Welcome to Part 2 of the REAL FI Wonderkids series.
For a moment let’s throw away FIFA, Football Manager and the rest of the rubbish that is often peddled at high prices and look at the young players that have real potential on FI.
For a fuller description of the series, check out Part 1.
I am focusing on players 22 and Under, and Under £2. Really, I will try to go under £1.50 or around there but for some exceptional players that I think deserve the price, I’ll include them up to £2 but not beyond that.
To be clear - the primary purpose of these listings are as solid season long holds and possibly into Summer - they are not necessarily instant wins although some may deliver them.
Player
Club
Current Ability
Potential Ability
Abdulkadir Omur
Trabzonspor
Every country seems to have their young Messi and this is the Turkish equivalent. I wouldn’t go that far.
He’s got solid FI potential though with strong goal threat, good overall involvement in the match and he creates plenty of chances.
Starting to get minutes for Turkey who are currently topping group H for the Euro’s.
And very likely to get transfer rumours closer to the Summer. That’s a mixed bag of big clubs and less favourable teams like Wolves, although any EPL move would not be bad.
At 97p this still looks good.
Player
Club
Current Ability
Potential Ability
Brahim Diaz
Real Madrid
Yet to make a senior competitive appearance for Zidane, he’s been unlucky with some pre-season injury problems.
From what we saw towards the end of last season at Real, and in the glimpses we saw at Manchester City, he’s got real FI potential though.
He’s essentially flatlined over the last 6 months hanging out at the £1.40 mark. The market has moved on since then and relatively speaking now looks cheaper than he used to compared to other players.
Other players aside, I think in his own right that offers good value for a player who should have a bright future once he overcomes these issues and traders should get interested once they see him getting minutes again.
Player
Club
Current Ability
Potential Ability
Pedrinho
Corinthians
Pedrinho looks a solid performance player with goal threat and strong involvement numbers and creates plenty of chances to boot.
Playing for the Brazil under 23’s, with frequent links to Barcelona and Real Madrid, I would be surprised if the rumours did not resurface again come the build up to the Summer.
Looks excellent value for a season hold at 90p.
Player
Club
Current Ability
Potential Ability
Malcom
Zenit
Once a well regarded young talent reaching £1.45, he has crashed down to 87p following an unsuccessful spell at Barcelona (where he showed patches of good form when given pitch time, actually) and a transfer to Zenit.
It’s not been smooth sailing in Russia though with racist fans protesting at his signing which must be unsettling. So there is reason to believe he may want to move on come the season end.
He may also play the next Champions League game vs Leipzig in October so there will be chances to shine and get attention (if he recovers from an injury).
Not a fantastic performance player I suspect but the new scoring system will help him some and scores should improve a bit.
And he would at minimum have IPD goal/assist potential at a decent eligible club and could hit a good transfer rumour later.
Player
Club
Current Ability
Potential Ability
Matias Vargas
Espanyol
Recently transfered to Espanyol and playing for the Argentina U23’s, Vargas is a well regarded talent at 22.
This season so far he’s been on great form and in a position to deliver decent IPD returns now, with the prospect of him developing, hitting the Argentina squad and getting some decent transfer rumours later, although it may be one season too early.
4 goals and 3 assists since August.
Involvement numbers are not great for midfield which is because his on pitch position is clearly more aligned as a forward, and if he was reclassified I would not be surprised.
As a midfielder he might struggle to break through but in the forward category I think he would hold his own.
You can ignore the poor performance scores so far, he’s had his minutes managed as he settles in or else scored on days where Espanyol have not won. He looks good.
Form has dipped in the last 3 but so has the price as a result and it could be a value opportunity.
Player
Club
Current Ability
Potential Ability
Eljif Elmas
Napoli
Elmas is getting plenty of minutes for Napoli lately as covered in Scouting.
A Macedonian youngster at just 19.
He’s looked high baseline with good overall involvement in play but for Napoli has had inconsistent goal threat.
If that improved he could be excellent because the rest of his game looks solid for FI purposes.
When mentioned in Scouting a couple of weeks back he was just 95p. He’s £1.23 now and people are noticing but I think he has further to go.
At the moment his goal threat isn’t brilliant but he has enough to get 1 every 4-5 games or so and if a goal does go in he could get a big total and attention.
Player
Club
Current Ability
Potential Ability
Alphonso Davies
Bayern Munich
Getting a reasonable amount of minutes from the bench at Bayern for a youngster so far this season, scoring 1 already.
Good goal and assist potential and his numbers are decent except for some stray passing accuracy on occasion which may drag him down a bit.
Looks a real talent however and whilst it will probably take a patient holder to put up with the rotation, if he does start a senior game he’s got a decent chance of getting noticed.
Bonus has pushed him up a bit to £1.50 however which is probably 20-30p more than I would want to pay. Perhaps one to wait for a drop with.
Player
Club
Current Ability
Potential Ability
Curtis Jones
Liverpool
I have featured Jones recently in Scouting at just under £1. He has gained a fair bit of traction since at £1.53 now though.
I still think he is worth a mention here and that he could go higher.
Jones is an 18 year old Liverpool youngster and has been named in the U19 England squad and recently given the captaincy of the Liverpool U23’s for the first time.
He’s the sort of player that the market really can go silly for. And he has far superior FI suitable stats than someone like Brewster.
Unlike Brewster who basically only shoots, Jones has an all round aspect to his game with goals, assists and strong overall involvement that could see him do well if given a chance in the first team.
I think he will because he is well regarded and as a Scouser they will want to give him every chance to develop.
This is too much to pay for a young player rationally speaking. However, with the way some many traders can go mad for a Brewster or similar and compare the prices between the two, Jones is actually the far superior performance player and could feasibly get a big score when and if he plays.
If that were to happen, you can see him catching fire.