FIFA 23 wonderkids and best young players with the highest potential in Career mode

The rising stars of this year's beautiful game.

Guide by Matthew Reynolds Contributor

Published on 27 Sep 2022

FIFA 23 wonderkids come in two forms - a list of the best youngest players with the highest potential ratings and a list of hidden gems with huge room for improvement.

This gives you two things to take advantage of - the players with the highest rating they can reach (spoilers - it's Kylian Mbappé, again!) and the players with the most growth over time, which is useful if you're looking for some career mode bargains. I know we do.

On this page:

FIFA 23 wonderkids with the highest potential overall
FIFA 23 best young players with room to grow
Other things to know about the best young players and wonderkids in FIFA 23

Need helping picking players? Check out our pages on best players overall, best Premier League players, fastest players, best strikers, best wingers, best midfielders and best defenders. Don’t forget - Chemistry has been reworked for FIFA 23.

FIFA 23 wonderkids and best young players with the highest potential overall

Here's a list of the 21 best wonderkids in FIFA 23, classed as the players with the highest overall potential rating.

This means there are a lot of known players on there - Mbappé, Vinícius Jr. and Alexander-Arnold among them - which, incredibly, still have scope to get better.

Ultimately, this is where you'll find the absolute best young players - useful if you want the best young centre back with the highest potential rating, say, or the future best forward in the world.

Note - we've ordered this table by highest max Overall rating, as opposed to the maximum improvement possible - though that is visible in a dedicated column (with for a second year, Ansu Fati looking to have the biggest jump from their current to potential rating with 11 points).

Rank	Name	Club	Position	Current	Potential	Total Growth
1	Kylian Mbappé	Paris Saint Germain	ST	91	95	4
2	Erling Haaland	Manchester City	ST	88	94	6
3	Pedri	FC Barcelona	CM	85	93	8
4	Phil Foden	Manchester City	LW	85	92	7
5	Vinícius Jr.	Real Madrid	LW	86	92	6
6	Gianluigi Donnarumma	Paris Saint Germain	GK	88	92	4
7	Florian Wirtz	Bayer 04 Leverkusen	CAM	82	91	9
8	Kai Havertz	Chelsea	CAM	84	91	7
9	Dušan Vlahović	Juventus	ST	84	91	7
10	Jude Bellingham	Borussia Dortmund	CM	84	91	7
11	Ansu Fati	FC Barcelona	LW	79	90	11
12	Jamal Musiala	Bayern Munchen	CM	81	90	9
13	Rafael Leão	Milan	LW	84	90	6
14	João Félix	Atletico de Madrid	CF	84	90	6
15	Sandro Tonali	Milan	CDM	84	90	6
16	Alessandro Bastoni	Inter	CB	84	90	6
17	Trent Alexander-Arnold	Liverpool	RB	87	90	3
18	Ryan Gravenberch	Bayern Munchen	CM	79	89	10
19	Eduardo Camavinga	Real Madrid	CM	76	89	13
20	Gavi	FC Barcelona	CM	79	89	10
21	Vitinha	Paris Saint Germain	CM	79	89	10

The best young players with the highest potential to go in FIFA 23

As well as the above young players with the highest potential cap, another consideration are young players with the most room for improvement.

These are known as hidden gems - lesser-known players which, if snapped up early and improved upon, can you give you a real bargain in the career mode.

Every player in the below list will grow by at least 23 points in their Overall stat - a huge jump compared to the above table of Wonderkids, where the highest growth possible is 11.

These players will 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 superb investments:

Rank	Name	Club	Position	Current	Potential	Total Growth
1	Joshua Feeney	Aston Villa	CB	55	80	25
2	Felipe Valencia	Inter Miami	RM	50	75	25
3	Diogo Monterio	Servette FC	CB	54	78	24
4	Gavin Beavers	Real Salt Lake	GK	52	76	24
5	Attilio Morosoli	FC Lugano	GK	51	75	24
6	Andreaș Brînzea	Chindia Târgoviște	GK	48	72	24
7	Luke Harris	Fulham	CAM	61	84	23
8	Laurin Ulrich	VfB Stuttgart	CM	60	83	23
9	Christian Riquelme	Everton de Viña del Mar	LB	60	83	23
10	Fabio Chiarodia	Werder Bremen	CB	60	83	23
11	Alfie Devine	Tottenham Hotspur	CAM	60	83	23
12	Ashley Phillips	Blackburn Rovers	CB	59	82	23
13	Guillaume Restes	Toulouse FC	GK	58	81	23
14	Ben Chrisene	Aston Villa	LB	58	81	23
15	Darko Gyabi	Leeds United	CM	57	80	23
16	Serge Ngmoa	New York Red Bulls	RW	56	79	23
17	Oliwier Sławiński	Zagłębie Lubin	ST	54	77	23
18	Eirik Bilkstad	Strømsgodset Toppfotball	CB	54	77	23

If you’re just getting started in FIFA 23, check out our Ultimate Team best starter teams page. You can improve your team by trading and spending FUT Coins - some of which can be earned by completing Milestone Objectives. It’s also a good idea to learn how Squad Battles and Champions work in FIFA 23. We also have an OTW tracker and RTTK tracker. Chemistry has been completely changed in FIFA 23 too and don’t forget about the wide variety of Skill Moves, and make sure to claim your Ted Lasso and AFC Richmond rewards in FUT while you can! Finally, if you need help building the perfect team, we have pages on the best players overall, best Premier League players and fastest players. Along with FIFA 23’s best lengthy players, wonderkids, best strikers, best wingers, best midfielders and best defenders.

Other things to know about the best young players and FIFA 23 wonderkids

As well as the above, there are a couple of points worth bearing in mind when hunting down your next world class talent:

Age is an important factor here. Whilst younger, lower-Overall players 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.

Year after year, Mbappé is the best young player with the highest potential - but there are other players with more room for growth out there...

For those longer playthroughs, we recommend players with a starting Overall ranking as low as possible to keep the cost down - which is where the hidden gems table above comes in handy.
As always, be flexible with your positions. That's a good tip for FIFA in general, but don't forget that players often 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 you more likely to get a good price from the likes of Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa, or would it be best to try and get Gavin Beavers from Real Salt Lake?