Unfortunately, La Liga is falling behind the other top five European leagues in terms of spending, so talent development on a grassroots level has become more important for Spanish clubs than ever before.
Sadly, by the same token, La Liga are falling behind in developing talent, particularly the academies at the smallest clubs in Spain. They are seeing their talents poached and having more difficulty initially bringing bright young talents aboard with the scouting networks of Real Madrid and Barcelona, in particular, only growing stronger.
It is no surprise, of course, that Real Madrid and Barcelona dominate the list of the best young players in La Liga today, and, in truth, these two powerhouse clubs have the best collection of young talent in the world out of any clubs around – and it’s not even close.
But there are still a couple of young gems worth keeping an eye on outside the Big Two. Here are the 10 best young players in La Liga in 2026, ranked in order from 10th to 1st.
10. Sevilla CB Kike Salas
Kike Salas is probably a hidden secret to most European football fans, but he has been Sevilla’s best player this season and is performing at an extremely high level in terms of his defensive involvements.
Just 23 years old, Salas has started a mere 11 La Liga matches due to injury, but whenever he is healthy, as he is right now, he is lighting up the stat sheet with defensive interventions, even recently scoring an important goal against Girona.
Salas is averaging 2.1 tackles and 1.7 interceptions per game in league play this season, and he’s also clearing 7.2 balls per match. All of that, and yet Salas is only allowing 0.5 dribbles completed per game.
There are better young center backs in La Liga on the ball than Salas, but there are not many – if any – better at purely winning possession and being a clamp-down defensive player. Sevilla are still a middling side right now, but Salas is worth watching.
9. Atletico Madrid CB Marc Pubill
Atletico Madrid are way off the pace in La Liga in terms of challenging for the title, and while a recent 4-0 blowout win over Barcelona in the Copa del Rey did show that they can dominate anyone in the world when they are at their best, consistency has been a real issue for Diego Simeone’s men.
As Club Brugge exposed in a come-from-behind 3-3 draw in the Champions League, Simeone’s defense is not as impenetrable as it was in the past, but don’t tell that to his newest center back standout, Marc Pubill.
Signed from UD Almeria, who recently went down in Spanish football, Pubill is playing as well as any young defender in La Liga this season, especially when you boil it down to a per-game basis.
Pubill, like Salas, has only started about 8 games this season due to injury, but when he has played, he has been even better. Attackers can hardly get around the 22-year-old Spaniard, who is averaging 1.1 tackles and 1.5 interceptions per game to just 0.2 dribbles completed allowed per match.
On top of all that, Pubill is pretty refined on the ball, too, completing 88-89 percent of his passes in La Liga. Atletico Madrid were begging for a new breakout superstar at centre back, and Simeone has 100 percent found one.
8. Athletic Club LW Nico Williams
Unfortunately, the 2025/2026 season has not been as kind to Nico Williams, who was openly flirting with virtually every elite club in world football, including Arsenal and Barcelona, in the previous two summer transfer windows due to his sheer explosiveness and motor.
Williams is the sparkplug for Athletic Club, providing width and playmaking, and there has been hope that the young left winger will soon add a goal-scoring touch to his game.
However, Williams’s stock has fallen slightly this season. He is not performing as well, and it is also concerning that he did not play as well in the 2024/25 season as he did in 2023/24.
Now, Athletic Club do have issues as a club, but Williams needs to be more efficient in the final third to take that next step, and that still hasn’t happened yet for the 23-year-old.
But Williams is still young and playing well overall. He remains one of the top young wingers in Spanish football, and nobody can forget what Inaki’s younger brother did for Spain at the last European Championships across from best friend Lamine Yamal.
7. Real Madrid LB Alvaro Carreras
At long last, Real Madrid have found their Marcelo replacement. Now, Alvaro Carreras, a former academy star for the Merengues, is nothing like the Brazilian legend in terms of his skill-set or profile, but the point is that Real have finally found a competent attacking option at the left back position.
