Dig the new breed....

We always knew where we stood with Spanish football magazine Don Balon’s annual list of the 100 best young players in the world.

While there would always be blinding omissions, and a few names that should never have been anywhere near, the Iberian soccer periodical called things pretty well. From each annual roster a few players would go onto become real superstars while the majority would never quite fulfil that youthful potential despite enjoying a reasonable career. Some would blossom while others would ascend so far into their own posterior that you questioned how anyone could have ever rated them in the first place. But that’s life, c’est la vie, asi es la vida; Don Balon judged what they saw and we liked that. Continuity is a great thing.

Regrettably, due to a swirling vortex of issues and events that we won’t go into here, Don Balon is no longer with us, and no Don Balon means no annual 100 list. Booooo!

We thought it was just us that lamented the demise of this annual roll call, but it turns out that we aren’t alone. On the interweb there are plenty of decent stabs at recreating Don Balon’s critical century, but most end up being driven by hype rather than any bona fide justification. Yes, we know Liverpool’s Raheem Sterling looks a player, and we’re sure he’s going to be great, but he’s not where Mario Götze is right now is he? Come back next year son.

So having allowed a sizeable chunk of the last six months to be consumed assessing the performance of the 2010 Don Balon list, we ended up with a whole raft of other names that we thought could/should have been in there. When this got to more than six hundred, we thought we’d best do something about it.

We’re not going to pretend that IBWM has anything like the clout that Don Balon wielded; this was a long running and well respected publication with a large audience after all. But ultimately, Don Balon’s annual list would eventually be whittled down by a handful of editorial types in front of a computer, and we can certainly relate to that.

For research, Don Balon would ask regional correspondents, journalists and media outlets to name names; so we asked regional correspondents, journalists and media outlets to name names. Don Balon would ask players, scouts and coaches for their opinions; so we asked players, scouts and coaches for their opinions. We’ve tried to get as balanced a view as possible, reviewing assessments, adding our two penneth and then prioritising names.

We’re not what you’d describe as experts, but then again, who is? You’d be hard pressed to find anyone that has digested and been involved in as much world football as we have over the last 20-30 years, so we think our views are reasonably valid…..well, when we’ve not had a drink anyway.

We spoke to lots of people, watched games, checked videos, took notes, read everything we could, discussed, argued, fought, made up, reviewed stats and then started over….and then we asked a selection of people whose opinion we trust to tell us we weren’t going off on one with any of our selections. The result is the 100 players listed below.

Our only criteria is that players should be have been born on or after January 1 1990 (yes, we feel old too). We’ve attempted to maintain a good mix of nationalities and tried to make sure that all regions are represented, but the cut had to come at some point so several nations are not included.

Most of the names are no brainers - Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshire and Mario Balotelli will be familiar to you, but players such as Joel Obi, Moritz Leitner and Valon Berisha might not. We’ve had a good look at them all, and we’re confident that there is enough going on to warrant inclusion.

We’ve tried to go with a more attacking feel, but there are some excellent defenders, defensive midfielders and goalkeepers included too. Please leave comments, highlighting how wrong and stupid we are if necessary, there will be a good reason why your personal favourite is missing and we’ll certainly try to answer any questions via the comments section or on twitter.

For now its names only, no narrative, this is our watch list for the next twelve months. We’ll talk about all in more detail this time next year, although we suspect you’ll be better acquainted with several before then. Take note of the names and watch out for these kids, we’re backing every single one and 2012 could be really special for several of them.

So here it is, in the spirit of the festive fifty, the chart of the year and other new year’s honours lists, we present the annual IBWM 100: 2012 edition - the best 100 young players in the world (according to us) right now.