The players we’ll be watching at the UEFA U-17 EURO
A special edition of The Shortlist
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A very quick bit of SCOUTED news before we dive into this special edition. We’ve been building our summer plans for a while now and quickly realised we needed another set of hands to make them possible. Enter Ashwin Raman.
That’s a name many of you will know; if you don’t, Ashwin is a superb writer, a great analyst, an all-round nice bloke, and in his words, the ‘analytics twitter Freddy Adu’. He’s worked with SCOUTED before and, starting next week, he’ll be doing so again, joining the team to write some cool stuff over the summer. Watch this space!
Headliners
The players we watched this week will watch over the next few weeks.
Boys and girls, it’s that time again: the UEFA European Under-17 Championship is back. Eight teams (down from the 16 at last year’s tournament) are heading to Albania to duel it out across two groups starting Monday, and we’ve got the lowdown for you, as we do every year.
- The full squad lists for this year’s UEFA U-17 EURO
- A very special featured player
- The team's tips on who to watch at the tournament
-...and your chance to be a scouting Nostradamus
Our coverage will look a little different to previous years, but it starts with this special edition of The Shortlist. It’ll continue each week in Llew Davies’ newsletter, SCOUT NOTES, in which we’ll highlight the players jumping off our screens. And it’ll end with our typical Team of the Tournament and Golden Ball pick, which is the definitive word, and don’t let UEFA tell you any different.
In case you missed it, here’s our best XI from 2024:
Stephen Ganavas
All players born on or after 1 January 2008 are eligible to participate in this year’s tournament. We’ve got every confirmed squad member for you coming up - but first, we needed to give a word to the tournament’s star man.
Short…listed:
A short recommendation.
The player to watch at U-17 EURO 2025 is Max Dowman. I’m sure you’re all very shocked and perhaps slightly awed at our bravery, but someone had to say it.
Dowman’s career so far has been a kind of fireworks display, of dazzling moments and slack-jawed, disbelieving onlookers. It began with whispered rumours that someone very special was emerging at Hale End - he’s fourteen, they said - that grew into a quiet legend of a kind that’s often so damaging for young footballers. SCOUTED held off from talking too much for exactly that reason, but he’s become impossible to ignore.
This season, he became the youngest ever player to represent Arsenal’s U-21s. He is the U-17s captain at 15. He has Mikel Arteta bemoaning the Premier League’s age restrictions. He has 19 goals from midfield this term, playing (at least) three years above his age. And he’ll go to the European Championships as the player to watch.
When you do, think about Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri; think about the way they are so adept at placing their bodies between the ball and their opponents, players who are bigger, stronger and older than them, and using their arms to lever space. Dowman does exactly the same in a way that screams of careful Hale End engineering. And when he has that space, he drives into it with poise, balance, and speed players two years his senior struggle to match. His unearthly close control, with little stud-rolls that are hard to follow in real time, slaloming changes of direction and a magician’s first touch, make him a ghost: getting tight to him is foolhardy; giving him space is suicide. And when he reaches the box, his finishing from his left foot is consistently killer.
This England squad has a plethora of top-level prospects, ones you'll be seeing in the Premier League before long, but Dowman will almost definitely be the first and is very probably the best.
HEATWATCH
SCOUTED50: Keeping tabs on the golden boys.
🔥 1 / PAU CUBARSÍ & 10 / DEAN HUIJSEN
There were no 2008-born players on last year’s SCOUTED50. But there were two centre-backs, both pass-spraying stalwarts, in the top ten. Next year, they’ll be Clásico rivals. The Dean Huijsen saga is over as quickly as it started: he’s a Galactico. Spain’s starting defensive partnership for the next decade could be a Barça/Madrid duopoly; it’s giving Piqué/Ramos for a new age.
Watchlist
Every squad for the UEFA U-17 EURO as things stand — and the players to keep an eye on.
🇦🇱 Albania
The hosts are making their U17 EURO debut this summer and they will be pinning their hopes on Gabriel Kulla. The Sassuolo striker scored 16 goals in 23 Under-17 A games this season and has 12 in 13 caps for Albania. Also, in case you are wondering, Arman and Dajan Durmiši are indeed twin brothers. That’s pretty cool.
