Five wonderkids that lived up to their frightening potential… And five who very much didn’t

As the likes of Max Dowman and Rio Ngumoha start to make a name for themselves, fans should be warned that not every wonderkid lives up to their potential.

It is common for fans and pundits to get overly excited the minute a teenager makes their professional debut but history would suggest that wonderkids rarely live up to expectations.

Here are five wonderkids who came good and five who did missed the mark.

It’s an obvious place to start but it turns out arguably the best player of all time was also good as a teenager.

He made his Barcelona debut at 17 and before he turned 20, he was already being compared to Maradona.

His most memorable moment as a teenager was a hat-trick against Real Madrid and as he moved into his 20s, Messi’s numbers went up and up.

In the twilight of his career now, Messi has won everything the game has to offer and for many is the greatest player of all time, meaning he more than lived up to this wonderkid label.

Once labelled the “talent of the century” by Matthias Sammer, Mario Gotze has not lived up to that billing.

It is not hard to find plaudits given to Gotze when he was young. Franz Beckenbauer said he was the “best attacker Germany had” and Jurgen Klopp described him as “the best young player I ever coached” but Gotze’s career can be seen as a before and after, centred around his World Cup-winning goal.

Before that moment, everything went right for him. Gotze came through the Dortmund academy, making his debut as a 17-year-old in 2009 and was part of Klopp’s squad that won the Bundesliga in 2011 and 2012.

He was picked for Germany for the first time at 18 and moved to Bayern in 2013 to play for Pep Guardiola. In the summer of 2014, he scored an extra-time goal in the World Cup final but that career high was a turning point.

He never really fit in at Bayern and when he was accused of being lazy, blood tests showed he was suffering from a muscle condition called myopathy. He returned to Dortmund and then moved to PSV and while he has rebuilt his reputation at Eintracht Frankfurt, he never hit the heights that were hoped for him.

Neymar is perhaps the best example of a wonderkid for it is hard to remember a player with more hype than the Brazilian.

Coming from South America meant Europeans tended to only see clips or highlights and it seemed in every one, the mohawk-wearing Neymar was producing tricks and flicks. Before he moved to Barcelona, he was already a two-time South American Footballer of the Year.

Critics of Neymar will say he never won the Ballon d’Or and only has one Champions League title but even they would struggle to say that he did not live up to expectations.

He was easily one of the top three players in the world for a time and part of the best attacking trio in history.

Another Brazilian touted to be the future of football was Alexandre Pato but this was a career undone by injury.

He broke through at Milan with his highlight being the fifth-fastest Champions League goal in history against Barcelona, but it was not long before he began to suffer from persistent hamstring and thigh injuries.

In 2012, he missed the first six weeks of the new season and would join Brazilian side Corinthians in the January transfer window, before moving around a number of clubs including Sao Paulo, Chelsea, Villarreal and Tianjin Quanjian. He eventually moved to the MLS and Orlando City but returned to Sao Paulo in 2023 before leaving that same year.

Rooney was just 16 when he hit that goal against Arsenal and considering he ended his career as Manchester United and then-England top scorer, it is fair to say he lived up to his potential.

A move to Old Trafford signalled a change from a young star to one of the league’s top players and it was not unreasonable to suggest he was on a par with Ronaldo and Messi at that age.

Those two may have moved to a different level and critics will suggest he never did it for England in a major tournament but he won everything he could at club level.

Being labelled the next Pele at the age of 14 is quite the bar to set and unfortunately for Freddy Adu, he never even got close.

He had a trial at Manchester United, presumably with Fergie who took one look and said no thanks, and his career would feature some football club names that would not look out of place on an episode of Pointless.

Perhaps it was the MLS’ desire to have a star of their own, perhaps it was Nike pushing for their next superstar but for whatever reason, Adu was claimed to be the next big player but he was anything but.

Mbappe’s is still a career in progress but even if it finished tomorrow, it would be fair to say he lived up to his young potential.

The Frenchman is slightly different from wonderkids in the sense that he achieved a lot of things that usually define a career while still a teenager.

He played a starting role in the 2018 World Cup, including scoring in the final, as France went on to win and before he turned 20, he had already secured a €180m move to PSG.

Now heading towards his prime, Mbappe is one of the best players in the world but critics will suggest he needs Ballons d’Or and the Champions League to truly live up to his potential.

Ask Premier League fans for one example of a young player not living up to potential and many of them will point to Dele Alli.

The exciting Spurs player looked like a star for years to come and at one point, you would have been forgiven for thinking that he would have had an even better career than his teammate Harry Kane.

And yet, something happened. Perhaps best highlighted in a behind-the-scenes Spurs documentary in which Jose Mourinho tries to convince Alli that it is now or never, his career fizzled out due to off-field issues and not kicking on from his early promise.

He joined Everton in 2022 but even that did not restart his career and a loan to Besiktas and then a move to Como failed to show much signs of promise.

Alli only turned 30 this month but is without a club while Kane is a contender for the Ballon d’Or.

If your wonderkid goes on to become possibly the greatest defender of all time, it is fair to say he has been a success.

Maldini joined the Milan ranks as a 10-year-old and made his senior debut at the age of 16. It was not just a one-off either for he became a regular in the side and stayed there for 901 appearances.

His trophy list is bigger than most clubs with seven league titles and five Champions Leagues amongst them and you do not have to look very far for some of football’s best to describe him in glowing terms.

After impressing with Dinamo Zagreb, Alen Halilovic moved to Barcelona at just 17 years of age but failed to ever make the step up.

He was billed as football’s next wonderkid but made just one appearance for the senior side before a loan to Sporting Gijon. Barcelona let him join Hamburg in 2016 and he bounced around a number of clubs, including two stints in England at Birmingham and then Reading.

He is at Dutch club Fortuna Sittard now and never came close to the heights hoped for him.