Lamine Yamal, Cole Palmer, Endrick, Archie Gray, Gavi and Ethan Nwaneri are just some of the current crop of young football stars worthy of the wonderkid tag, but who were the young guns on the path to becoming football legends back in the 2000s?
Football Legends: Best Players of the 2000s
Below we take a look at some of the top names in a golden generation for football.
Football Legends: Xavi – Barcelona & Spain
No wonderkid list of any kind would be complete without Barcelona and Spain legend Xavi, who made his senior debut aged 20 for the Catalans giants in 2000. Capped 133 times for Spain, Xavi Hernandez is widely regarded as one of the greatest midfielders of all time and enjoyed a lengthy career which was littered with glory, both on a personal and a team basis.
Winning the La Liga title eight times with Barcelona between 1999 and 2015, Xavi also won the Spanish Cup three times and the Champions League on four occasions with his hometown club. International glory also followed with Spain as he helped his country land the 2010 World Cup and the European Championships in both 2008 and 2012.
Football Legends: Andres Iniesta – Barcelona & Spain
Xavi’s partner in crime in the Barcelona midfield, Andres Iniesta also makes most lists as one of the best midfielders of his generation. But he was also considered a wonderkid when breaking through as a youngster. A tricky dribbler, who could wriggle his way out of most tight situations, Iniesta made his first-team debut for Barcelona in 2002 when just 18 and quickly became a mainstay in the Camp Nou engine room, going on to make 442 appearances for the Catalan side.
Iniesta was named as La Liga’s best midfielder in 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, while he was also part of Barcelona’s championship winning sides on nine occasions, and a key contributor in Barca’s four Champions League wins between 2006 and 2015. Iniesta was alongside Xavi during Spain’s glory years in this period and his career has only just ended following his retirement earlier this year.
Football Legends: Kaka – AC Milan, Real Madrid & Brazil
Another wonderkid who emerged in the early 2000s, South American superstar Kaka, who burst on to the stage at the turn of the millennium at Brazilian side Sao Paulo. Making his debut in his late teens, Kaka was quickly hot property and a move to AC Milan soon followed for the young star who was blessed with great dribbling, passing and shooting skills.
An illustrious career at the San Siro followed, where he won the Serie A title, the Champions League and the Club World Cup in an initial spell in Italy which spanned 193 games. A move to Real Madrid then came along in 2009 and so did more silverware, with the Brazilian helping Los Blancos to La Liga and Copa del Rey glory. International honours followed and Kaka first came to prominence on the world stage as part of Brazil’s 2002 World Cup-winning squad.
Football Legends: Zlatan Ibrahimovic – Ajax, Inter, Barcelona, Milan & Sweden
Zlatan has had more clubs than Tiger Woods but the Swedish forward made the most of his astonishing talent after a rapid rise to stardom which started when making his debut for Malmo in 1999, aged 17. Ajax snapped him up a few years later and the towering striker led the Dutch giants to two league titles before making a big-money switch to Juventus in Serie A.
Silverware was thin on the ground in Turin but 23 goals in just 70 appearances for the Old Lady prompted Inter Milan to take him to San Siro where 57 goals came in just 88 matches. Moves to Barcelona, AC Milan, Paris St-Germain and Manchester United followed, among others, for the much-travelled Swedish star who also finished his international career with 62 goals in 122 caps for his country.
Football Legends: Lionel Messi – Barcelona & Argentina
The ultimate wonderkid and greatest of the lot, Lionel Messi made his Barcelona debut at the ripe old age of 17 in 2004 and never looked back. Part of the great Barca side along with Xavi and Iniesta, Messi shot to stardom as part of Pep Guardiola’s all-conquering side that won La Liga titles galore and several Champions League crowns.
A World Cup in 2022 and a couple of Copa America winners medals are also in the Messi trophy cabinet for the mercurial forward, who has bagged an incredible 749 goals in total for his clubs and 128 for his country. Messi’s career is truly a remarkable one, which still continues to this day with Inter Miami and Argentina.
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