I have done some research on Football Manager 2010 and compiled a list of the best wonderkids and future stars in the game. Finding that youngster that turns out to be amazing is one of the best aspects of the game, and in my opinion makes you a very proud manager. I have done some research on the game, as well as being involved in discussions on various forums that has helped me to put together this list for my readers.

I have grouped the players in positions and will highlight my personal favourites for you to see. Every time I come across new wonderkids and get suggestions from your comments, I will add them to the list so make sure you follow!

Wonderkids of Football Manager 2010

Goalkeepers

Vincenzo Fiorillo – Sampdoria

Sergio Asenjo – Atletico Madrid

Hugo Lloris – Lyon

Manuel Neuer – Schalke

Sinan Bolat – Standard

Rui Patricio – Sporting Lisbon

David Ospina – Nice

Luis Guilherme – Botafogo

Matej Delac – Chelsea

Josh Lambo – Dallas

Defenders

Micah Richards (DC) – Man City

Marcelo (DL) – Real Madrid

Nicolas Otamendi (DC) – Velez

Breno (DC) – Bayern Munich

Mamadou Sakho (DC) – PSG

Fabio (DL) – Man Utd

Rafael (DR) – Man Utd

Cesar Azpilicueta (DR) – Osasuna

Kyriakos Papadopoulos (DC) – Olympiakos

Mark Beevers (DC) – Sheffield Wednesday

Joe Mattock (DL) –  West Brom

Gareth Bale (DL) – Tottenham

Marek Suchy (DC) – Slavia Prague

Simon Kjaer (DC) – Palmero

Daniel Opare (DR) – Real Madrid

Davide Santon (DR) – Inter Milan

Mats Hummels (DC) – Dortmund

Raul (DR) – Aletico Paranaense

Gerson (DC) – Gremio

Mathias Jorgensen (DC) – FC Kobenhavn

Armand Traore (DL) – Arsenal

Diego Renan (DL) – Cruzeiro

Sebastian Corchia (DR) – Le Mans

Loic Nestor (DC) – Havre

Midfielders

Jack Wilshere (AMRLC) – Arsenal

Ignacio Camacho (DM) – Atletico Madrid

Miralem Pjanic (AMC) – Lyon

Sandro (DM) – Internacional

Steven Defour (AMC) – Standard

Aaron Ramsey (CM) – Arsenal

Marek Hamsik (AMC) – Napoli

Franco Zuculini (CM) – Hoffenheim

Alen Dzagoev (AMC) – CSKA Moscow

Eden Hazard (AMC) – Lillie

Martin Galvan (AMC) – Cruz Azul

Marko Marin (ML) – Werder Bremen

Marco Verratti (CM) – Pescara

Jonjo Shelvey (AMC) – Charlton

Carlos Eduardo (ML) – Hoffenheim

Giuliano (MR) – Internacional

Adem Ljajic (AMRLC) – Man Utd

Eduardo Salvio (MR) – Lanus

Sergio Canales (AMC) – Racing

Toni Kroos (AMC) – Bayern Munich

Diego Buonanotte (ML) – River

Jack Rodwell (DM) – Everton

Sergio Busquets (CM) – Barcelona

Mezut Ozil (ML) – Werder Bremen

Willian (AMC) – Shakhtar

Alex Witsel (AMC) – Standard

Angel Di Maria (ML) – Benfica

Juan Manuel Mata (ML) – Valencia

Henri Saivet (MR) – Bordeaux

Theo Walcott (MR) – Arsenal

Rodney Sneijder (AMRLC) – Ajax

Georginio Wijnaldum (AMRLC) – Feyenoord

Misrolav Stoch (MR) – Chelsea

John Fleck (ML) – Rangers

Sotiris Ninis (MR) – Panathianaikos

Forwards

Mario Ballotelli – Inter

Sergio Aguero – Atletico Madrid

Alberto Paloschi – Parma/Milan

Neymar – Santos

Edin Dzeko – Wolfsburg

Bojan – Barcelona

Carlos Vela – Arsenal

Guilherme – Dinamo Kiev

Pato – Milan

Alexsis Sanchez – Udinese

Roberto Acquafresca – Genoa

Yannis Tafer – Inter

Jose Baxter – Everton

Jonathan Cristaldo – Velez

Andrej Kramaric – NK Dinamo

Robert Lewandowski – Lech

Mattia Destro – Inter

Taison – Internacional

Dentinho – Corinthians

Keirrison – Barcelona

I hope you enjoyed this informative list of Football Manager 2010 wonderkids. It will be constantly updated when I come across more players, because of course there are many more young stars in the game. Feel free to suggest your own wonderkids by commenting on this post and I will be sure to add them to this list!

Something I discovered earlier today by browsing http://www.theawaystand.co.uk was the fact that the regens  in Football Manager 2010 are created on a specific day dependant on there nationality. Although this was nothing like a shock, It was just something useful that I thought I would share with my readers.

Firstly, if you are wondering what a regen is, they are the players that are generated through out your Football Manager save so that there is never a shortage of players. When the old players retire, new players must come through the youth academies etc in the game to make sure there is no player shortage, and if you get far enough in the game every play will be a regen/’made-up’ player.

