A lot can change in three years. Just think back to where both Real Madrid and Barcelona were three years ago. The former had completely collapsed into a smoking heap of Eden Hazard transfer fees and coaching changes. After three straight Champions League titles, they’d just been eliminated from the tournament by Ajax. They’d already fired one manager and were about to ax another. Barcelona, meanwhile, were cruising toward their fourth league title in five years and were one of the favorites to win the Champions League.
Since then? Well, Barcelona have collapsed into a smoking heap of financial mismanagement and coaching changes, while Real Madrid have reasserted themselves as the best team in Spain. The former is fighting just to qualify for the Champions League, while the latter look likely to win their second LaLiga title in three years — something the club hasn’t achieved since 2008.
However, there is one thing the two clubs do have in common: They’re not as good as they used to be. The dominant duopoly atop European soccer is dead; gone are the days when every season would begin with Barcelona and Real Madrid as the favorites to win the Champions League, overtaken by the likes of Manchester City, Liverpool, Bayern Munich and Chelsea as Europe’s truly elite teams.
With Sunday’s El Clasico looming, both teams are in a state of transition; they are wedged between eras, focused as much on the future as they are on the present.
(The betting lines from Caesars (subject to variation) are +110 for Real Madrid, +235 for Barcelona and +265 for the draw, while Paul Carr writes that this one could have plenty of goals, suggesting that over 2.5 goals (-150) and both teams to score (-170) are good picks.)
Barcelona and Real Madrid’s next great teams are at least a few years away. Who on the current squads might be a part of any future successes?
To answer that, we’re going to rank the top 20 players on Real Madrid and Barcelona based on where they might be in three years. Contract status isn’t taken into consideration. We’re just worried about how valuable a given player could be come March 2025. It’s to the clubs to decide if they want to keep him.
20. Luka Jovic | 24 | FW | Real Madrid
I’m sorry, but I can’t quit this guy. He’s just entering his theoretical prime years and will still be in the midst of them three years from now. He’s only made six LaLiga starts for Real Madrid since joining the team in, uh, 2019, but he’s quietly been really productive: 0.61 non-penalty goals+assists per 90 minutes over 872 domestic minutes. That’d be a top-15 mark in Spain this season.
It probably won’t be for Madrid, but don’t be surprised if he’s putting up a couple 15-goal, five-assist seasons whenever he gets a chance to start somewhere again.
19. Ferland Mendy | 26 | DF | Real Madrid
A fantastic defensive player who’s also sneakily older than you might think. He’ll be 29 in three years, and I imagine still a starter for Madrid. He’s solid, but he’s not higher on this list because he’s not really the kind of fullback you see starting for elite teams too often anymore. He’s averaging 0.06 expected assists per 90 minutes over the past year — ranking in the 29th percentile for all fullbacks across the Big Five European leagues, per the site FBref.
Maybe he becomes Real Madrid’s Kyle Walker?
18. David Alaba | 29 | DF | Real Madrid
Could he fall off a cliff at some point over the next few years? Sure, but he has the game intelligence to help fade any physical decline, and he’s just so good at so many different things that his game feels like it should age well.
Pep Guardiola once called him “God.” That’s good enough for me.
17. Thibaut Courtois | 29 | GK | Real Madrid
Top keepers tend to age relatively well, so a 32-year-old in net isn’t the same thing as a 32-year-old fullback. He got by on his reputation for a couple years, as his last season with Chelsea and his first season with Real Madrid were both quite poor. He wasn’t saving shots and that’s, you know, the main part of the job description. But over the past three seasons, he’s been worth about three goals more than the average keeper, per Statsbomb’s post-shot expected goals model.
Courtois doesn’t give you the sweeper-keeping or passing skills of the likes of Ederson, Alisson or Manuel Neuer, though there’s still plenty of value in just a solid, above-average shot-stopper.
16. Rodrygo | 21 | FW | Real Madrid
This could be the most inaccurate projection on the list — in either direction.
On the one hand, he’s already played over 6,000 minutes for Santos and Real Madrid. On the other, he hasn’t been all that good at doing the things players in his position are paid to do: score and create goals. At Madrid, he’s averaging about a goal or an assist every third game (and his underlying numbers don’t suggest much better). He’s really active without the ball and he’s had some truly breathtaking moments here and there, but he just hasn’t put it all together yet.
Still more of a prospect than a reliable player at this point.
