The best U-23 players outside Europe's top five leagues going into 2026-27

Every summer the same thing happens. A club in the Eredivisie or Liga Portugal develops a 19-year-old into a first-team regular, one of Europe's big five leagues pays for him, and the selling club starts again. The players are not hidden — they play in televised leagues, in European competition, for clubs everyone has heard of. They are just filed under "someone else's league" until a fee makes them real.

This is a list of under-23 players who, as of 8 August 2026, are still outside the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1. Every age, club and number below was checked against league and club records this week, because three players who would have made this list in June are already gone.

Start with what the market just paid

Before the watchlist, the evidence that this market moves quickly. Three under-23s left non-top-five leagues in the 2026 summer window:

• Geovany Quenda, 19, left Sporting CP for Chelsea on 8 July 2026 on an eight-year contract, for a reported £40 million. He had made 20 league appearances and scored 2 goals in 2025-26.
• Gustavo Sá, 21, left Famalicão for Nottingham Forest on 30 July 2026 for around €20 million, and was immediately loaned to Olympiacos. He had 32 league appearances and 4 goals.
• Mats Rots, 20, left Twente for Hoffenheim on 9 June 2026 for €16 million — a club-record sale for Twente. He had 34 Eredivisie appearances and 4 goals as a left-back.

None of the three had a season you would call statistically spectacular. Quenda scored twice. What they had was age, minutes at a competitive level, and a position of need. That is the pattern worth internalising before reading the rest of this list: the fees track profile and playing time more closely than they track output.

Mika Godts — Ajax, 21, left winger

The clearest case on this list. Godts was named Johan Cruyff Talent of the Year for 2025-26, voted by all eighteen Eredivisie head coaches and the national team manager — the same award previously won by Jorrel Hato, Johan Bakayoko, Xavi Simons and Jurriën Timber.

The season behind it: 17 goals and 12 assists in 32 Eredivisie appearances, 29 goal involvements in total. Ajax scored 62 league goals. Godts was directly involved in 46.8% of them.

The volume numbers are just as striking. He led the Eredivisie in total dribbles (190) and successful dribbles (85), and topped the league for both open-play assists (11) and open-play chances created (75). That combination — a high-volume dribbler who is also the league's best open-play creator — is rare, and it is the reason he is not a secret.

One caveat worth stating plainly: Godts did not win Eredivisie Player of the Year. Ismael Saibari did. Godts turned 21 in June 2026 and remains at Ajax, having already played in the Conference League this season.

Victor Froholdt — Porto, 20, midfielder

Froholdt did something unusual in 2025-26: he won both the Liga Portugal Player of the Year and Young Player of the Year awards in the same season, in his first season at the club after joining in July 2025. In the young player vote he took 49.5% — roughly double the runner-up.

His raw line is 34 league appearances and 6 goals, which understates him. He is a central midfielder in a title-winning side who played essentially every league match at 20 years old. Availability at that age, in that role, at that club, is the story.

Rodrigo Mora — Porto, 19, attacking midfielder

The honest entry. Mora is 19, was ranked 19th in the world among under-21s in an April 2026 ranking, and turned down a summer offer from Al-Ittihad to stay at Porto. He also scored 1 goal in 28 league appearances in 2025-26.

That is a low return for an attacking midfielder, and we are not going to dress it up. Two readings are available: either the output arrives as his role grows, or the reputation is running ahead of the production. Both are live. He is on this list because the sample is small and the age is extreme, not because the goal count argues for him — and if you only read one profile on this page sceptically, make it this one.

Andreas Schjelderup — Benfica, 22, left winger

The oldest player here, and the one closest to a complete season. Schjelderup posted 7 goals in 28 league appearances, and a career-best 10 goals and 6 assists across all competitions. In April 2026 he swept Liga Portugal's monthly awards — Player, Forward and Young Player of the Month in the same month — and finished second in the Young Player of the Year vote with 24.5%.

At 22 he is at the point where the "prospect" framing stops being useful. The next season is the one that decides whether he is a Benfica starter or a big-five signing.

Kees Smit — AZ, 20, midfielder

A Johan Cruyff Talent of the Year nominee, and AZ's most-used young midfielder: 26 Eredivisie appearances with 3 goals, and 46 appearances with 5 goals across all competitions. The gap between those two lines is the interesting part — AZ played deep into cup and European competition, and Smit was trusted in both at 20.

Sami Ouaissa — NEC Nijmegen, 21, winger

32 Eredivisie appearances and 6 goals, plus 2 goals in 5 cup matches. Ouaissa was moved to right wing in early 2025 and his output improved after the switch, which makes his 2025-26 season the first full one in his best position. Another Cruyff Talent nominee, at a club outside the traditional top three — which is usually where the price gap lives.

Dies Janse — Ajax, 20, defender

Janse spent 2025-26 on loan at Groningen and played 31 matches, scoring 2, before returning to Ajax, where he now wears number 36. A Cruyff Talent nominee, and the only defender on this list. Loan-year defenders are systematically underrated by highlight-driven scouting for the obvious reason: the evidence is in what did not happen.

What this list is not

It is a starting point, not a ranking. Seven players across two leagues is a narrow sample, and the reason it is narrow is that we only included players whose current club we could verify this week. Several names that appear on similar lists elsewhere have already moved.

The deeper problem with lists like this one is that goals and appearances flatten very different roles into the same column. A left-back's 4 goals and a winger's 17 do not mean the same thing, and neither number tells you about defensive volume, progression, or how a player compares to others in his own position. That is what percentile work is for — you can build the positional comparison yourself with player comparison and percentile radars, and the metrics glossary explains what each number counts before you lean on it.

Two league-level breakdowns go deeper than this overview:

• Eredivisie U-21 watchlist for 2026-27 — the Dutch names in detail, and the export record that sets their prices.
• Liga Portugal's under-21 core — Porto and Benfica's young spine after a £40m summer.

You can also browse the full squads for both leagues directly: Eredivisie and Liga Portugal.

Ages and clubs verified 8 August 2026. Statistics are 2025-26 domestic league totals unless stated otherwise. Where a number is a model estimate rather than a counted event, we say so — see our methodology.