FIFA 21 potential wonderkids: the best career mode youngsters and hidden gems

The best, highest-potential players in FIFA 21.

Guide by Chris Tapsell Deputy Editor

Updated on 7 Oct 2020

FIFA 21 potential wonderkids look a little different this year. Instead of simply the players under a certain age with the highest potential rating, this year we have a list of the players with the highest potential ratings and a list of players with the highest potential for growth. As in, both high overall potential wonderkids like Kylian Mbappé and career mode hidden gems like Rayan Cherki with huge room to improve. In other words, if you're after the best young players in FIFA 21 career mode, you're in the right place.

We'll also give our own advice on finding wonderkids and our personal picks for standout players from the list further below, so read on! And do give our list of FIFA 21's 100 best career mode players a look if single-player guides are what you're here for, too.

On this page:

FIFA 21 potential wonderkids: the best young players with highest potential ratings
FIFA 21 career mode hidden gems: the young players with most room to improve
FIFA 21 wonderkids explained: other things to know about our lists

FIFA 21 potential wonderkids: the best young players with highest potential ratings

Here's a list of the 20 best wonderkids in FIFA 21, which is this time classed as the highest-rated players with a minimum improvement of at least 20 Overall rating.

That means this is a list with the more obvious ones: household names like Mbappé, Sancho, Havertz and the like make up most of the list, with their already high current Overall ability meaning most have made a name for themselves. This is where you'll find the absolute best young players though: if you want the best young centre back with the highest potential rating, say, or the future best forward in the world.

Note as well that we've ordered this table by highest max Overall rating first, as opposed to the maximum improvement possible.

FIFA 21 potential wonderkids: the best young players in Career Mode

Rank	Name	Club	Position	Current	Potential	Total Growth
1	Kylian Mbappé	Paris Saint Germain	ST	90	95	5
2	Jadon Sancho	Borussia Dortmund	RM	87	93	6
3	Kai Havertz	Chelsea	CAM	85	93	8
4	Joao Félix	Atletico de Madrid	CF	81	93	12
5	Vinícius Jr.	Real Madrid	LW	80	93	13
6	Trent Alexander-Arnold	Liverpool	RB	87	92	5
7	Erling Haaland	Borussia Dortmund	ST	84	92	8
8	Matthhijs de Ligt	Piemonte Calcio	CB	85	92	7
9	Gianluigi Donnarumma	AC Milan	GK	85	92	7
10	Lautaro Martínez	Inter	ST	84	92	8
11	Marcus Rashford	Manchester United	LM	85	91	6
12	Francisco Trincao	FC Barcelona	RW	78	91	13
13	Sandro Tonali	AC Milan	CDM	77	91	14
14	Frenkie de Jong	FC Barcelona	CM	85	90	5
15	Dayot Upamecano	RB Leipzig	CB	79	90	11
16	Federico Valverde	Real Madrid	CM	83	90	7
17	Mikel Oyarzabal	Real Sociedad	LW	84	90	6
18	Rodrygo	Real Madrid	RW	79	90	11
19	Ansu Fati	FC Barcelona	LW	76	90	14
20	Alphonso Davies	Bayern Munchen	LB	81	89	8

FIFA 21 career mode hidden gems: the young players with most room to improve

On top of that list above, this year EA Sports has blessed us with a second list, specifically covering hidden gems - the lesser-known players that have the highest amount of room for growth.

The below list is made up of players who will all improve by at least a whopping 20 points in their Overall rating, and have at least a potential Overall rating of 80. They'll take a fair bit longer to reach their potential, but if you're in it for the long run with your Career Mode saves, this will make for some incredible investments!

