The future is bright for 18-year-old Sporting Kansas City midfielder Gianluca Busio—perhaps as bright as any young player in Major League Soccer.
The CIES Football Observatory, a research group based in Switzerland that specializes in statistical analysis, has ranked the most promising young players in the world based on a measure of their minutes played and the level of competition.
Busio is the only MLS player to rank among the top 25 lists for the 2000, 2001 or 2002 age groups. Among players born in 2002, Busio places 25th on a list that is otherwise fully comprised of players based in Europe or South America.