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Lulinha

4. Lulinha - Pafos

SC Braga´s midfielder from Argentina Andres Madrid (R) vies with Olhanense´s brazilian midfielder Luis dos Reiss 'Lulinha' (L) during their portuguese super league football match at the...

The second Football Manager 2008 prospect in this seven, there used to always be a handful of Brazilian teenage sensations on the game. Lulinha would be a brilliant purchase for any club from Corinthians if you managed to get a work permit, and it’s easy to see why FM ranked him so highly. He scored 16 goals in 16 games for Brazil’s under-17’s, prompting Corinthians to slap a 35 million euro price tag on his head.

In game, Lulinha developed into a classical Brazilian attacking midfielder, with excellent stats for creativity, dribbling, technique, pace, long shots and even work rate. He needed nurturing if you wanted a Ballon d’Or winner on your hands, but even Iain Dowie could turn this lad into a player in the mould of say a current Philippe Coutinho.

Fast forward a decade, and Lulinha’s career has really just petered out. He stayed with Corinthians until 2012, but his game time decreased as the years went by. Lulinha was never capped by Brazil above U17 level, and he’s now become something of a journeyman. Having bounced from one club to another in Brazil, he moved to South Korea in 2016 and the United Arab Emirates in 2018. Now aged 28, he’s currently playing for Pafos in Cyprus, although we’ve one or two doubts about his supposed 10 goals in 0 games as Wikipedia claims he’s managed.

1. Carlos Fierro - Morelia

There have been a fair few Mexican wonderkids on Football Manager over the years, and very few seem to come good on their potential. The one that lives longest in the memory of FM12 players has to be Carlos Fierro though, a striker who was capable of reaching Messi-Ronaldo levels of goal scoring at the highest level.

Fierro had impressed at the 2011 U17 World Cup, and although his stats didn’t become too mind-blowing, his numbers were very consistent. He developed great speed, skill, finishing and work rate, and anything under 30 goals in a season following his 23rd birthday would be a disappointment. Fierro proved especially appealing since you could usually pick him up for a reasonable price and not even whilst managing one of the big boys provided you could secure a work permit.

In real life, the now 24-year-old has failed to score more than 3 league goals in a single season, nevermind 30. He left Guadalajara with a record of 20 goals from 198 appearances in 2017, joining Cruz Azul, and he is currently on-loan with Morelia in Liga MX, now playing as a right winger rather than as a striker.

Kerlon

Famed in reality for balancing the ball on his head while running, Kerlon was not only known for his infamous 'seal dribble' but more for his incredible quality on Football Manager 2006. He may not have been blessed with height, coming in at 5ft 5, but Kerlon was touted as the future of Brazilian football when he burst onto the scene. If you ask someone of that era who Kerlon is, they'd most likely know.

After leaving Cruzeiro for Inter Milan in 2006, it looked like the Brazilian wonderkid was going to live up to Football Manager's high expectation. Despite officially spending four years at Inter, he never made an appearance for the Italian giants, instead using loan spells at Chievo, Ajax, Parana and Nacional NS to try and gain first team opportunities.

At the age of 28, Kerlon has made just 44 appearances for 9 clubs since leaving Brazil in 2008.

- Sherman Cardenas

Anyone who played the 2007 version of Football Manager will definitely recognise this name. Cardenas appeared on the game as a 16-year-old wonderkid and after you picked him up for a bargain 1.5 million from Colombian side Atlético Bucaramanga, he would go onto become a world beater, scoring 20+ goals from midfield positions every single season, without fail.

We're only three players into this list but as you already tell, Football Manager doesn't always get it right and Cardenas' career didn't exactly take off from 2007 onwards. The player even suggested that his 'unrealistically' good ability in-game negatively affected his progression in reality, due to the increased pressure and expectancy placed upon his young shoulders.

For the majority of his career, the 27-year-old has remained in Colombia, playing for the likes of Millonarios, La Equidad, Junior F.C.and Atlético Nacional.

Cardenas is now on loan at Brazilian side Esporte Clube Vitória.

- Cherno Samba

He was destined for greatness. The world at his feet. After scoring 132 goals in 32 games as a 13-year-old kid, Cherno Samba was supposed to be the spearhead behind England's domination in the 2006 World Cup but after Millwall turned down an offer of £2 million from Liverpool in 2002, his career plateaued for years after.

