Make Wonderkids on Football Manager

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We have done ridiculously extensive testing on training in Football Manager and we can conclusively tell you how to best develop your wonderkids so you can have a super stacked team on FM. It’s the dream of every Football Manager player and we have the facilities to release such things to everyone.
This is also an imperfect science. Sometimes your players will develop no matter what you do, and sometimes that wonderkid you thought you knew turns out to never be good no matter what you do. I can’t save you from this, but we can try to help you get the most out of those Football Manager wonderkid dreams of yours.
Much Love,
The Zealand
For the full Guide ► fm-base.co.uk/resources/wonde...
Personality checker ► kelron1.github.io/FMScouting/...
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► KZbin: / @zealandlive
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📸 Zealand Stuff:
► FM Skin: zealand.gg/fmskin
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🌟 Reece (Editor) & Tomleggosaurus (Animator):
► Reece’s Twitter: / reecetheeditor
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🙌 Thanks for watching & scrolling!
#FootballManager #Football #Soccer #Hashtags

[@ZealandonYT]

The research in this video is based on Evidence Based FM’s training simulations, you can follow them here: youtube.com/@ebfm

[@kiloisnear]

steve lied to you, now he is fired.

[@ghouli16]

@kiloisnear I think Z lied too

[@ZealandonYT]

@@ghouli16 I certainly released a video that I believed was true, but after talking to EBFM and FM Korea it became clear something wasn't adding up. I've cleared it up with both of them and look forward to making videos with EBFM in the future.

[@mustafabahar4904]

@@ZealandonYT EBFM needs to leave presentation to you Zealand. You've got the charms and fun 😏 Honestly, EBFM is a bit boring.

[@gwkor]

@@mustafabahar4904 Just because one person's presentation skills are not to your liking, it does not mean that another person is given the right to presentation.

[@Avioto]

Always wanted Zealand to tell me how to make kids

[@martinbikikoro4959]

Your life is a waste of space.

[@iamirfiz590]

AYOO PAUSE

[@LSFOOTIEMANAGER]

Zealand can do anything

[@ZadoXZ]

He probably make you a son in FM 😉

[@lok1_m674]

Uhhh...

[@85NickT]

The 27/28 y/o agility and balance boost is easy to explain. They've reached an age where they don't care what other people think and taken up yoga.

[@DrZaius3141]

I once found a 196 potential wunderkind when I already secured promotion into the 4th league of England. The board wanted to sell him every step of the way, but I fought tooth and nails and he played virtually every game for me including when we reached the Premier League. There will never be another like him.

[@Josh7204]

How did you find him? Did you snipe him from a top team on a youth contract?

[@DrZaius3141]

@@Josh7204 He was in my own youth intake.

[@matthewmorley310]

That’s incredible, what side was this with?

[@bamg7678]

@@DrZaius3141 I also have a player like this, my CB, I started on the 3rd division in England and he was in my youth intake, at 16 he already had 15 jumping reach and 16 tackling, 4 seasons later in the premier league he's a beast and plays in all my matches

[@llSuperSnivyll]

In FM22 I was making a San Marino League save and, out of nowhere, PSG wanted to sign a 19-year-old newgen I got in my second intake. Baffled as to why they'd go after someone that wasn't even a regular starter on a semi-pro team... I downloaded FMRTE after selling him, and it turned out he had over 180 PA. (Spoilers: He never reached it)

[@Varasalvi2]

I had noticed that players developed more in non-loaded leagues, but i honestly thought i was just imagining it and reinforcing it with confirmation bias. Nice to have it confirmed.

[@andreasaust1510]

Training facilities: I’ve found out that they actually make a big difference- but only at later stages of a players CA development (not talking about age) , for example I had a player with PA 180. His development stagnated when he reached a CA of 140. But when my facilities got upgraded he suddenly was able to improve his CA again. Similar examples happened now several times to me

[@pwalmsley9]

Love this, Z. Loads of useful tidbits in here. Would love to see you do a deep dive into the data hub and interpreting analyst feedback. Seems to be the main area I find tough to get to grips with.

[@echadit]

Oh man, thanks for the experiment! Been playing FM since 2006 and the question of how to better develop youth players (not just wonderkids) always pops up every now and then but I never figured it out entirely. Makes me want to start a new save now!

