The 10 players we’ll be talking about at the 2034 World Cup

The countdown to the 2034 World Cup has begun.

Even if everyone has known that the hosts would be Saudi Arabia for a very long time, the official confirmation at least allows our excitement — or dread/trepidation, depending on your point of view — to grow in a slightly more focused manner.

But what will the game look like in 10 years? What will have changed and what will remain the same? Who will be the dominant team? And which players will we see at the 2034 World Cup?

It’s sometimes difficult to accurately predict who will be the stars of a World Cup 10 weeks before it starts, never mind 10 years. In all probability, we haven’t yet heard of half the players that we’ll be watching then: feasibly, some of them could be seven or eight years old right now.

There’s every chance that, by the time 2034 rolls around, this list will look very silly indeed. But equally, we could look like geniuses. Either way, here are a few players we could be watching in Saudi Arabia…

Well, duh. Incredibly, Lamine Yamal may not even be 27 by the time this World Cup arrives, depending on when it is held. It’s easy to convince yourself that Yamal has been around for a long time, even though he only made his senior domestic debut last year, but that just emphasises what an impact he has made on us all already.

The difference with Yamal to most other prodigies thrown into the world of the grown-up is how polished he already looks. Sure, there are things to improve, and he could still stand to bulk up a little, but if you watched him play without knowing anything else about him (or seeing his face, braces and all), you’d assume he’d been playing at the top level for years.

The question is, what will Yamal look like in 10 years? Will his absurdly early start, menacing defences at Euro 2024 when he was only 16, ultimately cost him in what should be his prime years? Will he end up like Wayne Rooney, who broke through at the same age but was essentially done by his late twenties? Hopefully, Yamal’s narrative and physique will be slightly different to Rooney’s but it will be fascinating to see how his career develops.

Estevao Willian (Brazil)

If you don’t know much about Estevao Willian now, you probably will very soon. The winger has been ripping it up for Palmeiras this season in Brazil, where he’s been a big name for quite a while, becoming the youngest ever player to ‘sign for’ Nike, the patrons of Brazilian football, when he was just 10. But he won’t be there for long: he has already agreed to join Chelsea in the summer of 2025, when he turns 18.

Chelsea were in early on him but with good reason. He was the top scorer in the Brazilian Serie A until the last few weeks of the season, which isn’t bad considering a) he’s not yet old enough to drink and b) he’s a winger, rather than a central striker.

Estevao Willian – Brazil’s (and Chelsea’s) next big thing? (Pedro Vilela/Getty Images)

He’s a left-footed wide-right player with a vicious shot and elastic limbs: at first glance, he resembles a slightly more one-footed Riyad Mahrez. He also has that ability to show defenders just enough of the ball to make them think they might be able to tackle him, before whipping it from under their nose like he’s teasing a particularly slow cat.

The kid looks like a star already and once he’s a man, he’ll be even more so.

Another honkingly obvious choice but Bellingham is included among all of these young up-and-comers for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, as a reminder that while he’s no longer an up-and-comer, he’s still young: just 21 in fact, something you forget because of his authoritative presence and the fact he’s already been around for so long.

But he’s also here because it’s fascinating to think about what sort of player Bellingham will be in 10 years. He’s already excelled in a few different roles — as a true midfielder, as a No 10 behind a centre-forward and as a No 10 behind split strikers — so where will he settle?

Jude Bellingham is one of England’s leading lights (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Maybe he won’t settle? Maybe he will evolve and shift roles as the years go on, so where will he be in 2034? Will he still have the legs to be a No 8? Will he drop further back? Might he even turn himself into a forward at some point? Of the current England team, he’s probably the one you’re most confident will still be around, but in what form?

Perhaps the more obvious shout from an American perspective would be Cavan Sullivan, the 15-year-old midfield prodigy currently with Philadelphia Union but on his way to the City Football Group. But maybe a slightly more reliable choice, in terms of likelihood to be around in 10 years at least, is an up-and-coming goalkeeper in the shape of Diego Kochen.

For one thing, the 18-year-old Kochen has a slightly more realistic prospect of getting regular senior football in the next few years. Born in Miami to Peruvian and Venezuelan parents, Kochen and his family moved to Spain when he was a child and joined the Barcelona academy when he was 13. He’s made it through the system to the point that he has been a regular presence with the first team and has even been on the bench for a few games this season.

Maybe the interesting question is not ‘will he be at the 2034 World Cup?’, but more ‘who will he play for there?’. He has appeared for the USMNT at various youth levels and the likelihood is that’s who he’ll play his senior international football for, but he qualifies for those two South American nations through his parents, plus Spain are keen.

Earlier this year, Francis Hernandez, Spain’s youth co-ordinator, told Marca that he is trying to persuade Kochen that his future is with the nation of his upbringing, rather than his birth: the next few years could see a battle for this promising goalie.

Diego Kochen earned his first senior USMNT call-up in September (John Dorton/ISI Photos/USSF/Getty Images for USSF)

Franco Mastantuono (Argentina)

On a different timeline, we could be writing about Mastantuono as one to watch for Wimbledon 2034.

The River Plate attacking midfielder initially rejected the chance to join the Argentine giants’ academy because he was a hugely promising tennis player but eventually, he chose football and broke into the River first team earlier this season. He’s part of a remarkable generation of talent at River, that includes the Manchester City-bound Claudio Echeverri and the highly-touted winger Ian Subiabre.

