Tottenham Hotspur’s Kyle Walker-Peters shortlisted for Golden Boy award

Kyle Walker-Peters had a pretty good offseason. The young Tottenham Hotspur fullback won the U20 World Cup with England in South Korea this summer and played very well against his peers while playing out of his natural position at left back. He followed that up by getting his full Tottenham Hotspur debut against Newcastle United in the opening game of the season, and is coming off a solid 90 minutes against Barnsley.

It seems the European press has taken notice! Walker-Peters was listed as a nominee for the 2017 Golden Boy award, given to the most outstanding European football player under the age of 21.

Here’s the full list of nominees:

• Kyle Walker-Peters (Tottenham Hotspur)
• Aarón Martin (Espanyol)
• Jean-Kévin Augustin (RB Leipzig)
• Rodrigo Bentacur (Juventus)
• Steven Bergwijn (PSV Eindhoven)
• Dominic Calvert-Lewin (Everton)
• Federico Chiesa (Fiorentina)
• Ousmane Dembélé (Barcelona)
• Amadou Diawara (Napoli)
• Kasper Dolberg (Ajax)
• Gianluigi Donnarumma (Milan)
• Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City)
• Joe Gomez (Liverpool)
• Benjamin Henrichs (Bayer Leverkusen)
• Borja Mayoral (Real Madrid)
• Kylian Mbappé (Paris Saint-Germain)
• Emre Mor (Celta Vigo)
• Reece Oxford (Borussia Mönchengladbach)
• Christian Pulisic (Borussia Dortmund)
• Marcus Rashford (Manchester United)
• Allan Saint-Maximim (Nice)
• Dominic Solanke (Liverpool)
• Theo Hernández (Real Madrid)
• Youri Tielemans (Monaco)
• Enes Unal (Villarreal)

The award was started by the Italian newspaper Tuttosport and has been running since 2003, with a number of notable European newspapers now voting on the winner. It’s not usually a guarantee of stardom, but there are some luminaries of the game on its list of winners, including Lionel Messi, Cesc Fabregas, Sergio Aguero, Mario Götze, Paul Pogba, Isco, and Wayne Rooney. Last year’s winner was Renato Sanchez. The very first winner was Rafael van der Vaart in 2003.

Looking at that list, it’s kind of hard to think that Walker-Peters has any chance of winning against players like Christian Pulisic, Ousmane Dembele, Gabriel Jesus, and Kylian Mbappe. But hey, it’s an honor just to be nominated, right?

The winner will be announced sometime in October.