[@RishiJParmar]

Amazing video with some hard work done behind the scenes - huge credit to the team that did the experiments. This has cleared up some questions and misconceptions I have, even as an FM veteran who has thousands of hours in the game. Makes me want to start a new save (with less leagues loaded) and develop some wonderkids!

[@bagera8476]

The 40+ matches causing worse develepment is logical cause those players are exhausted much more often, take slower to recover and then their training automatically gets set to a lower training intensity.

[@jordanh5787]

Like Pedri irl

[@sch4kal235]

Thanks man this is by far my favorite video of yours. You explained so many things I was wondering. Amazing job

[@mattjames6349]

Yes, the thing for me is I've never known what to do with bad personalities. I understand that its preferable to have a good HOYD in the first place but when someone comes through with lots of potential, I've never known to leave them in the youth team or if it was more important to get them mentored early? This really helped a lot!

[@10royals10]

Glad to see this video back up and all the issues moved on. I’m looking forward to the collaborations in the future with you and Max. You handled the situation very professionally Zealand. All the respect to you

[@willrea9]

what happened?

[@Alex-wh3zw]

@@willrea9 He stole someone else's content

[@RahibShaikh]

Insane depth of research! Love you work

[@michaelpomar4783]

This is the most informative FM video I have ever watched, so much in this, wonderfully researched and presented in a manner even I can understand. Great job Zealand ! :)

[@alvesh129]

I love the Vitoria De Guimaraes kit (i'm portuguese and recognised it immediatly) i don't usually see people where kits from portugal other than the big 3 and braga. Love the video too!

[@jonnyevans2906]

Insane level of depth, amazing video Z!

[@astrodunkbg]

even if winning or losing doesn't matter for development, being on a winning squad means better locker atmosphere. Which is usually easier to get higher training ratings with for the whole team. Winning usually helps for everything :D

[@wiv_pro]

Thank you for the tests and analysis! Great team and great efforts!

[@LordPiddlington1912]

I think Evidence Based Football Manager came to exactly the same conclusions on his channel. There's some weird stuff going on under the hood in the game, like inactive leagues being better for loans.

[@Sl3G3WAR]

Try upping the detail level on all the leagues you have loaded. If you loan a player to the Championship, then you should make the championship more detailed

[@Writeous0ne]

i'd imagine that's because they have less players and less competition? Or maybe the game simulates inactive leagues differently/more kindly than active leagues? I generally find loan to the highest league possible but only under roles like important player to ensure game time.

[@JM-tj5qm]

@@Writeous0ne Evidence Based Football Manager said Inactive leagues don't have coaching staff. So probably the game assumes perfect coaching

[@alessiodeseck6437]

​@@Writeous0nethis has def to do with it, ive loaned some players put to apoel in my save and noticed that the players i loaned out to them always had an increased player rating (always >7.50 average) and they also played a lot of friendly games

[@ZealandonYT]

Evidence Based Football Manager is freaking awesome -- I haven't watched his videos on it but if our research found a lot of the same stuff then that makes me feel really good about our research lol

[@andrewcooper9898]

Been playing iterations of this game since 1992 and Zealand is STILL taking me to school…!! Great vid, very insightful

[@georgeskoufis8416]

great video man keep the good work thank you so much, now you have to make one for the youth intake to clear how the facilities, head of youth and youth coaches affect the intake

[@FourEyesOptic]

My girlfriend said that she doesn't want any kids right now... any advice on this?

[@gokupt4630]

she doesnt want kids, she wants wonderkids

[@YonesWilson]

Awesome video as always! Does this apply to older generation fm games like fm 20?

[@Jayvees]

This is quite helpful and very informative on how to grow a Wonderkid. Big thanks to you man.

[@thomasfriesejr.9198]

Confusing wording on a couple things: 1. When you were talking about young players maxing out at 30 matches played, do you mean starts or total appearances? I figured it meant total appearances since you didn't specify starts, but then you started talking about subs, so I'm not sure what you meant by matches. 2. When talking about subs, you said they're better off not coming into the game after the 70th minute because they miss out on training. Do your bench players who don't get in the game still train on match day? If so, what training do they do, when there is none set? Great video, though!

[@Stelios00]

Great research Zealand! Very useful and enlightening video. Greetings from Greece. P.S. It would be super awesome if you made a video on how should a nation be built, or at least how you think it should be done! P.S. #2 Up the peacocks!

