When it comes to the French, there’s one thing you can guarantee, potential wonderkids. They are stacked in all areas and the future looks sustainably bright for Les Bleus and that future includes this former PSG graduate who finds himself spearheading Rennes exciting young side in Ligue 1.
There were a number of clubs interested in signing Kalimuendo in the summer of 2022 including Leeds United, however he chose to join Stade Rennais for approximately £18m plus a future slice of the pie going to PSG should he be sold for a profit.
With his transfer to Rennes only happening last season he’s still finding his feet - he scored his first league goal for the club in October and has gone on to amass 6 goals and four assists in 19 games this season starting in 62% of the club’s games, playing 54% of the total minutes available which shows he’s still very much on the edge of full time first team football.
Stats-wise Kalimuendo is in the 90th percentiles for Pass Completion and Progressive Passes this season, and he has proven himself to be adept both at creating and scoring goals particularly during his time at Lens and now at Rennes this season since leaving PSG due to a lack of first team football in the French capital.
In Football Manager 2023 the 20 year old is quite clearly an Advanced Forward and at 5’9” he gives me strong Jermain Defoe vibes, short, powerful and a clinical finisher. His stand out attributes for his position are his Finishing (15), Composure (14), Determination (15), Off The Ball (15) & Acceleration (15) - for a 20 year old these are great attributes to start the game with and with the right training, development and game time Arnaud can become a problem in all the top European Leagues.
At the start of the game he’s only just signed for Rennes so don’t expect to be signing him for a while, he’s contracted until 2027 but in two of my saves he’s left France for Italy after the first season for just over £20m. In both saves he’s been managed by the AI meaning I have no knowledge of how he’s been developed and it wasn’t until his return to France in my latest save that he’s been cropping up on the newsfeed… A LOT.
Marseille brought him home in the 2025/26 season for just £12m after an unsuccessful time in Italy with Atalanta where, in fairness, he had only managed to play 13 games in 3 seasons. His return was as a backup striker where he made 8 starts in the league but came on 16 times and scored 7 goals. His second season at the Stade Velodrome saw him lead the attack, he started 45 games in total and returned 19 goals and 4 assists. Then things really clicked and the next season saw him net 19 in 33 games as he started his quest to become an elite Ligue 1 striker. Season 28/29 and he was on fire his 29 goals in 33 starts saw him win his first international cap for France, he won Ligue 1 Forward of the Season and finished as the European Golden Shoe winner.
At the end of the 2029/30 season, my current season, he’s gone one step further; 52 goals in 51 games (35 goals in 32 Ligue 1 games) and he’s undoubtedly up there as an elite European marksman.
Development
As you can see from the screenshots, he starts the game with no player traits and has added Likes to Try To Beat Offside Trap & Knocks Ball Past Opponent which clearly take advantage of his Acceleration, Decisions and Off The Ball attributes but will of course mean you’ll be seeing plenty of Offside decisions in your games.
Injuries
Something that surprised me from such an explosive player is that his injury record is actually very good, over the course of this save his longest spell on the sidelines was 4 weeks. I would normally be looking to take advantage of resting my sprinters during the season but he’s just played 50+ games this season with only a couple of knocks.
Summary
This report was written before the Winter Update dropped so one can only hope that Arnaud as a player has stayed the same as a minimum, you never know he might have even had a small upgrade to mirror his real life emergence.
Having not managed him personally it seems strange to write a report on a player that I’ve had no personal attachment to but the fact that he’s caught my eye in two different saves he has certainly piqued my interest and I’ll certainly be doing my best to pick him up on a future save.
If you’ve had the pleasure of managing him, please let me know, I’d love to know what he’d be like if he realised his full potential.