10 years of NXGN: Erling Haaland, Trent Alexander-Arnold and the top 10 wonderkids to exceed our expectations

Peak NXGN position: 20th in 2021

Defenders tend to peak a lot later than their other outfield contemporaries. With battle scars come precious experience needed for your later years. When you consider that Josko Gvardiol is still only 23, he's on pace to go down as a modern great. At the time of his peak NXGN inclusion, he was back on loan at boyhood side Dinamo Zagreb from wonderkid masters RB Leipzig, and his career since has gone according to plan.

The Croatian has already won nine major trophies (and one Community Shield, for those who keep count), and was the best player in his country's run to bronze at the 2022 World Cup, with his only blemish in Qatar being given the runaround by the literal best player of all time for crying out loud.

Only one defender in the history of the game has cost more than Gvardiol, who signed for Manchester City for £77m in 2023. Though Pep Guardiola's side have seen their standards slip at the back since Gvardiol arrived, he has taken his game to another level as an attacking full-back, coming up with some screamers - most on his weaker right foot - to help City add more trophies to their busy cabinet.

Peak NXGN position: 44th in 2017

Dusan Vlahovic's name isn't the most glamorous on the list, but he may have had to battle the hardest in order to make it in his career. A return of three goals in 27 matches for Partizan Belgrade hardly screamed 'major prospect' even as an adolescent, but Fiorentina were convinced enough to acquire him on his 18th birthday regardless.

Slowly but surely, Vlahovic found himself becoming more comfortable in his own skin and the heavy Viola jersey. His first season in the first-team setup came and went without a goal, but his sophomore 2019-20 campaign yielded eight in 34 matches. By the end of the following 2020-21 season, he was the best prodigy in Serie A, netting 21 times in 37 games despite Fiorentina's struggles.

A fast start to 2021-22 - 20 goals in 24 matches - saw Vlahovic heavily linked with moves to north London rivals Arsenal and Tottenham, though he instead chose to continue in Italy with Juventus. His time in Turin has been far from plain sailing for a multitude of reasons, yet Vlahovic has always held up his end of the bargain, registering 55 goals in 136 games to date. No matter the crisis at Juve, you can bank on him to find the net, and maybe it's a matter of the club not realising what they've got until it's gone.

Peak NXGN position: 35th in 2022

La Masia's absurd rate of churning out top talents remains a great footballing marvel, so much so that Alejandro Balde, now a leading left-back, wasn't considered among Barcelona's brightest prospects when he first broke through.

Sure, Balde was expected to make it into the senior side and maybe have a decent career in La Liga, but he's surpassed plenty of expectations already, and is now a firm member of Hansi Flick's team with just over 100 appearances already under his belt and three pieces of silverware to boot.

Balde was one of several young players thrown in at the deep end during Xavi's reign, though he did not bring the glitz and glamour of the Pedris and Gavis of the team. What he did provide was hope that the club wouldn't need to outsource to find a long-term replacement to the great Jordi Alba. Still only 21, Balde has over a decade left at the highest level, probably as a Barca regular, should he remain injury free.

Peak NXGN position: 39th in 2017

When you think of Real Madrid, you'll be pondering for a while before your mind turns to Brahim Diaz, but he's one of the glue guys keeping their current Galacticos operation together. A versatile attacking midfielder capable of playing on either flank, the 25-year-old - yep, still only 25 - is the perfect embodiment of the club's next-man-up mentality needed beyond their superstar names.

Diaz has got to this point via a fascinating career path, too. He was snapped up by Manchester City from local side Malaga when he was only 16, but quickly returned to Spain with Madrid over a lack of first-team assurances at the Etihad Stadium under Pep Guardiola. Such opportunities were pretty hard to come by at Santiago Bernabeu as well, so he spent three-successive seasons on loan at AC Milan honing his craft and turning into the player Los Blancos had hoped for, playing a crucial role on the Rossoneri's way to ending their 11-year Scudetto drought in 2022.

Madrid decided to reintegrate a more mature Diaz into Carlo Ancelotti's setup in 2023, while the playmaker took the decision to change international allegiances and become the new face of Moroccan football. It's been one chaotic ride to this point for Diaz, and he's not done just yet.

Peak NXGN position: 40th in 2017

Next up, we have another example of a player who was expected to be good, but not outright world-class and among the best in his position. A young Achraf Hakimi looked out of his depth when he was thrown into the senior Real Madrid line up by Zinedine Zidane during 2017-18, a long way off battling Dani Carvajal for the right-back spot. The club sent him on a two-season loan to Borussia Dortmund to find his feet in the senior game, and those two years did him such the world of good that Antonio Conte moved heaven and Earth to sign him for Inter in 2020.

Under the eternal wing-back whisperer in Conte, Hakimi scored seven goals as the Nerazzurri won their first Serie A title since 2010, only for financial restraints to lead to both of their exits that summer. In a high-profile window in which Paris Saint-Germain were praised for the free signings of Lionel Messi, Sergio Ramos, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Georginio Wijnaldum, it was the €60m arrival of Hakimi that proved their most successful acquisition.

Hakimi is into his fourth year at PSG and is widely considered one of the world's leading right-backs, despite any lingering 'Ligue 1 tax' which may come with that argument. At international level, he starred in Morocco's run to the World Cup semi-finals in 2022 - the furthest an African team has ever gone at the tournament. Sometimes there is life after Madrid.

