Eredivisie U-21 watchlist 2026-27: the Cruyff Talent shortlist still in the league

The Eredivisie has an unusually honest way of identifying its best young player: the Johan Cruyff Talent of the Year is voted on by all eighteen head coaches in the league, plus the national team manager. Not journalists, not a public poll — the people who spend a season trying to stop them.

That vote produced a winner and four nominees for 2025-26. One of the four — Mats Rots — has already left for the Bundesliga, and his fee sets the benchmark for everyone else on the shortlist, so he appears in the section below rather than in the watchlist. This is what the remaining four did, and where they are as of 8 August 2026.

Why the Dutch shortlist is worth reading

The list of previous Cruyff Talent winners is the argument: Jorrel Hato in 2024-25, Johan Bakayoko in 2023-24, Xavi Simons in 2022-23, Jurriën Timber in 2021-22. The award has a strong record of naming players a year or two before the rest of Europe pays for them.

The 2026 window supplied the price check, and it came from this very shortlist. Mats Rots — the fourth nominee — was a 20-year-old left-back who made 34 Eredivisie appearances and scored 4 goals for Twente. He joined Hoffenheim on 9 June 2026 for €16 million, a club-record sale for Twente. A full-back with four goals commanded eight figures because he was 20 and had played a full season. That is the going rate.

Mika Godts — Ajax, 21, left winger

Godts won the award, and it was not close in the numbers.

17 goals and 12 assists in 32 Eredivisie appearances. Twenty-nine goal involvements against a team total of 62 Ajax league goals — 46.8% of everything his club scored.

Underneath the end product, he led the league in the things that generate it:

• 190 total dribbles and 85 successful dribbles — most in the Eredivisie
• 11 open-play assists — most in the Eredivisie
• 75 open-play chances created — most in the Eredivisie

Volume dribblers usually create chaos without much end product; high-efficiency creators usually do not carry the ball much. Godts led the league in both categories at once, at 20 years old for most of the season.

Two clarifications, because they get muddled. He won Talent of the Year, not Player of the Year — that went to Ismael Saibari. And he did not leave in the summer: he turned 21 in June 2026 and has already played Conference League football for Ajax this season.

Kees Smit — AZ, 20, midfielder

Smit's league line is modest — 26 Eredivisie appearances, 3 goals — and reading only that line will mislead you. Across all competitions he played 46 matches and scored 5.

Those twenty extra matches are the point. AZ's cup and European run meant Smit was picked in the games where a manager is most tempted to reach for experience, and he kept playing. For a 20-year-old central midfielder, a 46-game season is a durability signal that a 26-game league column hides completely.

Sami Ouaissa — NEC Nijmegen, 21, winger

32 Eredivisie appearances and 6 goals, plus 2 goals in 5 cup matches.

The context that matters: Ouaissa was moved to right wing in early 2025, and his scoring improved after the change. So 2025-26 is his first full season in the position he now plays. Judging him on career totals that include a season and a half somewhere else understates where he currently is.

He is also the only name here at a club outside the traditional top three, which historically means a lower asking price for a comparable player.

Dies Janse — Ajax, 20, defender

Janse spent 2025-26 on loan at Groningen, where he played 31 matches and scored 2. That loan ran 2025-26 and has ended; he is back at Ajax wearing number 36.

He is the only defender the coaches nominated, and defenders are the hardest group to assess from a distance — the best version of a centre-back's season is a list of things that did not happen. A full loan season of senior minutes at 19 and 20, judged good enough by opposing managers to earn a nomination, is a stronger signal than his two goals suggest.

How to check these players yourself

Everything above is league output: appearances, goals, and the league's own published creation and dribble counts. That is enough to know who played and who scored, and not enough to know who is good.

The questions this data cannot answer are the positional ones. Is Godts' dribble volume high for a winger, or high for anyone? Is Smit's three-goal season normal for a deep midfielder in a 46-game year? A raw total cannot say; a percentile against players in the same position can.

• Browse the full Eredivisie squad list to see every player at these clubs
• Put any two of them side by side in player comparison
• Read percentile radars by position rather than by raw total
• Check the metrics glossary for exactly what each stat counts

For the wider view across leagues, see the best U-23 players outside Europe's top five leagues, or the Portuguese equivalent of this article: Liga Portugal's under-21 core.

Award, ages and club status verified 8 August 2026. Season figures are 2025-26. Creation and dribble counts as published by the league.