[@xXPAKSLAYERXx]

The amount of work in this video is crazy, honor Zealand and the data analysis hoompaloompas 👌👌

[@pbsmoothie7281]

One thing about putting lots of youth players in your senior team, your coaching workload will start to move up. Not sure the impact of coach training workload on player dev. Based on Zs section about facilities and workload, assuming it's not too detrimental

[@HakeemTatia]

wish someone could actually test this out because i’ve been facing the same issue, i’ve had the u23’s coach give a hand on senior team training and asked for more coaches but still it must hinder they players development if the coaches are being overworked

[@smileyweb1901]

Thank you Z and the training team

[@lungabiyela9081]

I've been focusing a lot more on developing my own youth players in FM23, more than previous games. I've got 6 kids in my first team who came through my intake. I've got a few more cooking up in my youth team...

[@Jensito22]

More of this type of content, please. It's so good and the reason I subbed to this channel

[@IAmThatBit--]

I always train my high potential players with the first team and have mentoring. As you said, I also have them acailable for youth teams

[@CPB24421]

Great info, thank you! Knew or felt (using the Force ofc) most of this already, but confirming it is brilliant. Big surprise though with the inactive league loans.. very curious.

[@billsager5634]

Interesting information. Applied your concepts to my current FM22 save, as my last 3 youth intakes have been solid, but the respective CA's of the players is extremely low: 1.) Very Good Youth Intake: Had 5-6 players in the 120-150 PA range, but all had CA's in the 40-70 range 2.) Poor Youth Intake: Definitely poor, as only 2 players were worth signing, even at SkyBet League 2 level. (heck, they weren't even Tier 7 level of potential!) However, one was a wonderkid, a Surinamese midfielder with with a 169 PA, but only 70 PA. Luckily he was only 15. 3.) Good Youth Intake: 4-5 players with PA's in the 120-150 range, but all had 40-70 CA's Since watching your video, and implementing your findings, I've been able to play about 4 weeks worth of games. That Surinamese wonderkid has improved in 23 attributes, and risen from a low 70's CA to a 97 CA. He's only 17. The results are beyond expectations!! That's the type of improvement one would expect over a full season, not after just one month of games. Even managed to put him into 3 games (Team is currently in SkyBet Championship), and despite the low CA, he has held his own (6.97 game rating), which has probably contributed to the meteoric rise in just one month. All the other players have improved as well - based on the coaching staff's training reports, but again, as your video stated, players with the higher PA will see quicker gains in CA - and that is exactly what is happening. Now, it's just a matter of signing all these kids to incentive laden, long term contracts, hopefully they reach close to potential in the next 2-3 seasons, to help my team reach the Premier League promised land.

[@Mr_CM_]

Thats incredible work While see the video, sometimes i had a question or wanted make info, and then my boy come with the answer /info, time after time after time I don't believe FM didn't try to work with you already

[@kyotocsgo]

Nice shirt @Zealand, best regards from Portugal 😎✌️

[@wilsonoliveira7921]

Rocking the Vitoria de Guimarães shirt , I see you Zealand 🔥🔥🔥

[@Benson8554]

@8:40 something I read a couple years back is and have noticed, never make a sub after 75 minute's as they won't get a match rating. The match rating helps the player development

[@Khaled-lq3tz]

This is one of the best and most helpful videos in the history of football manager

[@ewouteveraert5174]

More research questions: What is de influence of national team games, both youth and senior, on development? All things are tested indivually here. Are there any hidden mulitplier effect if you combine certain things? If I have a team that is busy on 3 fronts (league, CL and cup), so I have a lot of matchdays without training, is it stil better to put wonderkids who don't play in the senior squad? Even if I have a development training in the youth squad and more matchday focused training in the senior squad? Aaa, football manager, always so many questions.

[@victorolsson7202]

Insanely good work extracting all this info! Thanks 🎉

[@gunnarandersen6570]

Great video, and awesome job by the research team! Kudos!

[@Robi2009]

Wow, gonna test these on my new batch of newgens in my Bordeaux save, thx 👍

[@dundersam]

The amount of matches makes sense because if youre playing 40+ matches every year youre likely to have points in the season where you are fatigued and end up on lower intensity of training(if you have training intensity set automatically)

[@JM-tj5qm]

This is a goldmine, Zealand. Thanks a lot! taking notes ✍

[@luanguedes9]

Thanks for this brilliant video! Helped a lot!

[@julianfigini5177]

Question! I hope you get the chance to answer. Does playing your u20s vs your reserves count as a intrasquad friendly?