After making his debut aged 16 at the start of 2024, Mastantuono’s time has been slightly more limited recently as River manager Marcelo Gallardo eases him into senior football. He has also played all along the attacking line — as a striker, a No 10 and on either wing — and the interesting thing at this stage is that he has the physique to settle in any of those roles (he’s almost 6ft tall and broad), or indeed not settle and become a semi-positionless attacker, able to fit into the needs of whatever team he’s playing for.

He’ll theoretically be in his prime when the Saudi World Cup arrives. Argentina have dominated international football over the last couple of years and they have the talent to do so again in a decade.

Franco Mastantuono – tennis’s loss could be Argentinian football’s gain (Hernan Cortez/Getty Images)

It’s always tricky to ascribe quality to a player simply due to the reputation of where they learned the game. For every superstar in Manchester United’s Class of ’92, there were 10 youngsters who weren’t good enough.

However, the latest graduate from Senegalese talent factory Generation Foot has got plenty of people talking. The club that produced Pape Matar Sarr, Ismaila Sarr and most famously Sadio Mane, now presents to you Amara Diouf.

Diouf was only 15 when he won his first call-up to the Senegalese senior squad last year and it was assumed that he would join Metz when he turns 18 in 2026, a path well-travelled.

Amara Diouf made his Senegal debut at 15 (Pakawich Damrongkiattisak – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)

But it now appears that he will bypass the ‘staging post’ club in France and potentially move to somewhere more high-profile, having been linked to Barcelona and the Red Bull group. It could be a crucial decision because, if the next few years go right for this explosive young winger, then he could be one of the stars of 2034.

Watch football for long enough and you will witness a large number of young, implausibly composed kids playing extremely high-level football that make you think, ‘How would I have coped with this when I was 16?’. The answer is generally, ‘Probably quite badly’ but specifically in this case, ‘Nowhere near as well as Warren Zaire-Emery’.

Perhaps he is preternaturally mature, perhaps he’s been forced to be because he’s done everything so young. Zaire-Emery was Paris Saint-Germain’s youngest ever player when he made his first-team debut aged 16 and 151 days, their youngest to appear in the Champions League a few weeks later, the youngest to be called up by France since 1914 and their second-youngest scorer when he found the net against Gibraltar.

It’s also because he’s really, really good. He’s 18 now and a fixture in the PSG side, partly benefiting from a philosophical change at the club to favour young, French players, but would he still have been a regular if they were still in their ‘superstars’ era? Almost certainly. He’s also midfielder that can perform a number of different roles, which you would think is good news for his longevity.

Warren Zaire-Emery looks a surefire future France regular (Franck Fife/AFP via Getty Images)

Had Geovany Quenda made it off the bench for Portugal’s recent Nations League game against Croatia, he would have been the youngest player to ever appear for the national team.

He didn’t make it on that night but it’s only a matter of time before Quenda not only plays for Roberto Martinez’s side but becomes a key part of it. “He’s probably going to steal my place,” Bernardo Silva told reporters during the last international break. “At 17, I wasn’t even playing for Benfica’s youth team.”

Naturally a winger, Quenda broke into the Sporting team earlier this year under Ruben Amorim as a wing-back and impressed during their Champions League victory over Manchester City, providing a remarkable pass to set up the first of Viktor Gyokeres’ three goals. That he was able to adapt so readily suggests an uncommon maturity for someone of his age.

In the long term, he will probably return to his more natural role but with this generation of Portuguese attacking talents — Bernardo, Bruno Fernandes, Diogo Jota — all of a similar age, Quenda’s time may come pretty soon.

Geovany Quenda’s senior Portugal debut looks inevitable (Diogo Cardoso/Getty Images for DFB)

Talal Haji (Saudi Arabia)

Any World Cup where the hosts are a factor makes for a grander occasion and if those hosts have an outstanding individual, then all the better: think Roberto Baggio in 1990, Zinedine Zidane in 1998, Neymar in 2014.

It’s undoubtedly putting far too much pressure on the 17-year-old Talal Haji to group him with that lot but from a decade out, he looks to be the Saudi player most likely to fill that role.

Getting attention as a homegrown player in the Saudi Pro League right now is a tricky task, particularly when you’re in a team with Ballon d’Or winners and world champions, as he is at Al Ittihad. But Haji has managed both, becoming the youngest player in Pro League history last year, a few days after turning 16, and the second-youngest to be called up for the national team shortly afterwards: if you’re looking for precedents, the only man younger than him when making his international debut, Ahmed Jamil, went on to win 117 caps.

A forward with huge amounts of pace and skill, Haji also looks like that kid at school who had a growth spurt before anyone else — a boy’s face on a man’s body. The question from this point is how he will cope with the pressure of being the host nation’s big hope for 10 long years.

Talal Haji is Saudi Arabia’s second-youngest senior debutant (Noushad Thekkayil/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

This list needed someone who will be a hoary old veteran by 2034. Someone who by all rights should probably have retired but is clinging on for one last shot at glory. Ideally, this needs to be someone from one of two categories: either a granite-hewn, grizzled warhorse like Giorgio Chiellini or Pepe, or a cerebral, Luka Modric-esque playmaker who, by that point, will just be sitting deep and directing games without leaving a 20-yard circle in the middle of the pitch.

The latter seems like a more likely prospect, so with that in mind, it’s easy to see Martin Odegaard, who will turn 36 at the end of 2034, as our slightly creaky old midfield string-puller.

Martin Odegaard will be a grizzled veteran in 2034 (Mateusz Slodkowski/Getty Images)

That’s assuming Norway qualify for a World Cup by then: until this point, even with Odegaard and Erling Haaland, they haven’t managed it since 1998 and haven’t reached a major tournament since Euro 2000. But with the big two, plus coming force Antonio Nusa, surely they will make one by that point…

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)