A great way to find wonderkids in Football Manager 2024 is scouring the clubs with the best youth academies, and we’ve got 25 of the best ones.
Few video games offer as much detail and information as Football Manager, whether that’s a player’s birthplace, the stadium capacity of a third division club in Greece, or which players are free to sign as you start your save.
We’ve found lots of young wonderkids you might not have heard of too, but knowing which clubs have the best youth academies can save you a step in finding those young talents before other clubs snatches them up first.
The level of a club’s youth academy determines the quality of the young players that it produces, and these clubs are more likely to get the best young players in the game.
The best youth academies in FM24
A youth academy’s quality is based on its Youth Recruitment (level of players it can recruit) and its Youth Facilities and Junior Coaching (how well players develop).
Each year youth teams automatically sign players for their teams based on those stats. But it’s important to know that clubs usually recruit young players from the same country it’s based in, so the best youth academies tend to be based in countries such as England, Spain, and Argentina.
Considering all this, the best youth academies in Football Manager 2024 are Barcelona, Man City, Sporting CP, and Chelsea.
They’re closely followed by Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid, Benfica, Red Bull Salzburg, Independiente del Valle, Genk, and Anderlecht.
Not far behind we find River Plate, Boca Juniors, Vélez, Dynamo Zagreb, Shakhtar, and Southampton.
If you’re looking for more affordable young players, however, forget about the biggest clubs and consider looking at the youth teams of these clubs, as they can produce some wonderkids that will cost you far less: Liefering, LA Galaxy, New York City FC, Club Brugge, FC Midtjylland, FC København, Legia Warsazawa, and Vålerenga.
We do recommend starting your save with a large database and adding nations and leagues where you want to scout, so that the game includes as many players as possible.
Football Manager is very much a game that rewards working smart and finding tricks, even unethical ones, to build the best team possible.
Now that you know where to look for the best young players, you just need to develop them to their full potential and win all the trophies – good luck.
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