Liverpool legend and former Match of the Day pundit Alan Hansen was famously forced to eat his words when he said “you can’t win anything with kids” in 1995, seemingly overlooking the best young players out there. But the basis of his point is often forgotten: he was saying teams that want to win championships need a balance of ages, strength in depth and to keep reinforcing during periods of success. (Plus, you know, United had just lost 3-1 to Aston Villa).
The same principle is true in FIFA 22 Career Mode, where you want to have a good mixture of youth and experience in order to come out on top. One of the neat things about Career Mode though is that you can also see the future potential of young players you sign, making it a little bit easier to wind up with a Jude Bellingham rather than an Eric Djemba-Djemba. To that end, we’ve rifled through the database to find you a clutch of great players who will grow into monsters with the right nurturing environment around them. Fergie Fergie sign him up!
Phil Foden (CAM)
Club: Manchester City
Age: 21
Current Rating: 84
Future Potential: 92
Foden is an established star in Manchester City’s overflowing midfield now, but the young Englishman is still a young Englishman, and definitely qualifies for this list. Bring him into your team and he can do a great job from day one, but it’s his exceptional future potential that marks him out as a shrewd investment, albeit not a cheap one.
Joao Felix (CF)
Club: Atlético Madrid
Age: 21
Current Rating: 83
Future Potential: 91
His enormo-money move to Atleti a few years back was an eye-opener, and his performances since haven’t quite hit those high (bank) notes, but the Portuguese second striker is a phenomenal player on his day, and if you invest in him then it is entirely probable that he will have a lot of those days for a very long time.
Ferran Torres (RW)
Club: Manchester City
Age: 21
Current Rating: 82
Future Potential: 90
We’re not really sure what Ferran Torres’ preferred position is, because Pep seems to trust the young Spaniard to do just about everything across the City frontline. But his flexibility is clearly as much of an asset as his future potential, and will be useful for your team.
Dejan Kulusevski (RW)
Club: Piemonte Calcio (aka Juventus)
Age: 21
Current Rating: 81
Future Potential: 89
Now that The One Who Wears Seven has left for pastures new (or rather old), Juve’s Swedish attacker may have been hoping to get more of the limelight, although the emergence of Federico Chiesa in roughly his position is unhelpful to this end. Save him from the bench by acquiring his mercurial talents and nurturing them to club legend status.
Pedri (CM)
Club: Barcelona
Age: 18
Current Rating: 81
Future Potential: 91
Assuming Barcelona haven’t broken his legs off by playing him too much, the Spanish teenage darling should be a mainstay of the Camp Nou midfield for many years to come. If you pick him up in Career Mode, he can do the same for you!
Bukayo Saka (RM)
Club: Arsenal
Age: 19
Current Rating: 80
Future Potential: 88
One of the England national team’s best young players — and with this squad, that’s saying something — the Arsenal defender-turned-attacker is a brilliant player to pick up and invest some time and resources into, offering speed and versatility down the right flank.
Vinicius Jr. (LW)
Club: Real Madrid
Age: 21
Current Rating: 80
Future Potential: 90
We thought Vinicius was older than this by now, but apparently the Brazilian has not been playing for Real Madrid for as long as we thought, and that’s good news for our Career Mode teams, because he has everything you would want in a wide attacker: pace, power, trickery and the ability to morph into a sort of Neymar-esque mega player over multiple seasons.
Pedro Porro (RWB)
Club: Sporting CP
Age: 21
Current Rating: 80
Future Potential: 87
He may sound like a child’s collectable toy with a globally syndicated TV cartoon series, but Pedro Porro is a serious defender-cum-attacker who will fly under most people’s radar. Super long term you may want to upgrade him, but in terms of young players who can hold down a position and grow into a useful asset, he’s definitely up there.
Jude Bellingham (CM)
Club: Borussia Dortmund
Age: 18
Current Rating: 79
Future Potential: 89
Heeeeyyy juuuust stop singing that song. Dortmund’s young English midfielder has come into his own recently, linking up with Erling Haaland in the team’s first Champions League outing with frightening skill and poise. Jadon Sancho has already exited Dortmund for massive money to return to the Prem. What price Bellingham following in short order? (Probably quite a lot of millions.)
Antony (RW)
Club: Ajax
Age: 21
Current Rating: 79
Future Potential: 88
A fantastic right-winger for an underrated Ajax team that seems to be getting over the mass exodus a few years back, the Brazilian Antony is definitely one for the future.
Harvey Elliott (RW)
Club: Liverpool
Age: 18
Current Rating: 73
Future Potential: 87
What looked as though it could be his breakout season was cruelly cut short by a horrible accidental ankle-smashing tackle against Leeds, but the Liverpool player will be back, and in the meantime you can benefit from his huge potential in Career Mode, where he shoots for the stars from a very low baseline.
Florian Wirtz (CAM)
Club: Bayer Leverkusen
Age: 18
Current Rating: 78
Future Potential: 89
Another emerging Bundesliga talent, Wirtz is going to be a star in the years ahead, with a big-money move to Bayern mooted by the rumour pages, and it you are looking for a creative midfielder to help your team evolve over the years, you could do worse.
Jamal Musiala
Club: Bayern Munich
Age: 18
Current Rating: 76
Future Potential: 88
Another superb young Bundesliga talent, this time for the champions Bayern Munich, Jamal Musiala looked fantastic in the team’s first Champions League outing this season and has been doing well domestically too. A relatively thin squad means he may get more chances to grow this season, and it would be worth bringing him into your squad if you can to see what he’s capable of doing over time.
FIFA 22 launched on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, and Google Stadia on October 1.