The FM21 Newgen Guide

With the new installment of Football Manager, everybody wants to become the best manager of all time for club and country. That will naturally take time in game and requires lots of effort from players. This FM21 Newgen Guide will help you to accelerate this process whilst we do the leg-work for you. In this guide we bring you the top clubs and countries to scout to have the best chance of finding wonderkids in your saves.

In Football Manager it’s fairly easy to find current wonderkids as most are fairly well known. Most websites (including our own) have lists for top players to sign in different scenarios. However this article is focused more on how to find the wonderkids (specifically newgens) rather than which ones are already good.

Say for example its 2025, all the starting wonderkids are at big clubs. They won’t budge for £50m + and likely won’t come to a smaller club. We need to look for the new generation of players coming through, but where do we start? (With this FM21 Newgen Guide of course!)

What are Newgens?

For those unaware, in Football Manager players will naturally retire due to old age in game. To compensate for this players are brought into each clubs youth academy on certain days each season. In older versions of the game the date was fixed but in later editions the date seems to fluctuate each year, for most European clubs its around early March. The players brought in are often referred to as ‘Regens’ or ‘Newgens’ due to their computer image. The top countries and clubs will naturally produce the best Newgens but some countries and clubs fly under the radar.

Whilst they don’t look particularly human…

the players will overtake the current series of players. The game generates players based on factors including country and club facilities. For countries, its one variable known at ‘Youth Rating‘. This is an integer between 0 and 200, with 200 being the best and 0 being the worst.

Top Countries to Scout

Country	Continent	Youth Rating
Brazil	South America	163
Germany	Europe	155
Italy	Europe	144
France	Europe	140
Argentina	South America	140
Spain	Europe	140
Egypt	Africa	138
Turkey	Europe	124
Holland	Europe	122
Nigeria	Africa	120
Mexico	North America	120
England	Europe	120
Russia	Europe	118
Colombia	South America	117
Portugal	Europe	114
Japan	Asia	112
South Korea	Asia	110
United States	North America	110
Belgium	Europe	110
Jordan	Asia	107

Keen-eyed viewers will notice that these values are exactly the same as last year‘s Newgen Guide! The above graph shows the top countries in the world for producing raw talent, regardless of clubs. Therefore if every club in the game had the same youth facilities then this would more closely resemble the world rankings. (which they don’t), newgens behave slightly differently.

However this raises some concerns; Egypt is significantly above England and Holland? Nigeria are above Portugal? Belgium have one of the best squads in the world and they are beaten by Japan? That is due to the other major factor: Clubs! This also explains why countries such as Sweden (Zlatan Ibrahimović), Ukraine (Andriy Shevchenko) and Wales (Gareth Bale) occasionally produce incredible talent with less consistency.

As far as we are aware, there is no way to change/improve a nations youth rating in game other than using the in-game editor. This value is fixed, but doesn’t mean that smaller nations can’t produce better players, just will do so less often.

Top Clubs to Scout

Again, the four factors affecting youth development for clubs are Youth Facilities (YF), Youth Coaching (YC), Youth Importance (YI) and Youth Recruitment (YR) Each of these variables for each club is an integer between 0 and 20. As part of the FM21 Newgen Guide I will be looking into how the four factors affect youth development.

Youth Facilities

In game, the actual values aren’t displayed, but text is used. The general progression of Youth facilities are as follows:

Poor > Basic > Below Average > Adequate > Average > Good > Great > Excellent > Superb > State of the Art

Clubs with the best Youth Facilities are as follows:

Club	Country	Youth Facilities (20)
Club Brugge KV	Belgium	20
Burton Albion	England	20
Tottenham Hotspur	England	20
Manchester United	England	20
Chelsea	England	20
Manchester City	England	20
Benfica	Portugal	20
FC Krasnodar	Russia	20
Barcelona	Spain	20
RB Salzburg	Austria	19
Club Genk	Belgium	19
Standard Liège	Belgium	19
RB Leipzig	Germany	19
Bayern Munich	Germany	19
AS Roma	Italy	19
Sporting	Portugal	19
FC Basel	Switzerland	19
Toronto FC	U.S.A.	19

Youth Importance

Youth importance has been harder to exactly pin down what it does. Also I think that this is the only stat which cannot be improved in the same way as facilities, recruitment and coaching as all can be improved via board requests. As 1000’s of clubs have the maximum value for this stat, it wouldn’t make sense to list them as it is a trivial case.

Youth Coaching

Again the actual values aren’t displayed, but text is used. The general progression of youth coaching are as follows:

Minimal > Fairly Basic > Average > Adequate > Good > Excellent > Exceptional

Clubs with the best Youth Facilities are as follows: (20 = max value)

Club	Country	Youth Coaching (20)
Chelsea	England	20
FCP	Portugal	20
CD Olimpia	Hondruas	19
Defensor Sporting Club	Uruguay	19
SLB	Portugal	19
AFC Ajax	Holland	18
Atalanta	Italy	18
Barcelona	Spain	18
CD Marathon	Honduras	18
Independiente del Valle	Ecuador	18
Danubio	Uruguay	18
Envigado F.C.	Colombia	18
Austria Vienna	Austria	18
Club Genk	Belgium	18
Manchester United	England	18
Real Madrid	England	18
Anderlecht	Belgium	18
SCP	Portugal	18

Youth Recruitment

Unsurprisingly the actual values aren’t displayed, but text is used. The general progression of youth recruitment are as follows:

No (Youth Recruitment) > Limited > Basic > Fairly Basic > Average > Above Average > Established > Well Established > Extensive

This category is more common to have higher values, with over 150 clubs having the full 20/20. Here are some famous (and not so famous) clubs that have the max value for Youth Recruitment.

Club	Country	Youth Recruitment (20)
River Plate	Argentina	20
Sydney United 58 FC	Australia	20
RB Salzburg	Austria	20
Ludogorets Razgrad	Bulgaria	20
CSKA- Sofia	Bulgaria	20
Levski Sofia	Bulgaria	20
Colo Colo	Chile	20
Dinamo Zagreb	Croatia	20
FC Midtjylland	Denmark	20
PAOK	Greece	20
Atalanta	Italy	20
Tokyo Metro Feliz	Japan	20
FK Bodø/Glimt	Norway	20
Vålerenga	Norway	20
Stabæk Fotball	Norway	20
Legia Warszawa	Poland	20
Lech Poznan	Poland	20
Benfica	Portugal	20
FC Viitorul Constanta	Romania	20
Red Star Belgrade	Serbia	20
Partizan Beograd	Serbia	20
Ulsan Hyundai	South Korea	20
Pohang Steelers	South Korea	20
FC Basel	Switzerland	20
Club Nacional de Football	Uruguay	20
Defensor	Uruguay	20

From this, you should be able to find some clubs that produce some good players, some clubs that aren’t on this list may produce better players, but these clubs will consistently produce the better players on average.

As I do more research into the youth development aspect of this game. I may revisit this article and update where I see necessary. Thank you very much for reading and I hope you learnt something new from this FM21 Newgen Guide!