In brief
Lionel Messi selected ten guys in 2015 that he believed will become the next major football stars.
James Wilson and Accursio Bentivegna did not play in the elite division, and most of the players did not reach the heights.
Timo Werner won the Champions League, and Jeremie Boga went on to earn international honours.
Lionel Messi isn’t always the best talent judge, even though he may be the best player to ever step onto a football ground. In the beautiful game, the Argentinean has accomplished everything, including winning a record eight Ballon d’Ors, the World Cup, and several Champions Leagues.
Nevertheless, the 37-year-old has demonstrated that he is incapable of foretelling the future. The striker and Adidas collaborated to launch the ‘Backed by Messi’ campaign in 2015. It is quite impossible to guarantee success for anyone in football, no matter how certain it looks, as Cristiano Ronaldo discovered with some of his selections for the game’s future stars. Here is what occurred to all ten of Messi’s picks that he believed would be at the top of the game in the years to come.
2015 club for Jeremie Boga: Rennes (on loan from Chelsea)
Jeremie Boga was one of several young Chelsea players that were predicted to succeed in 2015. Boga was on loan at Rennes, France, in the same year when players like Tammy Abraham and Mason Mount were helping the Blues win the FA Youth Cup. Before making a permanent move to Serie A team Sassuolo, he had brief stints with Granada and Birmingham City.
He played for Neroverdi for two years before moving to Atalanta and then OGC Nice a year later. Boga has made 23 appearances for Ivory Coast on the international scene and was a member of the team that won the 2024 African Cup of Nations. Therefore, not all love was lost in Boga’s career, even though he never followed in Messi’s footsteps or achieved the heights that were anticipated of him.
Accursio Bentivegna
2015 club: Palermo
One future superstar was rising through the ranks at Palermo in 2015. Messi did not, however, pick Paulo Dybala, his eventual World Cup-winning teammate. He chose the less well-known Accursio Bentivegna instead. He undoubtedly made a mistake with this.
With only seven appearances in Serie A, the Italian winger had minimal success in Italy’s top division. He has been able to increase his experience with lower-tier clubs in the nation, such as Carrarese Calcio and Juve Stabia. The 28-year-old completed a move to Serie C team Delfino Pescara 1936 during the summer 2024 transfer window, but he isn’t exactly making waves there. It hasn’t quite been the ascent Messi anticipated.
Chelsea is Kenedy’s 2015 club.
In the summer of 2015, Kenedy moved from Fluminense to west London, but he would never grow into the player that many, including Messi, had anticipated. The Brazilian would only make 30 appearances while at Stamford Bridge and would go on loan to many teams, including Newcastle and Getafe.
The attacker didn’t leave the team until September 2022, when he signed a permanent contract with Real Valladolid, concluding his seven-year tenure with Chelsea. However, it did not turn out to be the fresh start Kenedy had hoped for. The Brazilian was demoted in 2023 and has only scored twice in 44 games. But the next year, they were able to get an instant promotion back to La Liga, which allowed him to become well-known once more.
Lyon was Maxwel Cornet’s 2015 club.
Messi took notice of a young Maxwel Cornet while he was at Lyon, where the striker scored 51 goals and assisted on another 29. Although a major Premier League transfer was discussed, he was only able to sign with Burnley in 2021. Despite being a shining star that season, the Ivorian was unable to stop relegation.
He would transfer to east London for an estimated £17.5 million after his efforts at Turf Moor convinced West Ham to take a gamble on him. However, Cornet would have a difficult debut season, making just 14 Premier League games and failing to score any goals. However, he played in five Europa Conference League games as West Ham won the championship. He was loaned out to Southampton and has only managed to score one goal for the Hammers, with players like Mohammed Kudus ahead of him in the hierarchy. In January, following an unsuccessful stint at the Saints, he temporarily joined Genoa.
Aleksei Miranchuk, Lokomotiv Moscow, 2015
During his stint at Moscow, Aleksei Miranchuk made an impression. He scored 43 goals and assisted on 46 more in 228 games for the team. He spent seven years at the Russian club before being signed by the Italian team Atalanta, who rewarded him with a transfer to one of the top five leagues in Europe.
