Where are they now? The Top Teenage XI in Europe from 2010/11

Pressure placed on the shoulders of young footballers is immense. One moment of individual quality can catapult a teenager into the media spotlight. Some live up to the hype, while others fall to the wayside.

Last week we revealed the best Golden Boy XI from 2009/10 across Europe's top five leagues and while the likes of Toni Kroos and Miralem Pjanic have gone on to enjoy highly successful careers, others like Alexandre Pato and Davide Santon have ultimately failed to capitalise on their early promise.

Now it is time to jump forward 12 months and find out what happened to the Class of 2010/11. Straight off the bat we can reveal four are World Cup winners. Not everyone has enjoyed such celebrated careers, however. Some have been forced to drop down to second-tier football and others have seen their careers wrecked by injuries.

Once more, we have teamed up with leading transfer valuation website Transfermarkt (TM) to find out how much each player was valued at the end of 2010/11 season. Players must have been teenagers at the start of the campaign to make the XI. 

Goalkeeper: David de Gea (Atletico Madrid) - 6.93 rating / £16.2m TM Value

Holding down a place for the second successive season is Atletico Madrid's David de Gea. This marked De Gea's first full campaign as a professional after forcing his way into the first-team reckoning midway through the 2009/10 season. 2010/11 was remarkable for the young Spaniard. De Gea didn't make a single error leading to an opposition goal from his 38 league appearances, kept 11 clean sheets and averaged 4 saves per game.

It only took one full season for De Gea to earn a high profile move, as Manchester United came calling at the end of 2010/11. Initially, it didn't look like De Gea would make it at Old Trafford, but he came good on his potential and was regarded as the best goalkeeper in the world entering the 2018 World Cup. His TM value peaked as high as £63m that year but a difficult spell since then has seen it fall to £36m as of April.

Right-back: Mario Gaspar (Villarreal) - 6.99 rating / £3.6m TM Value

Mario Gaspar has been an ever-present for Villarreal ever since breaking onto the scene for his boyhood club in 2010/11. Mario made 22 league appearances in his breakthrough season and hasn't looked back, remaining loyal to the Yellow Submarines his entire career. More renowned for his defensive work as a full-back as opposed to his creative output going forward, Mario notably averaged 3.5 tackles per game and 2.9 interceptions per game during his debut season in LaLiga.

Mario was eventually rewarded with his Spain debut in 2015 and despite only making three caps he incredibly managed to score two goals for his country, including a stunning acrobatic volley against England. His TM value only climbed as high as £14.4m in 2018 but as he now approaches the twilight of his career it sits at just £5.4m.

Centre-back: Phil Jones (Blackburn) - 6.98 rating / £9m TM Value

The 2010/11 campaign marked Phil Jones' first full season as a professional for boyhood club Blackburn and it changed his life. An impressive year under Sam Allardyce culminated in a high profile switch to Manchester United in the summer of 2011 and it wasn't long after that Sir Alex Ferguson dubbed the youngster the next Duncan Edwards. What has since transpired is Jones certainly is not Duncan Edwards. Or even close. In 2010/11, however, he caught the eye at the back for Blackburn with an average of 2.9 for tackles and interceptions per game.

Injuries have really tarnished Jones' career since moving to Old Trafford and sadly now he is better referred to as as an internet meme rather than a centre-back for one of the biggest clubs in the world. Jones has only reached 20 league appearances in four of his nine seasons for United and has only featured twice in the competition this term. His TM valuation peaked in 2019 when transfer fees exploded but it only reached £18m and in 12 months it has dipped to just £6.3m.

Centre-back: Raphael Varane (Lens) - 7.07 rating / £3.6m TM Value

Raphael Varane was just 17 when he made his league debut for Lens back in November 2010 and it was apparant very quickly the French outfit had unearthed a real superstar. Varane's only campaign for Lens caught the attention of most big clubs in Europe and led to a high profile move to Real Madrid in the summer of 2011.

He split his time between centre-back and defensive midfield for Lens but it was obvious his long-term future would be in defence. Despite being such a novice, Varane flourished. His tackle success rate was notably 76%. In other words, only on 12 occasions from 50 attempted tackles did an opponent manage to get past him. Since moving to Madrid, Varane has two LaLiga twice and the Champions League on four occasions, as well as the World Cup for France. Regularly linked with a blockbuster move to Manchester United, Varane's TM value peaked at £72m in December 2018 and now sits at £57.6m.

Left-back: Antonio Luna (Almeria) 6.99 rating / £900k TM Value

After only managing two league appearances for Sevilla during the first half of the 2010/11 campaign, Antonio Luna joined Spanish minnows Almeria in January 2011 for the remainder of the season. He ended the campaign as Almeria's joint-highest WhoScored rated player and with a remarkable return of 4.9 interceptions per game for Jose Luis Oltra's side - the joint highest in LaLiga (10+ appearances).

Luna returned to boyhood club Sevilla for the following campaign but still struggled to find regular playing time before eventually ending up at Aston Villa in 2013. Things didn't pan out quite as hoped in England either and after a brief stint in Italy he returned to Spain in 2017 and now plays for Rayo Vallecano in the Spanish second division. At the peak of his powers, his TM value reached a measly £2.25m as of April 2012 but is now just £855k.