🇫🇷 France
Despite winning two out of three games, France did not make it past the Group Stage in 2024 having won the competition in 2022 before finishing runners-up in 2023. Djylian N'Guessan is a player I am keen to watch. The Saint-Étienne forward is the youngest player to make an appearance in a Big Five League game this season, making his Ligue 1 debut at the start of the year, aged 16 years and 127 days old. Auxerre midfielder Rudy Matondo has also made his senior debut this season, first appearing in April aged 17 years and 38 days old. Finally, it’s also worth noting that France have the most 2009ers in their squad: PSG’s David Boly, Metz’s Believe Munongo and Troyes’ Christ Batola.
🇩🇪 Germany
Two-time Champions Germany did not qualify for the 2024 tournament, failing to even turn up to defender their 2023 title. You will not miss Mussa Kaba in midfield. The Borussia Dortmund giant is billed at 1.94m and towered above every opponent in this season’s UEFA Youth League. But Lennart Karl is the box-office attraction. Karl has scored 34 goals in 29 games for FC Bayern’s youth teams this season, making appearances at U-17 and U-19 level. He has seven goals in 10 caps for Germany’s Under-17s. That left foot is a lethal weapon.
🇵🇹 Portugal
2024 runners-up Portugal will be looking to go one better and secure their first U17 EURO title since 2016. As mentioned, Rodrigo Mora was crowned SCOUTED’s Golden Ball winner last year and Gil Neves has the potential to match him. Born in Luxembourg, Neves was signed by Benfica from Düdelingen at the start of the 2024/25 season. Standing at 1.89m, he is a complete contrast to Mora’s diminutive build but equally as exciting to watch. Look at for long-legged, rangy carries through central areas into the final third and beyond.
🇮🇹 Italy
The defending Champions have yet to submit their final list but I am pretty sure Federico Steffanoni will be on it. It seems too convenient of a comparison given their shared first name but Steffanoni has the Fede Valverde engine.
This moment from Atalanta’s UEFA Youth League League Phase win against Shakhtar encapsulates everything you will learn to love about him. A literal box-to-box midfielder from the first until the final minute.
🇧🇪 Belgium
Belgium are back at the U-17 EURO for the first time since 2022 and are the only other nation alongside Czech Republic that have previously entered the tournament and not yet won it.And it’s worth tuning into every game for Nathan De Cat. As Llew highlighted recently, the 16-year-old has broken into Anderlecht’s first team and even scored the first goal of his senior career. Physicality, mobility, punchy passing and combative ball-winning are obvious traits of his game. Keep tabs.
Nathan De Cat, keep tabs on the name.
— SCOUTED (@scoutedftbl) May 2, 2025
The 16-year-old hit a milestone yesterday on his fast track through Belgian football by scoring against Royal Antwerp. He's now a regular in first-team squads after racking up almost 2,000 minutes for the B team. Another one from Anderlecht. pic.twitter.com/LBbUhuvJ7S
🏴 England
I am completely England-pilled when it comes to these squads but oh my word this squad is stacked. You have already read about Max Dowman in this newsletter and feel free to get pulled in by the gravity of Rio Ngumoha below.
Llew Davies
Harry Gray recently made his senior debut, Alejandro Gomes Rodríguez is worth tracking for his background alone and Reigan Heskey is the son of the iconic Emile. However, the name I would like to highlight is Ryan McAidoo. Stocky and explosive, the ex-Chelsea left-footer will operate from the right in the most stacked 4-4-2 you will see at this level. But I think his future lies as a forward or operating just behind a centre-forward. His ability to escape tight spaces and generating shooting opportunities is brilliant, the shots he fires off are ferocious.
🇨🇿 Czech Republic
Czech Republic have never won the U17 EURO, with their second place finish in 2006 their best tournament to date - some guy called Toni Kroos was named Player of the Tournament back then. They did, however, reach the quarter-final stage last year having won all three Group Stage games and qualified for this year’s tournament without losing a single match. Even then, I was not personally familiar with many names. So, I thought it was best to call attention to their 2009er Matous Srb as well as the two players learning their trade outside of Czechia. TSG Hoffenheim’s Kryštof Čížek scored four goals from midfield in qualifying while Mainz 05’s Jan Jakub Janega, also eligible to represent Germany, is set to make his debut for Czech Republic.
Vox Populi
We’re listening - here's a quick poll, for fun.
This is your chance to look like a prophet. Rodrigo Mora was crowned SCOUTED’s Golden Ball winner for the 2024 tournament while Francesco Camarda won the UEFA award.
The question is: who will be named Player of the Tournament in Albania?
We’re leaving this open choice. It’s all on you. We'll publish the best responses next week - and come back to them at the tournament's end.
That’s all, folks. See you next Friday.
For everything on the next generation, stay tuned to SCOUTED.
