Football Manager 2019 wonderkids list - the best, highest potential young players in FM19

Football Manager 2019 wonderkids, and the process of tracking down the best, highest potential young players is - along with searching for freebies and bargain buys - arguably the most satisfying aspect of the Football Manager series.

Often these are of course youngsters, who have the potential to become future greats and would be welcome in almost any club you choose to manage - but unless you get lucky or have a phenominal scouting record, some of the brighest stars can end up flying mostly under the radar.

Here on this page, we've rundown a full wonderkids shortlist of the fifty best young players and upcoming talents in FM19, which you can browse below.

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Football Manager 2019 wonderkids list: the best, highest potential young players in FM19

Here's our list of the best wonderkids in FM19, sorted by Potential Ability - or, when there's a range, their maximum possible Potential Ability. More on how that works in the section below!

FM19 wonderkids explained - what are wonderkids and how do you find them?

Each footballer in Football Manager 2019 has three different ways in which their quality is communicated to us, the manager. The first is the most obvious: the player's attributes. These are numbers on every player's profile page within the game, each attribute with a maximum rating of 20, covering their physical, technical and mental abilities. Some players may even have a visible range for each attribute, but this varies depending on your coaching and scouting staff, and also to your individual saved game.

The second way is a star rating out of five. This is split between a player's current rating and their potential rating. Again, this depends on your coaching and scouting staff's ability to judge players, as well as your own. However, this is eased up a little thanks to a "knowledge level" rating (given out of 100) for each player that's been scouted, describing how much your staff knows about them.

The third and most interesting way players are rated in FM19 is through a hidden rating system (out of 200) that separately states a player's "Current Ability" and their "Potential Ability". These are the most accurate way to find the best players given they're baked in by the pro developers. "Hidden" might sound nefarious but these are viewable in the official database, just not in the game. It should be noted that these are a given player's potential (i.e. maximum) rating, so it all depends on other variables, like your coaching staff, fellow squad members and of course, you the manager.

The best players in the world have a current rating of 195+ (I'm looking at you, Lionel Messi!) and this year's edition has one youngster that the developers think could reach similar heights. That's the summer's World Cup breakout star Kylian Mbappe of France. The table above shows other high quality players (all under the age of 23) that reach the high potential of at least 172. Note that many players don't have a set Potential Ability but a range, and this number is dependent on numerous circumstances already mentioned, such as coaching staff skills, training routines, teammates and other variables.

If you found this useful, you might also want to take a look at our big list of Football Manager 2019's best free transfers and bargains, too!