton player on the European Golden Boy award shortlist, ranked 86th. De Zerbi gave the Albion faithful glimpses of the teenager from Argentina following his January arrival, who no lesser judge than Carlos Tevez compared to Messi.
His dribbling ability was there for all to see in the 1-1 draw with champions Manchester City at the Amex last month, gliding past three visiting defenders before testing Stefan Ortega.
Buonanotte scored his first Brighton goal at Nottingham Forest. There is undoubtedly much more to come once he fully adapts to life in England.
Four nominations mean Brighton are the most represented English club in the 2023 European Golden Boy award. Chelsea both have three (two if you want to argue Colwill is a Seagull) and Liverpool two. Manchester United, Manchester City, 1996 Coca Cola Cup runners up The Leeds United and Southampton all have one representative each.
