A triumph that was both expected and overwhelming. The 2026 Golden Boy Absolute Best is 19-year-old Barcelona defender Pau Cubarsí, fresh from winning the World Cup in the USA with Spain under manager De la Fuente. He scored an impressive 475 points out of a maximum of 500. A crushing victory, leaving the runner-up… the runner-up, Diomande of Real Madrid, by a vast margin – he trailed by almost 250 points (the podium is completed by the Franco-Martinican Zaïre-Emery of PSG, in third place). He is the second defender to win the trophy in its 24-year history: the first was the Dutchman De Ligt in 2018, then at Ajax and now at Manchester United. Cubarsí is the fifth Barcelona player to lift the Golden Boy award after Messi, Pedri, Gavi and Lamine Yamal. No other European club comes close to the Blaugrana (Manchester United and Borussia are joint runners-up with three wins each). Yet another demonstration of Barça’s formidable youth academy. Four out of five Golden Boy winners came through the legendary “Masía”, whilst Pedri joined Barcelona at the age of 17 from Las Palmas. The first to congratulate Cubarsí was none other than his peer and friend Lamine Yamal, who won the Golden Boy two years ago and – as per the rules – is no longer eligible for re-election, even though he still falls within the age limit. The Golden Boy award is like a “seal of approval” for Under-21 players: whoever wins it becomes an “automatic” candidate to compete for the Ballon d’Or the following year. In Spain, they compare him to Piqué; I like to liken him to Cannavaro, who, as captain, brought Italy its last World Cup triumph twenty years ago.