The new Messi? 19 players who were supposed to follow the Argentine superstar

Celtic's 13-year-old wonderkid Karamoko Kader Dembele is the talk of the town - and the comparisons with Lionel Messi have already begun.

The Ivorian sensation ran out for the Hoops last night in a game for the club's Under-20s alongside players some SEVEN years his senior.

Dembele is not the first to be dubbed "the new Messi", however - he joins a long, long list of budding superstars.

This is because of an odd tradition of comparing players to those that have gone before, as scouts and journalists fall over themselves to draw parallels with existing players to understand the style and potential ability of a new prospect.

While you wouldn't find a centre-back getting called 'the next Maradona' or 'the Uzbek Ronaldo', it seems a lot of comparisons can be pretty slack.

Maxi Romero, for example, was last year linked with Arsenal and was labelled 'the new Messi ' despite being an out-and-out centre-forward.

Basically if you're good and young and play forward of the halfway line, you're at risk of a high-pressure epithet and Lionel Messi - being arguably the best player in the world - is top of the list of comparisons.