The 20-year-old Gent winger Samuel Kalu has been named among the top fifty most promising prospects in Europe by CIES Football Observatory, he is the only player of Nigerian descent that made the prestigious list.

The Swiss-based organization analyzed the domestic league experience cumulated during the last two years by U20 players from 22 European competitions to identify those with the best career prospects.

Minutes played by each footballer were weighted according to the sporting level of leagues and the results achieved by employer clubs.

Samuel Kalu ranked number seventeen on the list and listed among the eighteen footballers on the four-star category list.

This season, the winger has played in 21 of Gent's 27 matches in the Belgian First Division A, logging 1,419 minutes, and is the highest ranked player in Belgium ahead of Racing Genk's Sander Berge who occupied the 24th position.

Kalu has been directly involved in ten goals ( 5 goals, 5 assists) from his 21 appearances.

AC Milan goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma, Alban Lafont of Toulouse and PSG teen sensation Kylian Mbappe are the top three most promising prospects in that order.

Ifeanyi Emmanuel