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Lionel Messi, Wayne Rooney and Mario Balotelli have all won the Golden Boy award... but what did the 14 previous winners achieve after early success?

Kylian Mbappe and Marcus Rashford are among the young stars hoping to follow in the footsteps of Lionel Messi by winning the 2017 Golden Boy award.

Organised by Tuttosport and voted for by newspapers around Europe, the award recognises the brightest talent under the age of 21 on the continent.

Messi picked up the gong in 2005, while a host of other big names have also been honoured. Here, Sportsmail takes a look at what they went on to achieve.

2003 - Rafael van der Vaart (Ajax)

After coming through the ranks at Ajax, Van der Vaart went on to enjoy spells at Hamburg, Real Madrid and Tottenham before returning to the Bundesliga club.