[@alexhill7097]

A lot of fantastic information! Was there any tangible benefit from mentoring?

[@MrRokkit]

Mentoring doesn't contribute to development directly. Instead if shapes their personality which, in turn, shapes development. See 9:20

[@markus_k]

Great job! I got a question, though. Is there an update for the new ganz manager on the way?

[@dannykoning5486]

This is great! Thanks Zealand and team.

[@kfarbarata]

My guess on the non playable league is that most of those teams dont have enough players to the first and subs squad. So they end up playing more... thats something that I use to look up to when loaning

[@nicobia9052]

What are the instrumentals used in Zealand's edits ? I like them so I'd love to be able to listen to them sometimes :)

[@luisbarros6878]

Great Vitória shirt, my hometown club. When they combine our white or black with gold they are allways bangers

[@barakavni8047]

great vid Z but when i search for model professionals in the personality checker i cant find it is it a bug? or it was just not added?

[@Fabio-jv4dy]

Amazing kit Zealand still waiting for the Benfica one

[@ALifeOfWine]

We still need to conclusively know at what point the increased growth from being in the senior squad outweighs the missed training from playing games for the reserves though. Do we need to limit them to less than the previous sweet spot of 20-30 games?

[@Laggskywalker]

I’m literally sitting here on my laptop thinking “how do I go about making my own wonder kids” and pow. Zealand clutches uo

[@ECMdam]

Great video Z! In general, is it better to keep a wonderkid in the 18-20 age bracket who isn’t good enough yet for the first team in the first team squad and make him available for youth team matches, or is it better to loan him out? From what I understood, loaning out still seems to be better as they are getting match experience in a higher reputation senior league than from just playing youth team matches.

[@tamatama1037]

He said loans and senior team experiences make no difference for the development. Plus he said training + matches are better than training + no matches. That means loans are gonna be better for most of the time.

[@EnsoHenzo]

Loans are better if league rep better than your reserve teams league rep. Also, only when a regular starter or better. If it's squad player it won't squeeze that little extra growth you can squeeze without a loan, because you could simply select him as a starter anytime you want.

[@needfoolthings]

If a 20 year old isn't good enough to start a load of games for you, he isn't a wonderkid at all, but just a kid.

[@RexOedipus.]

@@needfoolthings fm really needs to change this. a lot of players are still developing at 20. having a rooney or haaland that's fit and ready for top flight at 18 is rare

[@Draddar]

@@needfoolthings that highly depends on the team. A really good team might actually not have a spot for 135/200 20 year old wonderkid

[@willionaire360]

this was a pleasure to watch

[@marcelocarvalho5426]

I normally don't comment on videos, but this video is extremely well done. Science in gaming done right. Thank you.

[@guanweihe7614]

bruv is making full research papers on a game, respect

[@Farstors]

Did you test the effect on training when a player complains about his training focus Zealand?

[@pioafc]

What a great vid and analysis 💪

[@nemangame]

One thing you never mentioned is whether the level of the opposition matters for a players development. For example, do players gain more from playing against Man City vs a league 2 team?

[@gbarandon]

Regarding the number of games to be played, is it the game themselves or the fact that the players are match fit that matters ? I mean, if you only do training, the player is totally out of shape and needs to play to be match fit. Training while match fit may be key here, so any game will do, including internal games

[@aboycalledadam]

Do games played for my reserves count towards the ideal 20-30 game window you refer to?

[@brandonholmes8994]

Can already tell I’m going to come back to this video so much😂

[@Oshidashi]

Didn't watch this when it came out cause the title says it's about wonderkids. As lower league manager, I hardly ever see a wonderkid. Turns out the video is about general player development and actually super interesting.

[@salong8780]

FM 24 news when? // btw i have finished the video now. liked and saved to rewatch every time i play.

[@KuroHanji]

Nice shirt, and great video

[@ixion025]

Amazing work :)

[@onetruesmugs]

The only question I've got is if you're an elite team in the EPL, you're playing about 60 matches a season, which obviously leads to a lot of non-training days where you're either playing a game or travelling/recovery all of that kind of stuff. If you're putting your wonderkids in for senior training, does that loss of training matter, given that there are usually fewer match days in the U21/U18 squads? You're also probably doing more match focussed training than development focussed training too. But if all of that is irrelevant, then great news, I guess!

[@Lavacrust]

This was my question too... Maybe just by being in the top ranked league(s) that would make up for that training deficiency?