Peak NXGN position: 37th in 2019

The scramble to sign Julian Alvarez from Argentine giants River Plate a few years ago saw Manchester City emerge victorious. Even before moving to Europe at 2022, he was considered his home country's ideal strike partner for Lionel Messi at that year's World Cup, such was his undeniable promise and proven track record already.

Moving to City to play under Pep Guardiola saw Alvarez add several new bows to his diversified game. Primarily a striker for River, he learned to play in the hole and out wide at the Etihad Stadium (mainly to accommodate one other player, who we'll come onto later...). Alvarez swiftly developed a reputation as an uber-reliable forward who would run the hard yards and come up with those all-important numbers as well.

He played 103 games for City in two seasons in England, yet this still wasn't enough for the hungry Alvarez, who wanted to be one of the first names on the team sheet. That desire took him to Atletico Madrid last summer in a €95m deal, and though he started slowly in the Spanish capital, he has now become undroppable under Diego Simeone and is leading their attempts to steal La Liga from under the noses of Barcelona and Real Madrid. Just don't mention that penalty slip...

Peak NXGN position: 15th in 2020

If each Premier League side had the opportunity to clone their best player 10 times and compete for the title with an XI of the same person, then a team of Bukayo Sakas would surely finish in first place. There isn't a single weakness in his game, and the only concern Arsenal fans should have is the amount of minutes he's already racked up in his career, which has been out of necessity given just how bloody amazing he is.

Mikel Arteta's first game in charge of the Gunners back in 2019 saw him deploy Saka at left-back. Later on, he tried the Hale End graduate in midfield. For a while, it felt like Saka's ceiling was as a versatile jack-of-all-trades player, but instead of resting on his laurels, he simply kept adding to his game to make himself the superstar winger he is today.

Saka is the face of Arsenal, the most likely of their current cohort to earn a statue outside the Emirates Stadium one day alongside those of Arsene Wenger, Tony Adams, Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry. For as loud as the red half of north London can get, it's a marvel how they don't go on and on about Saka even more. Not bad for a budding left-back, eh?

Peak NXGN position: 37th in 2016

There have been few players more curious and questionable in the modern era than Ousmane Dembele. A relatively late bloomer in the Rennes youth setup - hence the rank of only 37th in 2016 - he spent only one year in the first team before being snapped up by Borussia Dortmund, and 12 months later became the second-most expensive player of all time when he was signed by Barcelona as Neymar's replacement. All the while, he didn't even know which was his stronger foot.

Barca thought they had hit the jackpot with Dembele, whose silky dribbling ability and two-footedness made him the perfect modern winger, yet his career became disrupted by injuries and, according to the Catalan media, off-field distractions. For so many years, Dembele could barely string together a run of games, and it wasn't until his final two years at Camp Nou that he unlocked his potential under the wing of Xavi. Dembele won seven trophies for Barcelona and seemed to be a key building block for their future again, until Paris Saint-Germain came knocking and he expressed a desire to return to his homeland.

With Luis Enrique in the Parc des Princes dugout, Dembele is at the peak of his powers, flittering from the wing into a centre-forward role and spearheading the most exciting PSG team in a generation. Oh, and he's a World Cup-winner. Maybe he was worth the €145m Barcelona forked out after all...

Peak NXGN position: 23rd in 2017

The reaction on social media to 'Trent Alexander-Arnold' being named in the starting line up to face Manchester United for his full Premier League debut in January 2017 was that Liverpool must have accidentally selected a Conservative MP instead. What a strange joke that seems in hindsight.

The little fanfare Alexander-Arnold received as youth outside of Merseyside allowed the Reds to nurture and develop one of their academy's brightest prospects. It shouldn't have been to anyone's surprise that Jurgen Klopp, a manager who always trusts in youth where appropriate, introduced him into the fold in such a high-profile game,

Alexander-Arnold hasn't looked back since, and at 26, would almost certainly be voted into a team of Liverpool's best-ever players. There isn't another full-back in world football like him, nor has there been one before and maybe won't be another after. The Reds won't like this, but heading to Real Madrid for free this summer could allow Alexander-Arnold the opportunity to cement his status as a legend of the game once and for all.

Peak NXGN position: 33rd in 2019

Who would have predicted that a gangly boy from Bryne in Norway would become the single best finisher in world football? Who would have thought that the son of forgotten pre-Barclaysman Alfie Haaland would go on to tear the Premier League to shreds?

The story of Erling Haaland is full of wonder wherever you turn. He quickly outgrew Molde under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and was picked up by Red Bull Salzburg as a teenager, before going viral with nine of Norway's 12 goals in an Under-20 World Cup win against Honduras. Though he was courted by Manchester United - what a Sliding Doors moment that was - Haaland wisely chose to continue his development at Borussia Dortmund, where he held the rest of Europe to ransom for two-and-a-half years before deciding on his next move. Manchester City, the club of his father, landed Haaland in 2022 without a single regret, and he's in line to remain at the Etihad Stadium for the next decade.

Haaland is best pure No.9 in world football, boasting an already ludicrous return of 274 goals in 337 matches, breaking a silly number of records in the meantime. He might be the most famous Norwegian in the world, and he's still only 24. Leading his country to a major tournament and taking home a Ballon d'Or are the last achievable honours he can really hope to achieve in his career - Haaland has almost completed football already, and we had him at No.33 in the NXGN 2019 rankings...