After 98 games, 13 goals, and 19 assists, the Russian international had a career to be proud of despite not living up to Messi’s expectations by putting up some poor performances. The highlight of which was winning the Europa League in 2024 by ending Bayer Leverkusen’s record-breaking winning streak. After that, they decided to join Atlanta United, an MLS team with a similar name.
Timo Werner
2015 club: VFB Stuttgart
Even though he has received harsh criticism throughout his career, Timo Werner is arguably the person on this list who can claim to have had the most successful career. After joining Chelsea in 2020 and winning the Champions League, the German striker returned to the Bundesliga in the summer of 2022 after the Blues sold him.
Werner has now returned to the region, this time playing for Tottenham in north London, after regaining the form that initially drew him to London. Although his loan is scheduled to expire in 2025, he is eager to make the change permanent. However, Tottenham doesn’t appear to be as interested.
Rony Lopes
2015 club: Manchester City
Rony Lopes, who was signed by Manchester City from Benfica as a teenager, would only play five games for the Premier League team. After moving permanently to Monaco in 2015, he appeared to start settling down, scoring 15 league goals for the French team in the 2017–18 campaign.
A string of loans to Nice, Olympiacos, and Troyes have followed his 2019 sale to Sevilla, with Wissam Ben Yedder going the opposite way. The Spanish powerhouses then released him, and after shaving, he was able to get a return to his native country with SC Braga for a short time. He now plays for SC Farense after being loaned from Alanyaspor in the Turkish Süper Lig.
James Wilson, Manchester United, 2015
When James Wilson emerged at the end of the 2013–14 season and scored a brace on his debut against Hull, United supporters believed he was destined for greatness. He was another potential talent in Manchester when Messi discovered him.
Many people thought he would become United’s next major academy star because of that and his youth record, but under Louis van Gaal, he steadily faded away and moved down the football hierarchy after unsuccessful loan stints and his 2019 move to Aberdeen, Scotland.
After playing for Salford City and Port Vale in 2021, the 29-year-old is currently at Northampton Town, the former home of Adebayo Akinfenwa, a powerful player.
LA Galaxy was Gyasi Zardes’ 2015 club.
Messi was monitoring some of the most promising players coming out of the US long before he made his move to the MLS. Gyasi Zardes, a prolific striker in the nation’s junior football ranks, became the first homegrown player to score in the 2014 MLS Cup final and helped LA Galaxy win the trophy with 16 goals.
In the years that followed, his career’s extraordinarily promising beginning burnt out, and as injuries mounted, interest in Zardes waned. He later won the 2018 MLS Comeback Player of the Year award for his rebound after joining the Columbus Crew in 2018. He scored nine goals in 26 games during his stint with the Colorado Rapids the previous season. After signing in January 2023, the 33-year-old initially maintained that form with six goals for Austin, but his 2024 MLS season stats weren’t particularly outstanding. He was released and is now a free agent after just scoring three goals in 33 games for the same team.
Khiry Shelton
2015 club: New York City FC
When Khiry Shelton was chosen by New York City FC as the second overall pick in the 2015 MLS SuperDraft, head coach Jason Kreis referred to him as the “top guy” despite his youth. However, things didn’t work out, and in 2017 he moved to Sporting Kansas City. In 2019, he was given the opportunity to play European football with SC Paderborn in Germany, but the winger was unable to make the cut.
Shelton returned to Sporting Kansas a year after moving overseas, and he has stayed there ever since. Despite playing 165 times for the team, he hasn’t done enough to currently qualify for a senior cap for the US.
2015’s Wonderkids to Watch with Lionel Messi
The player
2015 Club
Present Club
Boga Jeremie
The Rennes
Nice OGC
Bentivegna Accursio
Palermo
1936’s Delfino Pescara
Kendy
Chelsea
Valladolid Real
Cornet, Maxwel
Lyon
Geona (from West Ham United on loan)
Miranchuk Aleksei
Moscow Lokomotiv
United Atlanta
Werner, Timo
Stuttgart VFB
Tottenham Hotspur (RB Leipzig loanee)
Lopes, Rony
City of Manchester
FC Farense (from Alanyaspor on loan)
Wilson, James
United Manchester
Town of Northampton
Zardes Gyasi
The LA Galaxy
Free Agent
Shelton, Khiry
FC New York City
Kansas City Sports
xz