Ferland Mendy’s injuries and technical limitations caused him to be pushed out of favor, and another former academy option, Fran Garcia, failed to establish himself as a Madrid-level player following his return to the club after a promising run with Rayo Vallecano.
Carreras, meanwhile, proved himself in the Champions League as one of the tournament’s best left backs for Benfica last season, and he has picked up where he left off in 2025/26.
Although Carreras still needs to prove he can hang with the elite teams in the biggest games, he has been a breath of fresh air with significantly more individual skill and attacking motor than his predecessors at left back.
A composed, accurate passer, Carreras is a reliable chance-creator and an excellent one-on-one defender, so long as he isn’t matched up against one of the world’s most explosive right wingers.
Right now, Carreras is the best young left back in world football, and he shouldn’t take ranking of seventh as a slight. The level of young talent in La Liga between Real Madrid and Barcelona is just insane.
6. Barcelona AM Fermin Lopez
If Fermin Lopez played for any other team in world football, he’d actually be receiving even more praise and be one of the biggest names in the game, because he’d be starting every game and central to that side’s gameplan.
Chelsea have long held interest in Fermin, but after the 22-year-old penned a new contract with the Blaugrana this season, the door has been slammed shut on a potential swoop to Stamford Bridge.
Barcelona have a crowded midfield, specifically a crowded attacking midfield, but after years of snubbing Fermin and seeing his name floated in transfer rumors to big Premier League clubs, they are finally starting to play the uber-talented Spaniard on the regular.
Fleet-footed and inventive, Fermin has been unplayable at times in the 2025/26 campaign. He has 9 goal contributions in 11 league starts and 7 appearances off the bench, while he has been an even bigger force in the Champions League with 8 goal contributions in 7 games.
Fermin has the technique to score from anywhere, the quickness to dribble through any crowd, and the creative range of passing to torment defenses with poked passes into the box that lead to obvious goal-scoring opportunities.
5. Real Madrid CM Arda Guler
Real Madrid are still trying to find the best position for Arda Guler, but as Carlo Ancelotti showed the club at the end of the 2024/25 season, there’s a lot to love about Guler in a deep-lying playmaker role where he can avoid the muck yet forge ahead and join the attack around the box when the time calls for it.
Whether a 10 or a 6, Guler is very obviously not a right winger, which was the position initially given to him in Madrid, leading to some frustratingly anonymous performances.
Well, there is little frustration about the Turkish sensation now. Guler is flashing the potential to be the Mesut Ozil to Kylian Mbappe’s Cristiano Ronaldo, and while the youngster can sometimes force the pass to the former PSG man a bit too much, the connection between these two stars is apparent.
Guler has been in La Liga for a couple of seasons now but is only 20, so the fact that he is already essentially an undisputed starter for Real Madrid with 25 total appearances this season (20 starts) is pretty insane.
Averaging 2.2 key passes per game with 10 total goal contributions, Guler is still merely scratching the surface on what he can become. He is one of the biggest talents in world football.
4. Barcelona CB Pau Cubarsi
Because of all the injuries and instability at the center back position in Barcelona, as well as Hansi Flick’s dangerous high-line, it feels like Pau Cubarsi has started to become underrated despite being, in a way, the defensive equivalent to Lamine Yamal for the Blaugrana,
Cubarsi has scored some decisive goals from the center back position and is easily the team’s best passer at the back. He’s also easily the best defender physically and in terms of his game intelligence, often having to cover for the ills of his teammates.
The 19-year-old completes about 95 percent of his more than 85 pass attempts per game, and those are simply mind-blowing numbers for a center back who is still a literal teenager.
Cubaris has been starting for years at Barcelona as a fixture at the club, yet he is barely older than Yamal. It’s rare to find, in the history of this game, a center back doing this at a team with both the pressure Barcelona is under as a club and the pressure Cubarsi is under as a center back in the Flick system.
He honestly deserves so much more credit than he gets from fans outside of Barcelona. He’s the only center back in a top five with players who are already among the most productive attacking names in the game today, and that speaks to his quality and sheer importance to Barca.