15. Nicolás “Nico” González | 20 | MF | Barcelona
Our first Barca player! And it could be the most inaccurate projection on the list — in either direction.
In 11 starts for Barcelona, Nico has basically been the Barcelona Jude Bellingham — a long, explosive athlete who’s everywhere on the field, carrying the ball forward and just constantly getting into the penalty area. He’s not higher because these are the first minutes of his professional career, so there’s some more uncertainty in projecting him going forward. Plus, he hasn’t shown much as a passer, which seems like a more valuable and a much stickier skill for a midfielder.
That said, with all the smaller technicians in the team, Barca could really use a player with this profile.
14. Toni Kroos | 31 | MF | Real Madrid
This guy was starting games at the freaking 2010 World Cup and he’s still only 31. His physical range continues to decline, but why should we expect the passing to go away? Per FBref, he’s in 99th percentile for midfielders in progressive passes and passes attempted, and he’s 95th-percentile for pass-completion percentage. He’s constantly attempting low-probability passes that push the ball forward, and he’s rarely not finding the target.
A 34-year-old Kroos at the base of a midfield, with Eduardo Camavinga and Federico Valverde wreaking havoc in front of him — who says no to that?
13. Memphis Depay | 28 | FW | Barcelona
Controversial opinion alert: He’s great.
With Memphis, you get a fantastic passer/playmaker who’s also going to get you, say, 15 goals a season. He’s basically what you’d get if Lionel Messi was just a simply very good soccer player who also once dated comedian and Family Feud host Steve Harvey’s daughter. Maybe Barcelona don’t need this kind of skill set from their forwards anymore, but I feel pretty confident that Memphis will still be doing what he’s always done for someone, three years from now.
12. Ronald Araújo | 23 | DF | Barcelona
Last year, Michael Cox coined the idea that all center-backs were either a dog or a cat. The best duos tended to have one of each: the cat would sit back and deter opponents from making passes in the first place, while the dog would aggressively pursue the ball. Araujo is the latter, winning tackles, making blocks and putting attackers under pressure. At the risk of oversimplifying things, he’s also just big, strong and fast.
As transition play has become more and more important at the highest level, the game has continued to tilt toward prizing better athletes. Barcelona still don’t have many of them, but Araujo certainly is.
11. Sergino Dest | 21 | DF | Barcelona
Only 21, he’s already played more than 6,000 professional minutes across the Eredivisie, LaLiga and the Champions League at one of the more important positions in the sport. That bodes really well for his future projections. Players that play a lot of minutes at a young age tend to become really good pros. Dest carries the ball forward as well as almost any fullback in the world, and he’s constantly getting on the ball in the box, too.
At Barcelona, they don’t need a fullback to do too much work in build-up play, so his ability to get on the end of forward passes really seems like it should fit well with the rest of the squad.
10. Federico Valverde | 23 | MF | Real Madrid
It’s difficult to assess some of the players in Carlo Ancelotti’s “less tactics, more vibes” system, especially in the midfield. Great attackers can make things happen outside of a structure and the best defenders are able to prevent the chaos in front of them from leading to goals conceded, but midfielders seem especially reliant on their teammates and a larger tactical structure in order to function. They need players to pass, too, and they need teammates to defend with.
I’m not sure Valverde will ever become a great passer, but his presence on the field just ratchets up the intensity for a team that often lacks it. You saw it when he came on against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League. When they’re on the ball, he’s all vertical carries and runs into the penalty area. When they’re off it, he’s chasing down whoever’s in possession.
The best case for Valverde’s career, I think, is a lesser version of the N’Golo Kante we’ve seen since the Frenchman stopped playing in a midfield two.
9. Éder Militao | 24 | DF | Real Madrid
He’s still not all that good in possession, but he’s got the kind of defensive range that elite teams want from their center backs in this era. Plus, he doesn’t get much help from a team that doesn’t press and a midfield that typically includes the aging legs of Kroos and Luka Modric.
Madrid have a 10-point lead in La Liga with 10 games to go, and Militao has played more minutes than any outfield player at the club. He’s clearly doing something right.
8. Frenkie De Jong | 24 | MF | Barcelona
Four years ago, I wrote an article about how Frenkie De Jong might revolutionize the sport if he continued playing center-back. After that, he led Ajax to the Champions League semifinals, moved to Barcelona the following summer, and became… a nice, above-average midfielder? There are few better at carrying the ball forward, and he’s added the ability to break into the penalty area to his game, but he doesn’t do much passing and he’s close to a zero on the defensive side of the ball.
