The Byline

Football Manager 2024 is now upon us and while as always there are a host of new features and additions to look forward to, a new game means new wonderkids and new save ideas to think about.

To help guide you in the direction of a new club for your first save adventure, here’s MaddFM's look at 10 players who find themselves with new homes after clearly impressing real-life clubs and scouts alike last season. 

They’re also going to be ones to watch in FM24, so let's look into where those familiar players have headed to this season.

Whether you opt to chase instant glory with one of the game’s elite or choose the longer route to the top by developing a club in the lower divisions, there’s no better feeling than starting your first save in a new edition of Football Manager. 

FM24’s new additions elevate the experience of every career and with the game now available worldwide, we’ve pulled together a list of 11 of the best teams to kick-off your journey with. 

Whenever we release a new game, there are always many posts and curiosity on social media and our forums about player and club attributes. So, with the launch of Football Manager 2024, we wanted to give you a bit of an insight into the process of getting that data in the game.

Our Research team is scattered across the globe, with representatives across a vast number of countries compiling reports and submitting changes year-round on all facets of the game – including player upgrades, league and competitions data, and more. Not only does this bring the game to life, any updates to the data are eagerly awaited by many real-life clubs, who utilise it in their day-to-day scouting and analytical work.

Every time a new Football Manager game is released, there’s always a desire to find out the best Wonderkid is. This is then swiftly followed by trying to establish the best young players in each and every position across the park; a process that gives you a shortlist of go-to signings for as long as you’re playing the game. 

While there is nothing wrong with this approach, the current footballing climate is one where many clubs are looking to maximise the value of the talents they’ve already got on their books. In my mind, there’s no reason why people shouldn’t adopt a similar strategy in FM23. 

Here, SteinkelssonFM provides six top tips for getting the most out of your homegrown prospects that will in turn help to drive performances on the pitch and keep your club’s finances healthy. 

Christopher Nkunku has been a name on many Football Manager players’ lips for several years now as he’s blossomed from Wonderkid to one of the world’s most dynamic and creative attackers. 

We spoke to the France international earlier in the season about his favourite position and his best roles on the pitch. We also discussed whether he had any experience in goal after some interesting tactical choices by our players in Football Manager 2023...

The Bundesliga is globally recognised for being a fertile breeding ground for elite young talents. Whether they’re German-born or from further afield, Bundesliga clubs have consistently given wonderkids the opportunities to star as soon as they’re ready. 

What all of that means is that the Bundesliga is one of your most popular destinations for transfers in Football Manager. To celebrate that, we’ve put together our best Bundesliga Wonderkid XI from FM23.

With more and more teams working to involve all 11 players on the pitch in their build-up play, the role of the Poacher has diminished somewhat in recent years.

As their Football Manager role description says, the focus of the Poacher is “on scoring goals is so extreme that they rarely offer much help in constructing moves”. They’re there to put the ball in the back of the net and not much else. 

However, being a good Poacher requires a very specific skillset and here, Ihor Crusadertsar explores several ways that you can use them to great effect in FM23.

Since its introduction to the Football Manager series in FM18, the Mezzala role has been hugely popular. Drenched in historic tradition, the role offers dynamism and creativity in the middle of the pitch and gives managers tremendous tactical flexibility. 

However, while a Mezzala can carry out several different responsibilities within a midfield, it’s not often thought of as a team’s main creative force. In this blog, Rock’s End FM uses Manchester City’s Kevin De Bruyne to change that perception and show how you can build your attacking threats around the Mezzala. 

Not every football manager is able to start a job with a clean slate. Indeed, in many instances they take over at a club in less-than-ideal circumstances. 

An excellent reflection of the real-life variety of situations that managers have to work with can be found in Football Manager 2023 Touch’s Challenge mode. All six Challenges parachute you into a ready-made scenario that’ll put your managerial skills to the test and perhaps give you some inspiration for your next long-term career.

Whether you’re playing on iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple TV, let’s dive into the options waiting for you to explore on Apple Arcade. 

There are few sweeter feelings for a Football Manager player than winning promotion. However, whether you’ve coasted to the title with a promotion favourite or upset the odds to triumph in the playoffs, acclimatising to the division above will be tough. 

Preparing for life after a promotion is never easy and can be quite daunting. How will your current squad fare at the next level? Will your 20-goal striker find the same space and time when playing against better central defenders, protected by better defensive midfielders? Can you afford to keep playing such a high defensive line against far stronger opposition attacks?

You’ll naturally want to upgrade your squad but you’ll invariably find yourself with a smaller wage and transfer budget than most of your new divisional rivals. 

To look at how you can find value in the transfer market and much more besides, here are six top tips from ThrowingCopperFM to help you master promotion in FM23.

As this season’s dramatic semi-finals have proved, the English Football League (EFL) Play-Offs provide unrivalled drama. From the elation of sealing promotion to the promised land to the gutwrenching disappointment of losing out on penalties, they put fans through every emotion possible.

To see who might be celebrating at Wembley this weekend, we’ve used Football Manager 2023 to simulate the finals across all three divisions. 

As football managers have become more comfortable sharing and discussing complex tactical concepts and terminology with the press and the public, the debate surrounding the sport grows ever richer. However, that also means sometimes the wider football conversation can become harder to follow as the concepts involved become more and more specialised. 

One such concept is ‘rest defence’, a term borrowed from German and Dutch football that is at times misunderstood. In this Byline post, Rock’s End FM explains exactly what Rest Defence is and how can we use it to improve our careers in Football Manager 2023.