3. Real Madrid CM Jude Bellingham
Jude Bellingham should have been the player Madridistas tabbed as the Ballon d’Or favorite in 2023/24, because he won them so many big games in his first campaign at the Santiago Bernabeu, nearly winning the Pichichi Trophy as a midfielder.
Nowadays, Bellingham is playing further away from goal, and even the Real Madrid fans are, unfortunately, falling for the weird media bait that Jude is an egoist and a bad teammate.
But here’s the truth: Jude, regardless of whether he’s a No. 10 or a No. 8, is the best midfielder Real Madrid have when looking at the full picture, and it really isn’t even close.
Bellingham leads all Real Madrid regular starters with 2.3 tackles won per game, even though he is dribbled past just 0.6 times per match, which is a pretty insane defensive ratio for a box-to-box midfielder who spends every game busting both lungs up and down the pitch.
Offensively, Jude is more creative than he gets credit for with 1.7 key passes per game. He’s also one of the team’s top three progressors – and easily their best from the midfield – with 3.2 combined dribbles completed and fouls drawn per match.
Bellingham is one of the biggest names in world football for a reason. He’s not just an England international playing for the biggest club in the world backed by the hype machine; he is one of the most industrious and well-rounded midfielders in the world.
2. Barcelona CM Pedri
That said, Pedri, right now, is just barely edging him out for the second spot. After shaking off some injury issues, Pedri is playing the best football of his life and is operating at the highest level in terms of his technical play as a passer and his game intelligence in reading passing lanes two steps ahead.
Pedri is an easy player to underappreciate if you aren’t watching Barcelona matches most weeks, but when you do put in the effort to tune in to the full 90 minutes instead of just blazing through the highlights, you’ll see that Pedri has perfected the art of the progressive midfielder at the ripe age of 23.
The fact that he has two goals and five assists shouldn’t be taken as a point of criticism but rather a high compliment that a player who spends so much of his time and effort in the background, linking up the play before the goal or assist even happens, still has seven goal contributions in the league.
Pedri has quietly improved his game physically and defensively, averaging 2.7 combined tackles and interceptions per game to go with his outrageous 2.4 key passes and 3.1 combined fouls drawn and dribbles completed per match.
Barcelona would simply not be Barcelona without Pedri pulling the strings. Years away from his true prime as a metronomic center midfielder, it’s scary to think how good Pedri will be in five years at 28. To all the nostalgia merchants, maybe pay attention, because we are also witnessing history with this young man.
1. Barcelona RW Lamine Yamal
Now, the term “witnessing history” is quite pertinent when it comes to Lamine Yamal, who was a Ballon d’Or frontrunner down to the wire against Champions League winner and former Culer Ousmane Dembele in just his age-17 season.
Yamal should honestly be getting even more Ballon d’Or praise in the 2025/26 season, too, but his numbers are suffering from Ferran Torres’s ineptitude at the striker position as Barcelona, rather clumsily, try to transition away from Robert Lewandowski up top.
So Yamal’s 10 goals and 8 assists in this wide creator role, while still very impressive, actually sell his impact way short. The underlying statistics are far more telling and the best of any true winger in world football right now.
Yamal is averaging 2.9 key passes per game, 2.1 fouls drawn per game, and what is easily the best mark in Europe’s top five leagues with an astounding 5.2 dribbles completed per game.
Just as he was last season, Yamal is untouchable with the ball at his feet. If he can just learn to put a little more rotation on his curled shots, his goal totals could double, too, especially if Barca can land a true star at striker instead of forcing the Ferran issue on us all.
Ranking anybody other than Yamal at No. 1 would be pure fallacy, irrespective of how brilliant his teammate Pedri is behind him or what Jude Bellingham could potentially do for Real Madrid once the club figures out how to maximize his athletic gifts. Yamal is, like Lionel Messi was before him, from a different planet entirely to the rest.
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.