The Best Young Goalkeepers in World Football Right Now

Goalkeepers are supposed to arrive late. The position rewards experience, clubs are reluctant to hand it to anyone under twenty-five, and ratings databases have always been slowest of all to believe in a young keeper. This year the game changed its mind about three of them at once. EA FC 27 raised Robin Risser, Santiago Beltrán and Edoardo Motta by exactly ten points each — the kind of correction a database makes when the football has stopped leaving it a choice. Below are the ten best goalkeepers aged twenty-one or under, where they actually stand this season, and the two nobody else is listing yet. (Club details as of 12 October 2026.)

Young Goalkeepers, by the Numbers

Risser started all thirty-three of Lens's Ligue 1 matches last season, kept eleven clean sheets, finished second in the league and was named Ligue 1's goalkeeper of the season. France then took him to the World Cup. That is the whole case, and it was made in one year: a goalkeeper who began last season as a promising signing ended it as the most trusted young keeper in France.

This season Lens are in the Champions League, and so is he. The card has caught up: 84 reflexes and 84 kicking, and a jump from 71 to 81 that makes him the highest-rated goalkeeper of his age in the game.

Scout Gamer Read — EA FC 27: 81 (DIV 82, REF 84, KIC 84) — a card that finally believes the season. Real-level: Ligue 1's best goalkeeper at twenty-one. Tier: Elite Now.

Restes has been Toulouse's first-choice goalkeeper for long enough that it is easy to forget his age. On 18 September he was called up by France for the first time, the first Toulouse player to be selected since 2012. A thigh problem had kept him out earlier in September; he came straight back, made five saves in a 3-2 win over Le Havre on 21 September, and joined the squad.

Where Risser's card is built on reflexes, Restes's is built on balance — 80 reflexes, 80 kicking and 78 positioning, with nothing below 75. He is the steadier profile of the two, and France now have both.

Scout Gamer Read — EA FC 27: 78 (REF 80, KIC 80, POS 78) — no weak facet, no headline one either. Real-level: a first senior call-up at twenty-one. Tier: Ready Now.

Penders spent last season on loan at Strasbourg, the Ligue 1 club Chelsea's owners also control — we took that arrangement apart in our report on the youngest squad in Europe. He came back this summer to compete with Robert Sánchez for the first-team shirt, and so far his football has come in the League Cup: two starts, the first a clean sheet in a 2-0 win over Luton on 27 August.

The game rates him 78, level with Restes. The difference between them is not ability. It is that one plays every week and the other is waiting.

Scout Gamer Read — EA FC 27: 78 (DIV 80, KIC 80) — rated like a starter, employed as a number two. Real-level: two League Cup starts. Tier: Ready Now.

Stuttgart could have signed an established goalkeeper when Alexander Nübel went back to Bayern. They chose to bring Seimen home from a season on loan at Paderborn and make him their number one for a Champions League campaign. Their sporting director's words were blunt: "He is not an experiment."

Then a thigh injury in pre-season kept him out until the end of September. He made his Bundesliga debut on 10 October, at his old club Paderborn, and kept a clean sheet in a 2-0 win. A twenty-year-old named number one for a Champions League season is rare enough to be the story on its own. The card agrees with the club more than it did a year ago — 66 to 72, with 76 reflexes carrying it.

Scout Gamer Read — EA FC 27: 72 (REF 76, KIC 75) — a club's conviction ahead of the card's. Real-level: back from injury, a clean sheet on his Bundesliga debut. Tier: Elite-in-Waiting.

Beltrán has played every one of River Plate's twenty-nine league matches in 2026, starting twenty-eight of them. Being River's goalkeeper at twenty-one is its own kind of apprenticeship: the most scrutinised shirt in Argentine football, every week, with no rotation to hide behind. He turns twenty-two on 4 October.

He is also the second of this year's ten-point jumps, from 63 to 73. The earlier number was the game rating an unknown; the new one is the game rating a starter.

Scout Gamer Read — EA FC 27: 73 (DIV 75, REF 73) — a starter's card, finally. Real-level: every league match of River's year. Tier: Ready Now.

Epolo wears the number one at Standard and has played every minute of their eight Pro League matches this season. In September he added a country: on 24 September he made his debut for DR Congo and kept a clean sheet against Equatorial Guinea. Clubs in England, France and Germany were linked with him in August, and he is still in Liège.

The card is the fourth-highest on this list, and the football backs it: a starter for his club and now for his country.

Scout Gamer Read — EA FC 27: 75 (DIV 77, REF 76) — a starter's card. Real-level: every league minute, and an international debut. Tier: Watchlist.

Fiorentina sent Martinelli to Avellino in July on a season-long loan, keeping a buy-back clause. Serie B is not glamorous, but it is where young Italian goalkeepers still get to play, and he has not missed a minute: every one of Avellino's first five league matches, with two clean sheets in the opening weeks.

This is the unfashionable route, and it is the one that works most often for keepers. Ninety minutes a week at twenty is worth more than a bench at a bigger club.

Scout Gamer Read — EA FC 27: 70 (DIV 71, REF 70) — an honest card for a Serie B starter. Real-level: every minute of the season so far. Tier: Watchlist.

Newcastle signed Jaouen from Reims in June after thirty-four Ligue 2 appearances and fifteen clean sheets, in a deal L'Équipe reported at €28.5m. He is two metres tall and comfortable passing out from the back. He has also not yet played a Premier League minute: his only start has come in the League Cup against West Brom, and an ankle injury in training in September has set him back.

Every list like this is written as though the arrow only points up. A big fee, an injury and a senior keeper ahead of him are an ordinary start for a young goalkeeper, but it is not yet a good one.

Scout Gamer Read — EA FC 27: 70 (HAN 70, POS 70) — priced as a starter, rated as a prospect. Real-level: one cup start and an ankle injury. Tier: Watchlist.

Domchak was not in last year's game at all. He spent 2025-26 at Karpaty Lviv, playing twenty-seven matches and keeping fourteen clean sheets, and this summer Slavia Prague paid a reported €5m for him and gave him a contract to 2031. He made his debut on 16 September in a 5-1 Czech Cup win, has kept goal for Slavia's B team in the second tier, and is in Slavia's Champions League squad.

He is a Ukraine youth international and nineteen years old. The card starts him at 67. That is how early you are.

Scout Gamer Read — EA FC 27: 67 (REF 69, DIV 65) — a first card. Real-level: fourteen clean sheets in a senior league at eighteen. Tier: Raw Gem.

Motta joined Lazio in January on a contract to 2030 and, three months later, made the night that introduced him: in the second leg of the Coppa Italia semi-final against Atalanta on 22 April, he saved four penalties in the shoot-out to send Lazio to the final.

This season he is the number two behind Christos Mandas, and Lazio have been clear about the order. The game has not waited for them. His card went from 59 to 69, the third of this year's ten-point jumps, and his 74 diving is already the strongest part of the card.

Scout Gamer Read — EA FC 27: 69 (DIV 74, REF 68) — the game has noticed before his club has. Real-level: four penalties saved in a cup semi-final. Tier: Raw Gem.

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