Anyways, I found the creation dates interesting because it will allow me to know the dates of certain countries creations, so in future on a certain day in my game I can search for the regen’s (u16′s) from that country to try to find a hidden gem or wonderkid before anybody else does. A pretty useful piece of information if you, like me are one that is always on the hunt for the next generation of players and enjoy developing them from a young age.  The regen creation dates are as folllows:

January 1 Brazil, Chile
January 5 Rep. Ireland, Iceland
January 7 Finland
January 10 Colombia
January 15 Africa (except South Africa)
January 20 Norway
January 28 Peru
February 14 Belarus
June 7 Baltic States, Georgia, Bosnia, Cyprus, Armenia, Montenegro, Albania
June 20 Germany, Ukraine, Portugal, France, Turkey, Israel, Australia, Scotland, Hungary, Croatia, N.Ireland, Greece, Switzerland
June 24 England, Austria
June 29 Slovakia
June 30 Italy, Czech Rep, Poland
July 1 Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia
July 7 Denmark, Holland
July 10 Serbia, Spain
July 15 South Africa
July 20 Mexico
August 1 Argentina, Uruguay
September 19 North/Central America & Caribbean, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Paraguay
December 9 Japan, Middle East
December 27 Russia, USA, China, Sweden

Hopefully this information will be of good use to you, I am hoping it can help me in my current save to bring in some amazing wonderkids!!

I can almost guarantee you will not find a 16 year old as good as him, and if you do,  I urge you email me and I will share it with the community. Marco is widely regarded as one of the hottest prospects in world football and many top clubs are interested. On Football Manager 2010 it is no different. He plays his trade at Italian side Pescaro Calcio as a centre midfielder, and has been dubbed by various journalists as the next Francesco Totti.

Stats

Verratti’s stats are already better than a lot of experienced players on the game and that says it all. His 11 for passing and creativity is very good for someone of his age, and with the right training these two stats will shoot up very quickly. His set pieces are more than special with 16+ for technique, corners, penalty taking and free kicks, this usually means a lot of assists and will should always get himself on the score sheet a few times a season. His comparison to Totti in real life is partly down to the flair and agility and this has been highlighted in Football Manager 2010. All round great stats for someone as young as he is and they can only get better with the right coaching and training.

Tactics

Marco Verratti is only 16 years old, and if you carry on following my blog you will find out that I do not like playing youngsters too early. I would recommend using Verratti as a sub if you are a big team, and bringing him on when you are in a comfortable position towards the end of the game to give him some experience and keep his match fitness. It is up to you, but I think it can really help. If you have a great centre mid or AMC at your club at a good age, Eg Fabregas at Arsenal, I suggest using the tutoring option in Football Manager 2010. This will reap great benefits for both players but especially Verratti as he will start to resemble his ‘mentor’ and become a great player. I also recommend putting him on a youth training schedule, or download Tug’s Training 2010 which can be found here http://tugstraining.co.nr/

Price

Marco Verratti starts the game with a value of around £200k. Pescaro Calcio are very reluctant to sell as he has such great potential, but usually a fee of between £300k and £400k will secure his services. I suggest getting the bid in as soon as possible as lots of other clubs come sniffing early on. I have bought him several times, including  Football Manager Live and he always becomes one of my star players.

My Rating: 7/10

Potential: 10/10

Part two of my series contains another three shortlists. The second part of the -9′s are included, a shortlist of u21′s with a Fixed PA of 170-180, and a shortlist of u18′s with Fixed PA’s of 160-170.

If you read the last article you would understand what this means, but I will paste the same thing again in case you missed it….Some of this may be jibberish to you, so let me explain PA a little bit. PA means potential ability, and that basically means the ability (out of 200) a player could develop to, however development relies on many things such as coaching, regular games, training etc, however that will be a different article some time in the near future.

If a player has -10  potential, it means that everytime you start a new game, he will be assigned a PA between 180 and 200. FM2010 will randomise this number each time, but it gives you an indication of a wonderkid, because 180 potential is still great -9 potential is basically the same thing only the players will be assigned a PA between 150 and 180.  When a player has a Fixed PA, it means that their potential ability will be the same every time you start a new game, for example Sergio Aguero has a fixed PA of 189, meaning every game he has the chance to get to that PA.

Once you have downloaded the shortlists, place them in My Documents > Sports Interactive > Football Manager 2010 > Shortlists. Now load up your FM game and go to manager, then find players. Click the shortlist button and press import shortlist, chose the one you want and it should be loaded into your game

Shortlist One:  -9 Young Stars Part 2 (Patch 10.2)

Shortlist Two: u21 Talents with Fixed PA 170-180 (Patch 10.2)

Shortlist Three: u18′s with Fixed PA 160-170 (Patch 10.2)

Part one of my series contains three shortlists. One for the -10 wonderkids in the game, one for some of the -9 young stars in the game, and one for the under 23 players with a fixed PA between 180 and 200.

Some of this may be jibberish to you, so let me explain PA a little bit. PA means potential ability, and that basically means the ability (out of 200) a player could develop to, however development relies on many things such as coaching, regular games, training etc, however that will be a different article some time in the near future.

If a player has -10  potential, it means that everytime you start a new game, he will be assigned a PA between 180 and 200. FM2010 will randomise this number each time, but it gives you an indication of a wonderkid, because 180 potential is still great -9 potential is basically the same thing only the players will be assigned a PA between 150 and 180.  When a player has a Fixed PA, it means that their potential ability will be the same every time you start a new game, for example Sergio Aguero has a fixed PA of 189, meaning every game he has the chance to get to that PA.

Anyways, these set of shortlists are just the first part, and I will be making different packs each week and posting them up on the site. Once you have downloaded the shortlists, place them in My Documents > Sports Interactive > Football Manager 2010 > Shortlists. Now load up your FM game and go to manager, then find players. Click the shortlist button and press import shortlist, chose the one you want and it should be loaded into your game

Shortlist One: -10 Wonderkids (Patch 10.2)

Shortlist Two: -9 Young Stars (Patch 10.2)

Shortlist Three: u23 Talents with Fixed PA’s between 180-200 (Patch 10.2)