Perhaps no league in world football has a bigger reputation for building top young talents than the Bundesliga, and that’s because clubs like Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Monchengladbach, Eintracht Frankfurt, RB Leipzig, and, of course, Borussia Dortmund have made it a regular habit of signing and developing young players into superstars.
But even the most historic and successful club in the German top flight, Bayern Munich, has produced more than its fair share of homegrown elite players, including five-time Champions League winning center midfielder Toni Kroos.
The Bundesliga is almost like a factory for talent to the other big leagues in Europe, especially the Premier League, and Liverpool alone spent well over 200 million euros this summer on two of the biggest German league talents in Eintracht Frankfurt striker Hugo Ekitike and Bayer Leverkusen playmaker Florian Wirtz.
Who could be next? Ahead of the 2025/26 Bundesliga season opener, let’s take a look at the 10 best young talents currently aged 21 or younger to watch in the upcoming season.
Bayern Munich DM Aleksandar Pavlovic
Aleksandar Pavlovic is on the comeback trail for the September international break after breaking his orbital bone, having overcome a lengthier spell on the sidelines early in the 2024/25 season after breaking his collarbone.
There’s a significant difference between how Bayern Munich play with and without Pavlovic, as the 21-year-old is already an all-important anchor at the base of the Bayern midfield with his game intelligence, athleticism, and accurate passing.
Last season, the German international completed a whopping 93.5 percent of his passes with 1.8 tackles per game compared to just 0.5 dribbles allowed per match. Pavlovic has a great blend of defensive robustness and composure on the ball, and he’s the partner for Joshua Kimmich that Leon Goretzka never really was.
With the potential to be special, Pavlovic is on the verge of a world-class breakout with more experience. As Bayern continue to give him reps and as Pavlovic continues to grow in importance, his stock around world football will rise dramatically once more people are attuned to his qualities.
Eintracht Frankfurt CM Hugo Larsson
Eintracht Frankfurt are mostly famous for producing talented strikers they then sell of for massive fees like Luka Jovic, Sebastien Haller, Randal Kolo Muani, Omar Marmoush, and, most recently, Hugo Ekitike.
But the Champions League and Europa League regulars are also quite good at developing players at other positions, whether it’s defenders like Evan N’Dicka (now at Roma) or midfielders like their current top star Hugo Larsson.
Now that Ekitike has been sold, Larsson is the new face of Frankfurt. The 21-year-old Swedish international is one of several young standouts from a country emerging as a bigger producer of talent, and he’s already made a name for himself as one of the best ball progressing midfielders in the German top division.
Larsson came to Frankfurt with a lot of hype within Bundesliga circles after the athleticism and fluidity he showed on the ball at Malmo, and he’s been even better in the financial capital of Europe, saving his best football last season for the grand stage of the Europa League.
Bayern Munich CM Tom Bischof
The Bundesliga -and Germany specifically – is producing some seriously underrated midfield talent, from Anton Stach to Angelo Stiller and now Aleksandar Pavlovic and the just as underrated Tom Bischof in Bavaria.
Bischof already stood out as one of the best center midfielders in the Bundesliga last season, and Bayern knew they had to have him when they saw what he was doing alongside Stach at Hoffenheim.
The 20-year-old scored 5 goals with 1.6 key passes and 1.1 fouls drawn per game while winning a whopping 3.1 tackles per match. It’s rare to find that combination of goal-scoring upside, creativity, solidity on the ball, and elite defensive work in any midfielder, let alone someone just a teenager.
Bayern are getting a special player in Bischof, and if everything goes to plan, he, Paul Wanner, Jamal Musiala, and Aleksandar Pavlovic can rule the roost for years and years to come.
RB Leipzig LW Antonio Nusa
Antonio Nusa had a fabulous summer for the Norway national team, grabbing headlines with this spellbinding solo goal against fallen European powers Italy. With Benjamin Sesko moving to Manchester United and Xavi Simons likely to leave a year after Dani Olmo did, there will be more focus on the wingers next season.
And if anything, Nusa is going to benefit from incoming right winger Johan Bakayoko, as the underrated dribbler from PSV will give Nusa even more room to roam on the left side.
Nusa has the technical ability and explosiveness to be an ideal inverted winger for RB Leipzig and ball out as their best attacking forward since Christopher Nkunku, carrying the lineage of Nkunku and Simons as the next world-class breakout star in the Leipzig attack.
Borussia Dortmund CM Jobe Bellingham
Jobe Bellingham arrives at Borussia Dortmund from Sunderland with a weight of expectations on his shoulders and a likely dream to join former Dortmund superstar Jude Bellingham at Real Madrid.
While it’s hard to project what the future holds for Jobe, he looked highly promising for Die Schwarzgelben in the Club World Cup. Small sample size and all, but you can already see that Jobe has the robust athleticism and desire of his brother, and those traits will carry him a long way.
