Available for: N/A (joining Man City) Starting value: £9.5m In-game stats:
Need to know: Brazilian high-flier joining Manchester City for £27m in January after shining with Palmeiras and, eventually, the senior national team. You’ll never get him for less than £20m on Football Manager but he doesn’t really have a true value yet, so just enjoy him if you’re Manchester City boss. Almost averaging a goal per game for Brazil in World Cup qualification, having helped the U23s to Olympics gold in the summer.
14. Mauricio Lemos
Available for: £11m In-game stats:
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Need to know: Las Palmas’s 20-year-old Uruguayan centre-back linked with a move to Barcelona recently. He only signed a new five-year contract in May, but it was most likely mere financial protection for both him and his current club before a big move.
13. Zé Gomes
Available for: £11.5m In-game stats:
Need to know: Real name José Gomes, the teenage Benfica forward was born in Guinea-Bissau but is representing his adopted nation having arrived in Portugal as a 13-year-old. Top-scorer in the summer’s U17 European Championship with seven goals.
12. Rodrigo Bentancur
Available for: £11.5m (release clause) In-game stats:
Need to know: Elegant Boca schemer previously mulled over by Real Madrid. The 19-year-old central midfielder will likely be a Juventus player soon, though, with CEO Giuseppe Marotta confirming in September that the Bianconeri will exercise their first-refusal option to buy Bentancur (gained from the sale of Carlos Tevez in 2015).
11. Christian Früchtl
Available for: £12m In-game stats:
Need to know: Goalkeeper – aged just 16 – who earned a first professional contract with Bayern Munich in the summer. Früchtl has trained with Bayern’s first team and will most likely become their No.3 next season.
10. Cristian Pavon
Available for: £13m In-game stats:
Need to know: Nippy Boca forward who featured for Argentina at the Olympics. He already starts with excellent attributes for a wideman, which can be improved excitingly by you and your coaches.
9. Dani Ceballos
Available for: £13m (release clause) In-game stats:
Need to know: Spain U21 and Betis central midfielder who featured in all but four La Liga matches last season. The versatile 20-year-old won the 2015 U19 European Championship with la Roja.
8. Manuel Locatelli
Available for: £15m In-game stats:
Need to know: Milan’s 18-year-old defensive midfielder – and Italy U19 skipper – enjoying a fine breakthrough campaign in Serie A. Scored the winner against Juventus in October, and now an important element of Vincenzo Montella’s revived team.
7. Ante Coric
Available for: £15m In-game stats:
Need to know: Croatia international schemer coveted by Europe’s giants in his (even) younger days, but still with Dinamo Zagreb for the foreseeable future despite a fall-out (since resolved) with the club’s president and coach last season.
6. Youri Tielemans
Available for: £17.25m (release clause) In-game stats:
Need to know: Could be one of FM’s best bargains in time with a release clause of just over £17m. Tielemans has been in Anderlecht’s first team since he was 16 and is the Champions League’s third-youngest player ever. Still only 19, he’s made over 150 appearances for Anderlecht and finally made his Belgium debut in November.
5. Alban Lafont
Available for: £17.5m In-game stats:
Need to know: Toulouse’s first-choice goalkeeper since he was 16 – making him Ligue 1’s youngest-ever player – Lafonte kept a clean sheet on his top-flight debut in November 2015 and hasn’t missed a league game since. Burkina Faso-born but a France U18 regular, you’ll be seeing a lot more of the 6ft 4in keeper in the years to come.
4. Matheus Pereira da Silva
Available for: £17.5m In-game stats:
Need to know: Brazilian attacking midfielder who joined Empoli from Corinthians in the summer. He’s still acclimatising in Italy and hasn’t been entrusted with much Serie A match time, but his FM potential is strong.
3. Thiago Maia
Available for: £18m In-game stats:
Need to know: Chelsea-linked defensive midfielder who helped Brazil’s U23s to Olympics gold this summer. An ever-present for Santos since 2015, and reliably excellent.
2. Lewis Cook
Available for: £18m In-game stats:
Need to know: Bournemouth central midfielder who came through Leeds’ ranks before his £6m move south. An ankle injury has curtailed his progress, but before that he’d made 75 appearances for Leeds, the club he joined as a seven-year-old and later won the Football League Championship Apprentice of the Year while playing for.
1. Gianluigi Donnarumma
Available for: £19m In-game stats:
Need to know: There’s a reason Donnarumma has the best potential of any youngster on Football Manager 2017 – he’s disgustingly good already, and yet only 17. He became Milan’s go-to keeper when he was just 16 last season, and hasn’t looked back since. Already an Italy international, the heir to Gigi Buffon’s throne – and available for a smashing £19m.
Joe was the Deputy Editor at FourFourTwo until 2022, having risen through the FFT academy and been on the brand since 2013 in various capacities.
By weekend and frustrating midweek night he is a Leicester City fan, and in 2020 co-wrote the autobiography of former Foxes winger Matt Piper – subsequently listed for both the Telegraph and William Hill Sports Book of the Year awards.
