by MaddFM.
The year is 2005. José Mourinho has just won his first of two back-to-back Premier League titles with Chelsea; Liverpool are crowned Champions of Europe after a thrilling penalty shootout victory over Milan following an incredible 3-goal comeback in Istanbul; Patrick Vieira is on the cover of Fifa alongside Fernando Morientes and Andriy Shevchenko, while Graeme Souness is the current manager of Newcastle United. What times we lived in.
Maurice Krattenmacher was born on the 11th of August that year, the same year in which fellow wonderkids Mathys Tel, Desiré Doué, Paul Wanner, Bobby Clark, Issac Babadi and Jobe Bellingham also entered the world meaning all are now around the 17/18 year old mark and are primed and ready to be scouted and signed in Football Manager 2023.
A young Krattenmacher at Unterhaching
Today our focus is on Krattenmacher - largely based on the fact that he is a raw gem that we unearthed in my HFC Haarlem Globetrotters save and also that he is emerging as both an FM and real-life wonderkid following his recent exploits for SpVgg Unterhaching in the Regionalliga Bayern which is one of the five Regionalliga leagues in Germany that collectively make up the fourth tier of the German football league. Let’s take a closer look…
Following a very similar path to Karim Adeyemi, Krattenmacher began his youth career on the books at Bayern Munich before moving on to neighbours Unterhaching whose last spell in the Bundesliga was all the way back in 2001. Quick, confident on the ball and showing early signs of being both an excellent dribbler and distributor of the ball as well as an instinctive finisher - he is capable of playing anywhere up front or across the Attacking Midfield strata, and has quickly shown his worth in the U17 Bundesliga, scoring 23 goals in 20 games and earning a place in Germany’s U17 squad where he scored on his first start against San Marino and has since racked up 8 caps, 2 goals and 2 assists for the national youth team.
In Football Manager 2023, Krattenmacher starts the game as a 16-year-old in the Underhaching U19 squad, and immediately we can see his ability and potential based on the attributes already given to him by the SI researchers, no doubt his impressive form for club and country last season played a big factor here. What’s really intriguing is that looking at his attributes and his role ability - he can be trained into almost any attacking role depending on your needs and where you think you can develop him to be most effective. More importantly - given the reputation and level of his club, his estimated value (€180k - €550k) and the fact that he is only contracted to Underhaching in-game until 2024, he is very much attainable for most decent sized clubs without having to worry about interest or breaking the bank for his signature.
The FM Gods are already dubbing him the “next Mesut Özil” which is never a bad sign, however early signs indicate that he will be very adept as a left-sided forward cutting in on his favoured right foot:
In my own save in the 2nd Tier of Dutch football, we had already had some success in sourcing players from the lower tiers of Germany and after dispatching one of our scouts to explore the leagues in more detail, we received one hell of an inbox item which first alerted me of 18-year-old Krattenmacher’s existence:
By 2024 he had already moved on to Aalen in the Regionalliga Südwest, racking up 20 goals and 4 assists from 34 games in his first season - it’s no surprise that Dortmund were showing an interest and having just sold Che Nunnely for €1.5m (whom we signed on a free at the start of the save), we needed to move quick before Dortmund could swoop in.
A wanted man..
A bid of €400k up front plus €400k over 3 annual installments is accepted and after some tricky negotiations which we sealed with some very generous goal and assist bonuses, Krattenmacher becomes our record signing and immediately we set about training him as an Inside Forward (Left) to compliment our lone Striker and Right Winger as part of a 4-3-3 formation, as well as adding additional Player Trait training for him to Cut Inside from the Left Wing.
We give the lad his debut in our opening league game against Top OSS. Now I’m not one to get carried away easily, however after just 4 minutes we see him win the ball back on the left hand side, find a pass, continue his run and then this happens…
Absolute poetry as we go on to win the game 4-2 with Krattenmacher also picking up an assist and an 8.4 average rating. He goes on to score in his next game as well, and whether it’s his ability, the fact that he is probably too good for this level or the fact that we gave him that lovely goal contribution contract clause - within a few months we receive this notification in our inbox..ITS ONLY JANUARY 🔥.
By the end of the season Krattenmacher finishes with 16 goals and 13 assists from 37 league appearances, not only finishing as the Top Assist provider in the league but also helping us to finish in 2nd place and gain promotion to the Eredivisie. WHAT A PLAYER.
At the beginning of Season 3 and our first foray into top division football, Krattenmacher (now age 20) has gone from strength to strength and it’s no wonder we turned down measly €3m and €4m bids from Bayern and Milan for his services.
Now valued between €13.5 and €15 million, he is wanted by some serious teams and we will do well to hold on to him..it’s no surprise that the lad is heavily linked with a big move in real life having already bagged 4 goals and 4 assists in 16 games for the Underhaching Senior Squad this season - and still only 17 years old! Not only did our friends over at Scouted Football already namedrop him recently based on his FM profile - rumours are that both Bundesliga giants Bayern and Dortmund are in the hunt for his signature, which means he may not be as easily attainable for long in FM23 if a move transpires before the next data update. You better move quick, this is one not to be missed ☝️.
Thanks for reading.
Share your thoughts below! Let us know if you have any Wonderkids you would like us to cover or if you are interested in profiling any specific players for our Wonderkid Watch series - you can drop us a DM on Twitter or reach out to MaddFM for more info 👌.