Is he as good technically or as smooth on the ball? No. But Jobe has different strengths with his physicality, and he has just as much goal-scoring upside when lurking around the box or bombarding into it. He’s the all-action midfielder and auxiliary goal threat that Dortmund were crying out for.
RB Leipzig DM Arthur Vermeeren
So many top European clubs were watching defensive midfielder Arthur Vermeeren as the next big thing at the No. 6 position a few years ago in the Belgian league with Royal Antwerp.
Vermeeren even ended up getting a huge move to La Liga title contenders Atletico Madrid in January 2024 for nearly 20 million euros, but he never really kicked on at Atleti and ended up getting loaned to another Champions League power in RB Leipzig.
Though Vermeeren started just 18 games compared to 10 substitute appearances, it was enough to trigger a move, and Leipzig scouts clearly see the traits in Vermeeren that made him so coveted around Europe in the first place.
He’s a solid deep-lying creator who can keep play ticking over while being an excellent holding defensive player with his reading of the game and activity to break up play.
Leipzig have had some strong defensive midfielders over the years in Xaver Schlager, Konrad Laimer, and Marcel Sabitzer, but they’ve never really had a dual playmaker and ball-winner like what Vermeeren could be.
Eintracht Frankfurt AM Can Uzun
Eintracht Frankfurt may have sold off Hugo Ekitike this summer, but if you look past the striker position, they have a squad chock full of emerging young talents who are ready to fill out the rest of the team and ensure that the Eagles can still compete for a top-four spot year in and year out.
Mario Gotze is the veteran presence in the playmaking spot and a legend of the Bundesliga who remains an asset to Eintracht at the age of 33, but the 2025/26 season could be the year the German international slowly yields his spot to a newcomer.
Can Uzun is just 19 and has what it takes to become the next great playmaker in the Bundesliga. The versatile forward scored four goals in just 669 Bundesliga minutes last season, impressing with his trickery and creativity.
He is adept at finding pockets of space and running circles around defenders, and he’s also so good at getting into the box and finishing his chances. Uzun is better technicallly than most attackers his age and is probably the biggest hidden gem in this talented Frankfurt squad.
Werder Bremen LW Samuel Mbangula
At the beginning of the 2024/25 season, Samuel Mbangula looked like the potential answer to the winger woes in Turin, but Juventus eventually gave up on the electrifying 21-year-old left winger as the season wore on.
By the end of it, Mbangula was pretty much an afterthought for both Thiago Motta and Igor Tudor, and now he finds himself at Werder Bremen after the summer transfer window with the keys to the kingdom.
It will be exciting to see how Mbangula meshes with a young attack that must forge forward without Marvin Ducksch, who was arguably the most underrated attacking player in European football when you look at what he did for Bremen these last few years.
Mbangula needs to be more consistent, but the raw tools are there. He is great at creating his own shot, great at creating shots for others, and not afraid to take risks out of possession to get goals for his team.
RB Leipzig CB El Chadaille Bitshiabu
RB Leipzig have been one of the best squads in European football over the last decade at obtaining and producing center back talent both for themselves and others, as global stars Dayot Upamecano and Ibrahima Konate can attest.
Perhaps the next great center back to come out of Leipzig is Castello Lukeba’s even younger partner El Chadaille Bitshiabu, who is just 20 years old heading into the 2025/26 Budnesliga campaign.
Bitshiabu also arrived in Leipzig from the French league, and, like Nkunku, there’s hope can be the next PSG gem who makes the Parisians live to regret his sale to the east German side.
The Frenchman is a raw, active ball-winner at center back who is rapidly improving his one-on-one defending. He’s definitely raw, but he’s one of the best pure athletes in the entire Bundesliga, which is saying something, and he’s also highly underrated with regards to his ball-playing capabilities.
Eintracht Frankfurt LW Jean-Matteo Bahoya
Although Jean-Matteo Bahoya is the definition of a boom-or-bust winger, there are flashes of brilliance where you watch Bahoya and realize that he has the raw talent with his explosiveness and agility to become one of the Bundesliga’s most dynamic wingers and overall attacking weapons.
Eintracht Frankfurt thrive off having chaos agents like Bahoya, who steps into the shoes of Omar Marmoush as someone Frankfurt hopes will be able to change the entire complexion of games all on his own.
Bahoya has a great attitude and is willing to try anything, and he doesn’t get down on himself when he loses the ball, instead chasing it back. He is frustratingly raw and mistake-prone on the ball at times, and he has to improve his finishing.
But because he has the right attitude and works hard, you’d back Bahoya more than just about anyone to put it all together and become one of the next great superstars in the Bundesliga for the Eagles.
Joe Soriano is the editor of The Trivela Effect and a FanSided Hall of Famer who has covered world football since 2010. He’s led top digital communities like The Real Champs (Real Madrid) and has run sites covering Tottenham, Liverpool, Juventus, and Schalke. He also helped manage NFL Spin Zone and Daily DDT, covering the NFL and pro wrestling.