Because of his goal scoring record as a youngster, Championship Manager 01/02 will be remembered for one thing. Cherno Samba legendary status. He would never miss. In-fact, he couldn't miss. Samba would score 60+ goals a season without fail. You'll hear plenty of tales involving Samba and how he single-handedly carried your side to greatness.

In July 2015, Samba retired from professional football after his release from Norwegian side FK Tonsberg. His previous clubs include Cadiz, Malaga B, Plymouth Argyle, Wrexham, Haka and Panetolikos.

Igor Akinfeev

Class of FM07

best football manager wonderkids

Without a doubt the first signing for any club that didn't already have a world class goalkeeper in both FM06 and FM07, Big Igor... The Iron Curtain.

He was ready to start from day one and was a match-winner, his stats only continued to grow making him easily the best goalkeeper in the game.

In real life a big club never did come in for him, so he held down his spot in Moscow and remained a one-club man who simply cannot keep a clean sheet in the Champions League despite his best efforts.

Maxim Tsigalko (Striker)

Arguably the greatest player of all time. Maxim Tsigalko is a living legend with a knack for racking up more goals than appearances. For 10 years, he would dominate many a Football Manager game no matter who he plays for. He's topped scoring charts, had Player of the Year trophies coming out of his ears and fans doting on him like Rugged Island on Father Romeo Sensini. His speciality? Hat-tricks. Might not have quite hit the same heights in real life, where he retired at the age of 26 at Savit Mogilev when the Belarusian club dissolved, but he will go down as one of the best of all time (in Football Manager, like).

Anatoli Todorov

Where better to start than with, the youthful Bulgarian goal machine that was Anatoli Todorov?

As an Eastern European footballing aficionado, I would always keep a keen eye on the leagues and teams of the region. My favourite Bulgarian team was Litex Lovech (mostly because of their wonderful orange and green kit), and my otherwise trivial search of their players was turned on its head with the discovery of this beauty.

Making his mark in the 03/04 version of the game, Todorov had speed, creativity and finishing ability up the ying-yang, was available for as good as nothing and performed consistently at all levels. You usually had to wait for a work permit, sure, but was it worth the wait? You bet your eyes it was.

In the real (pfft, what even is reality?) world, Anatoli Todorov is still plying his trade in the nether regions of Bulgarian football, although now he does so for Septemvri Sofia. He started his career with the same club, and it would seem it'll end there. In the CM world Todorov was a striker's striker, but in reality he is a creative(ish) midfielder.

Only 30, there's still time for him to reach his potential, except there isn't really time

Andri Sigþórsson

Edition: CM 3

Position: Striker

In the game: He had his potential rating set to the maximum of 200, making him theoretically the best football player it was possible to be.

In real life: While not quite reaching the heights CM scouts thought he would, poor old Andri did look to have a promising career until he suffered a career-ending knee injury in 2004. He is apparently “now in charge of his father’s successful chain of bakeries”.

Kim Kallstrom

An unbelievable bargain on Football Manager 2003, Kim Kallstrom could be snaffled from Djurgardens for less than a million quid and would soon be worth ten times more. His goalkeeper team-mate Andreas Isaksson wasn’t half bad either.

In fairness, Kallstrom went on to enjoy six seasons at Lyon and win over 100 caps for Sweden in real life, and it wasn’t until he was 231 that fans saw him grace the Premier League when Arsene Wenger brought him in on a six-month loan from Spartak Moscow in January 2014.

Still, it didn’t make his lack of impact any less disappointing. Hit by injuries, Kallstrom’s spell in north London can be filed under the ‘blink and you’ll miss it category’ as he only featured three times in the league, although he did score a crucial FA Cup penalty against Reading.

Valeri Bojinov

Dimitar Berbatov is Bulgaria’s greatest player this millennium by a distance but if FM05 was anything to go by, it was Valeri Bojinov who was his country’s superstar in waiting.

Sven Goran-Eriksson might not strike you as the archetypal FM player, but evidently he was as in 2007 he brought Bojinov to Manchester City along with other FM superstars Elano and Geovanni.

Injury problems plagued Bojinov’s time in Manchester, however, and he managed just one Premier League goal from 11 outings in the top-flight during an unfulfilled three-year period.

Daniel Braaten

Another of the speedy winger/striker variety, Norwegian Daniel Braaten was hot property on CM03/04 just before he made his big move to Rosenborg.

Braaten eventually moved to England in 2007, joining Bolton Wanderers for a paltry £450,000. Football Manager fans couldn’t believe how the little the Trotters paid for this gaming god.

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