Álex Esnaola will join Lezama next season after a breakout year that put the 16-year-old forward from Anaitasuna among the most watched youth prospects in the Basque region. Born in 2009, Esnaola has been lined up for Athletic Club’s Juvenil División de Honor after scoring 25 goals in the latest Liga Vasca Juvenil season.

Those goals made Esnaola the second top scorer in the category, even though Anaitasuna finished eighth in an 18-team league. At about 1.95 meters tall, he already stands out for a profile that inevitably invites comparison with Fernando Llorente, who reached a similar height in his professional career and became one of Athletic Club’s main attacking references through his strength, aerial play and presence in the box.

The comparison is only part of the appeal. People who have followed Esnaola closely say he is not just a box finisher or an aerial striker. They describe him as a forward with running power, a long stride and the ability to attack space, qualities that give him a wider range than a simple target man. Esnaola himself says he likes to take part in the game and get into contact with the ball.

That mix of size, scoring and movement makes him a rare case at this level. A 16-year-old forward who can produce 25 goals for a mid-table side and still look like a player with room to grow is not a routine find, and Athletic’s decision to bring him into Lezama next season shows how seriously the club is treating his rise.

For Anaitasuna, Esnaola’s departure closes a season in which he carried much of the scoring burden while the team settled for eighth place. For Athletic, it begins the more difficult test: turning a striking youth profile into a player who can handle the demands of the club’s academy pathway and, eventually, the kind of role Llorente once filled at senior level.