Sunderland attacking midfielder Joel Asoro come second in the Fotboll Direkt Great Talent Award. Each year an expert jury made up of coaches and former players vote on the most promising U18s from Sweden
Fotboll Direkt have released the results for 2016, and the winner was Malmo’s Mattias Svanberg. The young Swede took 29% of the vote, and was closely followed by Asoro with 25%. Halmstad’s Sead Haksabanovic made up the top three, but he could only manage 13% of the vote.
A notable absentee from the list was Borussia Dortmund’s recent signing Alexander Isaac, who couldn’t be selected because he won the award in 2015.
Asoro joined Sunderland in the last summer transfer window after coming through the IF Brommapojkarna youth system. Sunderland manager David Moyes gave the youngster his debut in August, and in doing so he became the youngest Swedish player ever to play in the Premier League.
The 17-year-old has since gone on to play four games for Sunderland this season.
