FM24 Best Wonderkid Centre-Backs

I’m 99% certain that you’ll have realised that 5 Star Potential was a nod to the famous scouting grade for players with exceptional potential in Football Manager and every year we love to talk about Wonderkids and other great players our journeys uncover and it’s no different for Football Manager 2024 as we take a look at some players you should start scouting in your saves. 

Some of these players will be standout, household names and others just interesting prospects for all different types of clubs, basically, they are players we really like the look of. 

Ousmane Diomande
Club: Sporting Lisbon

Arguably the best young centre-back in the game, Diomande has that Wonderkid media description and coupled with his Perfectionist personality he’s already well on the way to becoming one of the great defenders of our generation. At just 19 he’s already a regular starter at Sporting Lisbon so he won’t be cheap but Sporting, as the always are, are more than happy to cash in on another generational talent. A must buy if you’re managing any Premier League team.

Zeno Debast
Club: Anderlecht

A Belgian centre-back from Anderlecht with a Perfectionist personality, sounds familiar doesn’t it? Well following in the footsteps of Vincent Kompany & Toby Alderweireld is 19 year old, Zeno Debast. At 19 and already capped by the national team, he’s got well rounded attributes for a right sided central defender and the potential to become a Rolls Royce centre-half. Get him whilst he’s young or he’ll be gone to one of Europe’s elite.

Jair
Club: Santos

We’ve liked Jair for a couple of years and felt it was right to add him to our list as he’s not one of the talked about young centre-backs in the game. He’s another right sided central defender who at 6’6” won’t just be heading balls away at the back, he can be a dominant focus of your set-piece attack. He’s normally available for under £10m and we’ve seen him develop into an elite defender in so many save games.

Isaak Toure
Club: Lorient

Left sided centre-backs have always been a commodity in Football Manager so when we came across this 20 year old Frenchman who is 6’8”, Jumping Reach of 20 plus all the desired attributes you need we couldn’t not talk about him on the 5 Star Potential Podcast during our Adventures in Wonderkid-Land segment. He’s not long joint Lorient so depending on who you are managing he may not want to join immediately but he’s well worth keeping an eye on for future transfer windows.