[@liviumarila5200]

Love the fact we have a new FM video, but why is there such loud music in the background? Makes it hard to concentrate on the info given

[@MMonde]

Respect to Z and EBFM on how this was handled. So much rubbish on the interwebs these days that this was very refreshing. Both of you gained a lot of respect from me in the way it was handled. Not that my respect means too much but still it is always important to acknowledge the good and not just the bad.

[@fatkoala8646]

Something I've been wondering is if you should train players in the role theyre playing or not? For example using an AF in your tactic but training the players as PF instead, or perhaps in a different position and role like as an inverted winger. Personal feeling is that same role is better but perhaps I'm only imagining it

[@EstariaValens]

I think they would gain more benefit from training the role they play, but if you need to train them in a different role, it can be worth it, if it makes the tactic better. Essentially, it boils down to one way being better for their growth, and the other being better for getting immediate returns.

[@LordWay]

This video has kinda confirmed how I lucked in to just developing players correctly by accident

[@felipevieira8741]

Loved the shirt ❤

[@radub09]

Loved this!❤

[@grahammeeson3692]

Great video with some invaluable information. 👌

[@Trossardinho]

in a previous video you said it was better to keep youngsters in the youth teams so they don't miss out on training when the senior team plays a game and now they should be in the senior team...

[@tinman271]

And that's the end result of someone trying to give better tips based on researched facts rather than opinion. The same is true for scientific research. We can only give tips as good as the facts and experience we have in front of us at that time.

[@ElMilo]

Fantastico Vid!

[@lordfizzz]

My third year in serie b ground out from serie d. Thanks Z my ass is on fire if we dont go up im canned. Hopefully i can get these youngsters up to cuff this preseason and bring us up

[@davewuashere]

Never thought that Zealand would wear a Vitoria jersey

[@richardgoldins4790]

Set the training right away duble intenseity and look at what they need and do mentors

[@aaronleonard641]

Does fatigue and jadedness play a factor and if so can it stunt growth?

[@cryptonzero5550]

Great video as always! But just wanted to ask out of curiosity, does criticizing/praising the player's development/training have any affect of the growth of the player too?

[@MrRokkit]

As far as I know the answer is "Not directly". Instead it has a direct (and immediate) effect on morale. Which, in turn, has an effect on training, which has a effect on progression.

[@cryptonzero5550]

@@MrRokkit Ah okay that makes sense! That makes me then question how much of an impact morale has to do with players development like f.e. if a player has an abysmal morale (Let's say he wants to play for a bigger/better team) but still plays around 30 games for me, would he still develop properly?

[@rizqyirsyad9477]

Yet another educational content from Big Z. Better than the ministry of education

[@Daddy_Trav]

I had 2 wonderkids come through with Stoke this season so it's given me an ample opportunity to explore the youth system and whats best. For the past 2 seasons I've put kids into the first team and avaialable for U21s then put them in the first team when Im winning by more than 2 at HT or then at the latest from the hour onwards. has worked tremendously. I've got a 24 year old whos scored 215 league goals so far and 30 for England, and a 23 year old right winger who has 130 million valuation and has aslo scored 25 times for England

[@8Tarkus8]

How helpful is Zealand in all things regarding Football Manager? Yes.

[@daniellavra7668]

Vitória de Guimarães shirt, well done.

[@joao.motaps]

Nice Jersey Bro.

[@bryonic2124]

So if a player is unhappy with their additional training does this effect the growth in that area

[@GTSilvano]

This is the best video and research that has been done in FM, hands down! Good job Z and the team behind the meticulous testing!

[@TheCatCookie]

Finally back to Football Manager content

[@Lightflames85]

I think every fm player should know about fmrte its a great little program where you can look up hiden attributes, and even cheap if you like.

[@Paulofernando85]

A Vitória Sport Clube shirt. Nice one :)

[@nanookrubsit]

great to see the first king of Portugal on your chest!

[@EnormousClock]

I always try to give senior game time when they show up in the training report as a top performer. Also, I don't actively manage my youth playing time / positions - often I notice younger players play out of position and end up orange/yellow in unnatural positions - I wonder does this use up a lot of their CA in positional flexibility?

[@Flowster1000]

Great video!

[@kevinwolfenden4685]

Thanks, but I have a simple question. What is Current and potential Ability? Because it's not the sum of attributes. Is it the sum of attributes for the player's best role? How is it calculated?