FM21 Guides: Newgen Guide for Countries and Clubs

FM21 Guides: Newgen Guide for Countries and Clubs

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!

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