FIFA 21 Career Mode hidden gems: the young players with the most room to improve

Rank	Name	Club	Position	Current	Potential	Total Growth
1	Rayan Cherki	Olympique Lyonnais	CAM	67	88	21
2	Florian Wirtz	Bayer 04 LEverkusen	CAM	68	88	20
3	Luca Netz	Hertha BSC	LB	63	86	23
4	Sebastiano Esposito	Inter	ST	66	86	20
5	Aster Vranckx	KV Mechelen	CM	66	86	20
6	Omar Rekik	Hertha BSC	CB	63	85	22
7	Karamoko Dembele	Celtic	RW	64	85	21
8	Yusuf Demir	Rapid Wien	RW	64	85	21
9	Harvey Elliott	Liverpool	RW	65	85	20
10	Troy Parrott	Millwall	ST	65	85	20
11	Marco Kana	Anderlecht	CB	65	85	20
12	Curtis Jones	Liverpool	CM	64	84	20
13	Arvin Appiah	UD Almeria	LM	64	84	20
14	Alan Velasco	Independiente	LM	64	84	20
15	Malachi Fagan-Walcott	Tottenham Hotspur	CB	60	83	23
16	Dennis Cirkin	Tottenham Hotspur	LB	61	83	22
17	Lucas Chevalier	LOSC Lille	GK	61	83	22
18	Paul Nebel	FSV Mainz 05	RW	62	83	21
19	Timothée Pembélé	Paris Saint-Germain	RB	63	83	20
20	Jarrad Branthwaite	Everton	CB	59	82	23
21	Eugenio Pizzuto	LOSC Lille	CDM	59	82	23
22	Ricky-Jade Jones	Peterborough United	ST	59	82	23
23	Kays Ruiz-Atil	Paris Saint-Germain	CM	60	82	22
24	Tommy Doyle	Manchester City	CM	60	82	22
25	Juan Manuel Cuesta	Independiente Medellin	LM	60	82	22
26	Luke Matheson	Wolves	RB	61	82	21
27	J'Neil Bennett	Tottenham Hotspur	LM	61	82	21
28	Indiana Vassilev	Aston Villa	LW	61	82	21
29	David Ayala	Estudiantes de La Plata	CDM	61	82	21
30	Jacob Italiano	Borussia Monchengladbach	LM	61	82	21
31	Armel Balla-Kotchap	VfL Bochum	CB	62	82	20
32	Santiago Gimenez	Cruz Azul	ST	62	82	20
33	Danny Leyva	Seattle Sounders	CM	56	81	25
34	Lilian Egloff	VfB Stuttgart	CAM	59	81	22
35	Daniel Hoyo-Kowalski	Wisla Krakow	CB	59	81	22
36	Ivan Martinez	CA Osasuna	GK	60	81	21
37	Harry White	Tottenham Hotspur	CDM	60	81	21
38	Nathan Wood	Middlesborough	CB	60	81	21
39	Cody Drameh	Leeds United	RB	61	81	20
40	Victor Guzman	Club Tijuana	CB	61	81	20
41	Malik Tillman	Bayern Munchen II	ST	61	81	20
42	Joe Gelhardt	Leeds United	ST	61	81	20
43	Santiago Cartagena	Nacional de Montevideo	CDM	61	81	20
44	Melayro Bogarde	TSG 1899 Hoffenheim	CB	58	80	22
45	Folarin Balogun	Arsenal	ST	60	80	20
46	Jamie Bowden	Tottenham Hotspur	CDM	60	80	20
47	Becir Omeragic	FC Zurich	CB	60	80	20
48	Daishawn Redan	FC Gronigen	ST	60	80	20
49	Luca Oyen	Genk	CAM	60	80	20
50	Xavier Amaechi	Hamburger SV	RW	60	80	20
51	Marvin Tshibuabua	AS Saint-Etienne	CB	60	80	20
52	Jofre	Girona FC	CM	60	80	20

For more on FIFA 21, so far we have new pages on the FIFA 21 release time and download details for all editions, best FIFA 21 goalkeepers, best FIFA 21 defenders, best FIFA 21 midfielders, best FIFA 21 wingers, best FIFA 21 strikers, a big breakdown of FIFA 21 potential wonderkids and career mode hidden gems and a list of FIFA 21 Career Mode's best players. Plus, we've pages on FUT Chemistry explained and a freshly updated FIFA 21 Chemistry styles list and affected attributes explainer, to get you started with FUT. Expect much more soon!

FIFA 21 wonderkids explained: other things to know about our list of hidden gems

Based on the above, there are a couple of points worth bearing in mind when hunting down your next world class talent, which ring true in FIFA 21 just as they have in other FIFAs before it:

First, some more depth on how this list was put together: EA Sports has opted to release a list of the highest potential players, as as well as the players with the highest maximum rating under certain age, like they'd previously done in the last few years' games, such as FIFA 20's wonderkids and FIFA 19's wonderkids. In brief, that means the first list is the one with the best young players, the second with the best high-improvement hidden gems.
There are some ommissions from the first list that might surprise some - Greenwood and Foden stand out as glaring omissions, for instance - but that's for a reason. It's likely because EA's released quite a short list this year, and so their maximum potential rating just isn't quite as high as this top 20. But they're still likely to improve a huge amount, well into the high 80s!
Of all the players listed here, the one with the highest potential Overall rating gain is Danny Leyva, of Seattle Sounders, who could increase by a whopping 25 points from a rating of 56 to 81! Could be a mega investment for future sale on the transfer market
Remember that age is an important factor here. Whilst younger, lower-Overall players like Leyva might come at a better price, if you can afford more developed players then often it's a safer bet, and a faster one - you might not be fitting in four, five or six seasons into one Career Mode playthrough, after all, and so may never see a seventeen-year-old's full potential.

For those longer plathroughs, we recommend players with a starting Overall in the 50s, to keep the cost down. Jarrad Branthwaite, Ricky-Jade Jones, and Eugenio Pizzuto and the like are great options for huge long-term growth and re-sale value.
For more instant hits the obvious choices are all in the first list. For the less obvious, look to the likes of Rayan Cherki and Florian Wertz, who'll reach first-team standards pretty quickly.
As always, be flexible with your positions. It's more of a general tip for FIFA 21 anyway, but don't forget that often, players have expertise in more than one spot on the team sheet, and it's more about their technical attributes like Pace, Dribbling, or Finishing that make a difference.
For bargains, think about the size of the club you're buying from - are Liverpool going to give up a top-rated youngster for as little as KV Mechelen of Belgium of Tijuana of Mexico?