Summary

The FIFA Young Player Award ("Best Young Player Award" 2006–2010) was awarded for the first time at the 2006 World Cup in Germany and given to Germany's Lukas Podolski. The award is given to the best player in the tournament who is at most 21 years old. For the 2022 World Cup, this meant that the player had to have been born on or after 1 January 2001.

In 2006, the election took place on FIFA's official World Cup website with the help of The FIFA Technical Study Group.

FIFA organised a survey on the Internet for users to choose the "Best Young Player" of the World Cup, between 1958 and 2002, named the best young player of each tournament. With 61% of the overall vote, the winner was Pelé, who finished ahead of the Peruvian Teófilo Cubillas, the best young player at Mexico 1970, and England's Michael Owen, who reached similar heights at France 98.

The winner of the award has only been part of the winning country three times. Pelé in 1958, Kylian Mbappé in 2018, and Enzo Fernández in 2022.

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