In just a few days, on Dec. 1, Olympiacos FC’s Christos Mouzakitis will be honored by the Italian sports newspaper “TuttoSport” with the award of best young European footballer for 2025, as voted by the fans.
He’s one of the two big winners of the paper’s Golden Boy awards, his being generated in a vote of hundreds of thousands of fans. The other award, Golden Boy 2025, as decided by select sportswriters, will go to Paris Saint-Germain superstar Désiré Doué.
The difference between the two is that Mouzakitis’ award was decided by vote, while the French star’s distinction was decided by a committee. If you look at the list of winners from previous years, you’ll understand why this success is so huge for the young Olympiacos ace, as past winners include the likes of Jude Bellingham, Karim Adeyemi, Ansu Fati and others.
Mouzakitis also outpaced two very promising stars of Turkish descent: Juventus’ Kenan Yildiz, last year’s winner, and Real Madrid’s Arda Güler.
The award is the “icing on the cake” to a superb year for the young star. During the ongoing season, Mouzakitis established himself at Olympiacos and earned caps for the national team where, at just 19 years old, he’s considered as one of the key players.
One of his goals, in fact, decided a Derby in favor of Olympiacos. Last February, Olympiacos knocked out rival Panathinaikos from the Greek Cup qualification with a goal by Mouzakitis, whereas only a few days earlier the youngster had scored his first goal in Super League play against Levadiakos.
The manager’s role
Mouzakitis is extremely hardworking and belongs to the category of young players who have built up their own good fortune by themselves. Of course, he was also fortunate to have the strong support of the two managers he has worked with, firstly with Sotiris Silaidopoulos, who appointed him captain of Olympiacos’ U-19 team, the squad that won the UEFA Youth League two years ago – the illustrious “Champions League” for young players. At the same time, there is no doubt that José Luis Mendilibar also did an exemplary job with the young star. It’s not enough to recognize talent, to cultivate a young footballer and make him a starter on a championship team, given that when you’re talking about players like Mouzakitis, these things are probably easy. The difficult part is something else.
The first thing is to promote him to the senior squad at the right time, and that’s not always easy. If you send him up too early, you risk a “wash out”, because you’re rushing things, something we’ve seen occur in Greek football on occasion.
If you keep a young talent on the bench longer than necessary, then you risk the player losing confidence and getting discouraged. A player’s promotion to the seniors’ side must first and foremost be something that the coaches agree on – if they tell you that he is physically ready, there is no need to be concerned. However, that is not enough. Much more is needed.
First of all, the team must be prepared to field and utilize the “youngster” on the pitch – that is, to ensure that he adapts as well as possible. The young talent should enjoy his promotion to the senior side without burdens while also understanding that there is always someone else on the team ready to play in his spot. When Mendilibar decided to start Mouzakitis, Olympiacos also had the veterans Garcia and Hesse in roughly the same position. The Basque manager set the bar very high because he had confidence in Mouzakitis.
Medilibar immediately understood that the future belonged to the youngster, and told him as much during summer training, namely, that he should always be ready to start a match if called upon. The manager believed that his team could integrate a charismatic young player emerging from the youth academy, meaning that he had players who would run for him, cover him, assist him, teach him to cooperate on the pitch and to listen.
However, he did not treat the young player as someone who would have unlimited time to show what he could offer, but as an athlete who would have to seize every opportunity – and Mouzakitis understood this.
A common mistake
In order for a talented young player to integrate into a team and perform well, the coach must first establish a “system” around him that allows him to showcase his talent, and this isn’t always a simple matter.
Barcelona, the best team in the world at promoting talented youngsters, did this admirably in the case of Messi, and is doing so now with Yamal, but has failed to do so in many other cases. The common mistake is that teams expect young players to make a difference thanks to their talent—that is, to immediately take on leadership roles, demand the ball etc.
Initially, young talented players need to be integrated, in other words, supported by the team with the right teammates. In this case, behind Mouzakitis’ success are Santiago Hesse and Dani García, but also Panagiotis Retsos, Chiquinho and Rodinei, who are ready to guide and advise him. All of them, as well as the youngster’s wonderful family, will be a little prouder on the evening of Dec. 1.