At some point, the potential disappears and the reality is the present, but there’s still a chance he takes another leap over the next three years.
7. Ousmane Dembele | 24 | FW | Barcelona
He’s out of contract at the end of this season and he’s good at … everything on the offensive end. He’s one of the best outlets in Europe, he’s one of the best dribblers, and he’s one of the best creators. He’s a pretty good passer and gets a ton of shots, too. He can be a legitimate superstar.
The only real question: How much will he play? Since joining Barca in 2017, he’s played just a third of the potential LaLiga minutes.
6. Eduardo Camavinga | 19 | MF | Real Madrid
He only turned 19 in November, and he already has nearly 7,000 minutes in France and Spain under his belt. He’s not secure enough on the ball yet to consistently play as the deep-lying, Mousa Dembele-like destroyer and ball mover. That’s probably his best-case outcome: both breaking up play in front of the back four and driving things forward both in transition and through an opposition press. But even if not, it seems like his worst-case outcome is as a world-class pressing midfielder who can break into the penalty area in possession and carry the ball forward into space.
This kid is going to be really good; it’s just a question of how good.
5. Gavi | 17 | MF | Barcelona
The only reason he’s not higher is because we’re only talking about three years from now, when he still won’t be old enough to order a Miller Lite at a bar in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Hell, he’s not even 18 yet, and he’s already played over 2,000 minutes in domestic and European competition.
If you haven’t sensed the theme yet, Gavi is yet another one of these midfielders who are incredible at carrying the ball forward, receiving passes into valuable space and breaking into the penalty area. The difference with him and all of the other ones is that he’s freaking 17 so there are still so many other skills he can develop on top of that.
Midfielders tend to peak around age 25; Gavi won’t be that old until 2029.
4. Ferran Torres | 22 | FW | Barcelona
He’s missed a bunch of big chances since joining Barca, but the fact that he’s getting the chances in the first place is what matters — and that’s what he’s done whenever he’s played. Whether he’s starting on the wing or a center-forward, he’s always finding space inside the penalty area, which is arguably the most important skill a high-level soccer player can possess. It raises the ceiling of whatever team he’s on.
Torres has only started six games so far in LaLiga, so he doesn’t qualify for FBref’s leaderboard (minimum 50 percent of a team’s minutes), but his non-penalty expected goals plus expected assists per 90 minutes would rank fourth in the league if he did. He was similarly productive at Manchester City.
It’s pretty straight-forward; he’s young and he gets a bunch of great shots. Three years from now, he should be doing even more of that.
3. Ansu Fati | 19 | FW | Barcelona
The injuries are really scary and he hasn’t consistently played soccer for nearly two years at this point, but he’s basically been an elite attacking winger — the kind of player that every great team has now — when he’s been on the field. He gets into the box a ton, creates chances for his teammates, and gets a bunch of shots for himself. He defends, too. Oh, and he did all of this as a teenager.
Despite only starting nine games in LaLiga over the past two seasons, his potential might be higher than anyone else’s on this list. He plays the most important position in the sport today, and if he can stay healthy — a massive “if” — he could be one of the best players in the world.
2. Pedri | 19 | MF | Barcelona
Remember what I said about all of those other young midfielders? Take all of that, add “world-class passing” and “maniacal pressing” to it, and you’ve got Pedri. The big concern here is that he’s basically been playing soccer for three straight years at this point, and that doesn’t look likely to change at any point soon. But, man…
PEDRI, TAKE A BOW 🔥
Barcelona are right back in it 👀 pic.twitter.com/F4S89Epe1f
— CBS Sports Golazo ⚽️ (@CBSSportsGolazo) March 17, 2022
If he starts doing that more often, then no one else really stands a chance.
1. Vinicius Junior | 21 | FW | Real Madrid
He’s tailed off a bit over the past few months, but here’s a list of the players who have played at least 2,000 minutes this season in Europe’s Big Five and are averaging more non-penalty goals+assists per 90 minutes than Vini: Karim Benzema, Robert Lewandowski, Kylian Mbappe, Thomas Muller, Mohamed Salah and Christopher Nkunku. He’s also an elite ball-carrier, a fantastic passing outlet, and a great presser. He has the skill-set to succeed in any team; since he’s so good both with and without the ball, you don’t need to account for his weaknesses.
Vinicius can also complement whatever fullback is on his side and whatever attackers are next to him. He’s already fantastic, and there’s no reason why he can’t get even better.
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