5,666 EDUARDO CAMAVINGA, 18

He’s said he’s a fan of compatriot Paul Pogba, and Eduardo Camavinga has often been compared to the Manchester United midfielder. It was Pogba that Camavinga coincidentally replaced on the France squad last summer, when the former was diagnosed with Covid-19.

That helped him get his national team debut. At 17, he became the youngest Frenchman to play for Les Bleus in more than a century. The Rennes midfielder has established himself as a crucial part of his club’s first XI in the last couple of seasons and has already amassed close to 80 appearances for club and country. And he is still over seven months away from his 19th birthday.

“The more matches I have played, the more I have become a competitor. I want to win all the matches. Before coming into Ligue 1, I was not a very defensive player, but I got a taste for defending, helping my team, and today I am proud. I have also improved in terms of my clarity and approaching the goal,” Camavinga told reporters during a national team camp last year.

With his stock rising across Europe as a versatile, highly capable midfielder who can be the engine of his side, there is reportedly already significant interest from some prominent clubs on the continent. Europe’s richest clubs will undoubtedly be willing to shell out a fortune for the young Frenchman.

That’s some transformation for a boy born in a refugee camp in Angola to Congolese parents fleeing Kinshasa. The family moved to Brittany in France in 2004. In 2013, their house was burnt down, a tragedy that forged the desire in Camavinga to reclaim it all and more through football.