Lamine Yamal and Kylian Mbappe were nominated for the title of the Golden Ball 2025 after the impressive season for Barca and Real Madrid. However, former Liverpool's former Steven Gerrard believes that these two stars, if compared to teenagers, cannot be equal to Michael Owen.
Gerrard's comments came after Yamal and Mbappe all made a shortlist for the 2025 Golden Ball, with Yamal that was expected to win. In the 2024/25 season, Yamal scored 18 goals and had 21 assists for Barca, the team won La Liga, the Spanish Super Cup and the King's Cup.
The 18 -year -old also has more successful balls (244) than any other player in the top 5 tournaments in Europe. In Madrid, Mbappe also impressed in the first season for Real.
The French player became the player to score the most goals for Real in the first season, surpassing the record 37 goals of Ivan Zamorano in the 1992/93 season when he scored 43 goals for Los Blancos in all competitions.
Indeed, only Mohamed Salah (57) of Liverpool, Raphinha (56) of Barca and Harry Kane (49) of Bayern Munich is to contribute to the goal than Mbappe (48) in every arena last season, only in the top 5 tournaments in Europe.
However, Gerrard, the 2005 ball, believes Owen is a much more excellent player than Yamal and Mbappe when he was a teenager. The couple played for Liverpool for 6 years before Owen moved to Real. During that time, Owen won the 2001 Golden Ball.
Owen surpassed Real Raul and goalkeeper Oliver Kahn of Bayern to become the fourth English player to win the Golden Ball, after Stanley Matthews, Bobby Charlton and Kevin Keegan.
He debuted at the age of 17 in 1996 and scored the most goals from a teenage player in the Premier League history, with 40 goals after 79 matches before turning 20 years old. Owen also holds the record for the most goals of a teenage player in the Premier League in a calendar year, with 25 goals he scored in 1998.
During the Owen season to win the Golden Ball, he contributed 31 goals (24 goals, 7 assists) to help Liverpool win the UEFA Cup, FA Cup and League Cup. “Mbappe and Lamine Yamal, are wonderful, they are extraordinary players. But for me, Michael Owen is the best person when calculated in teenage criteria.
We have to respect Michael Owen voted as the best player in the world in 2001. I played with him and although very modest, I still have to declare that Owen is the most extraordinary young player in the world of football, 'Gerrard said on ESPN.