Right wing: Mario Gotze (Borussia Dortmund) - 7.38 rating / £16.2m TM Value

For someone that has scored the winning goal in a World Cup final, you can't help but think Mario Gotze's career has quite reached the heights it could have. Now 28, Gotze's career is drifting. For much of his come-up, Gotze was regarded as one of the most exciting talents of his generation. 2010/11 was his first full campaign as a professional and he finished it with 17 goals and assists (six goals, 11 assists) at the age of just 18. He has never managed to surpass his tally of 11 assists that campaign and only in two league campaigns since then has he played a direct hand in more league goals.

Gotze made the controversial decision to leave Dortmund for their German rivals Bayern Munich in 2013 but he returned to his boyhood club after just three seasons with the Bavarians. Playing time has come at a premium for Gotze since then, not helped by illness, and now he is set to leave Dortmund on a free transfer this summer at the age of 28. While there is still time in his career to find form, his transfer value is unlikely to ever get close to it's peak of £49.5m as of February 2014.

Central midfield: Jack Wilshere (Arsenal) - 7.05 rating / £18m TM Value

After learning the ropes of Premier League football on loan at Bolton the campaign before, Jack Wilshere was finally deemed ready for the Arsenal first-team in 2010/11. It sadly remains the only full campaign of Wilshere's career. Since then he has been plagued with various long-term injuries and now it's more of a surprise if he's fit as opposed to on the sidelines. Injuries have really robbed Wilshere of what promised to be a hugely exciting career. The former Arsenal midfielder was linked with Barcelona during the early stage of his career and his playing style was certainly similar to Andres Iniesta.

Wilshere's career, in terms of market value, peaked at the end of the 2013/14 campaign (£29.7m), which remains his best season for goals and assists (seven goal contributions). In 11 seasons as a professional, Wilshere has reached 20 league starts on three occasions. For West Ham this season he has only managed to start twice. His market value is just £4.32m.

Central midfield: Lewis Holtby (Mainz) - 7.11 rating / £5.4m TM Value

Lewis Holby used a loan spell at Mainz during 2010/11 to force his way into the first-team picture for parent club Schalke and it worked wonders for him. Holtby was 20 by the time the campaign ended and he played a direct hand in 12 goals in 30 league appearances for Mainz, which still represents his best ever return in a single league season. A move to Tottenham in 2013 was seen as hugely encouraging for his career but it never sparked for Holtby at White Hart Lane.

His peak TM value was just below £10m prior to his move to Tottenham and has gradually declined since then. He has slipped into second-tier football in the last two seasons. Last term he played for Hamburg in Bundesliga 2 and this season he has found the going tough for Championship side Blackburn with just 10 league starts in 2019/20. His current TM value is just £720k.

Left wing: Eden Hazard (Lille) - 7.48 rating / £20.25m TM Value

Like De Gea, Eden Hazard retains his place in the best WhoScored rated Teenage XI. After playing a direct hand in 12 league goals in 2009/10, Hazard took his goal contributions to 17 in 2010/11. WhoScored Man of the Match awards also increased from three to seven over the two campaigns. He was now starting to get the attention of Europe's top clubs and it wouldn't be long before they all started making their move for his services. Hazard finished the 2010/11 campaign as the second highest WhoScored rated player in Ligue 1 and he was only 20 by the time the season finished. He was top for dribbles per game (2.7) and second for key passes per game (2.6).

After seven years of brilliance at Chelsea, Hazard finally relented to Real Madrid's long-standing interest and moved to Spain last summer. Madrid signed Hazard while his TM value was at its peak (£135m) but his first season at the club has been bitterly disappointing, ruined by injury. Limited to just nine league starts in 2019/20, the Belgium international is now valued at £72m.

Striker: Andre Schurrle (Mainz) - 7.25 rating / £11.25m TM Value

The 2010/11 campaign proved Andre Schurrle's final one for Bundesliga side Mainz, as bigger and better things beckoned. The German World Cup winner scored 15 Bundesliga goals for Mainz that season and it remains his best ever haul in a single-league campaign. He finished the campaign with 19 goals and assists in 33 league appearances before joining Bayer Leverkusen in the summer. Two more impressive seasons followed, resulting in 18 league goals, before Chelsea snapped up the versatile forward.

Unfortunately for Schurrle, however, he never managed to establish himself as a first-team regular at Chelsea. In his first season at the club he made 30 league appearances but half of those came from the bench. It was a familiar story for the German while he remained at Stamford Bridge before Wolfsburg offered him an escape route home. It was during his time at Wolfsburg when he peaked in 2015 in terms of TM valuation (£27m). He never managed to discover his blistering early Bundesliga form, however, despite earning a move to Borussia Dortmund in 2016. Now he plays in Russia for Spartak Moscow and his TM valuation is just £5.85m. 

Striker: Antoine Griezmann (Real Sociedad) - 7.01 rating / £7.2m TM Value

During Antoine Griezmann's time at Real Sociedad he was always entertaining but often lacked the end product to take him seriously as a potential world class player. He has, however, proved many wrong in that respect after developing into one of the most recognised faces in the game today.

Griezmann was 20 by the time the 2010/11, his first season as a professional, finished and he managed seven league goals for Real Sociedad. He improved steadily, year-on-year, before earning a move to Atletico Madrid in 2014. After regularly being linked with a Premier League move in that time, Griezmann eventually joined Barcelona last summer in a controversial transfer that soured his relationship with the club. Valued as high as £135m in December 2018, Atletico appear to have cashed in at the right time, however, as now his TM valuation is £86.4m.