Football Manager scouts tend to do a good job at scouting players and giving their honest opinions on stats. However, on rare occasions, there have been players whose stats or potential have been far higher than their realistic ability, or they have just played far better in the game than in real life.
Here are our top picks of players who consistently outperformed their stats or actual ability:
Callum Wilson
For a few FM additions, Callum Wilson was the bane of my Everton team, whether during his Bournemouth career or while at Newcastle. No matter how my team defended, Wilson consistently scored against us. He was also at the top of the Premier League goalscoring charts and even in contention for the European Golden Boot.
To give the forward his fair due, he did go through a purple patch in the Premier League. His highest-scoring campaign in the English top flight was in 2022/23 when he scored 18 goals. Injuries have hampered him in recent seasons, but he was never a striker who would challenge for the European Golden Boot.
Lorenzo Lucca
The Italian forward was a wonderkid in a few additions of the game. However, the one I most remember him in was FM23. He started the game as a 21-year-old at Pisa. If you signed him after a few seasons, he would be a goalscoring machine, topping scoring charts and challenging for the big awards.
In reality, Lucca has not yet lived up to his potential and has shown nowhere near his FM form. A loan move to Dutch giants Ajax 2022 with the option of a permanent deal didn’t quite work out. He then returned to his homeland with another temporary move to join Udinese in the summer of 2023. He then joined the Bianconeri on a permanent basis in the summer of 2024.
His best performance goals-wise in a top division was in season 2023/24 when he scored eight goals. However, this season, the now-24-year-old looks set to be his highest-scoring campaign in a top flight, as he has scored seven goals in Serie A. Maybe he is starting to live up to his performances of FM23 in his real-life career, which can only be good for him.
Sebastiano Esposito
For a few editions of Football Manager, Sebastiano Esposito was a wonderkid forward at Italian giants, Inter. He was the sort of player that you could sign early, and he would become a world-class player by the time he was barely out of his teens.
Esposito would go on to win the Premier League Golden Boot, the Ballon d’Or, and the European Golden Boot if you kept him until his late 20s. He was just a must-sign player.
In real life, since 2020, Esposito has had a string of loan moves to SPAL, Venezia, Basel, Anderlecht, Bari, and Sampdoria. He hasn’t really caught fire for any of his temporary clubs. His highest-scoring season came when he scored six times for Basel, Sampdoria and Empoli.
This season with Empoli looks a lot more promising for the forward, as it’s the first time he has played in the Italian top flight. The 22-year-old is only one goal from beating his personal best goal-scoring record.
He is still young, so the forward has time to become a goalscoring machine. However, he may never reach the same heights as Football Manager predicted.
Jann-Fiete Arp
In FM20 (I believe, but I am not too sure, though!) Jann-Fiete Arp was a must-sign player. At the time, he was a youngster at Bavarian giants Bayern Munich. He was highly thought of at Bayern, having been prolific for the club’s youth teams.
I used to sign him initially on loan, and then, if I remember correctly, after he impressed by scoring goals during his temporary spell, I would sign him permanently for a fee of around £25m.
He would consistently get double figures of goals for my team, season after season, for close to a decade. Like many of the others on our list, he would go on to be one of the best forwards in the world, winning every award available in the game.
Things haven’t quite worked out as expected for Arp in his real-life career. He failed to make a Bundesliga appearance for the men from Munich. However, he was a regular for Bayern Munich ll, making 43 appearances and scoring eight goals.
In the summer of 2021, Arp joined second-tier Holsten Kiel on loan. The following summer, he joined the club permanently as a free agent, signing a two-year deal after his Bayern contract had expired.
Arp’s five goals in 17 second-tier games help his club win promotion to the German top flight for season 2024/25. He wasn’t exactly prolific in his first ten Bundesliga appearances, as the 24-year-old scored just once in his first ten outings in the German top flight. Like Lucca and Esposito, there is still time for Arp to have a fantastic career. However, there are few signs that he could ever become a goalscoring machine.
