Top 5 ESSENTIAL Tips To Develop Your FM26 Wonderkids | Football Manager 2026 Tips

Storyline / Context

• The video is framed around a Liverpool rebuild save (from the creator’s channel).
• The focus is on how to turn youth “wonderkids” into full superstars by maximizing their development in Football Manager 2026 (FM26 / FM26).

Gameplay Highlights & Key Storyline Beats

• The creator’s goal follows the classic FM satisfaction loop: take players with low early attributes, develop them with the right systems, and watch them improve into elite-level talents.
• They emphasize that youth development isn’t automatic—even with excellent facilities—because progress depends on multiple connected systems, including:
  • club setup
  • training design
  • game time
  • squad planning
  • loan choices
  • mentoring

The “Top 5 Essential Tips” (covered in the subtitles)

1) Build Strong Development Conditions: Facilities + Coaching Staff

• Training facilities matter for any active player (youth or first team). Better facilities generally lead to better attribute development outcomes.
• Youth facilities / academy coaching / youth recruitment matter for the intake pipeline (newgens arriving behind the scenes).
• Coaching quality drives development more than many players think:
  • Each coach (fitness, set pieces, assistants, etc.) has strengths that affect player development.
  • Youth coaches for U18s and U21s also directly impact development.
• To improve facilities:
  • Use club vision / board requests to upgrade facilities if the board accepts.

Key tip: Facilities and coaching are necessary foundations, but they don’t guarantee maximum growth—other steps are still required.

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2) Use Age-Appropriate Development Plans (and train the right role early)

Ages 15–17: focus on physical growth

• For younger players, physical attributes develop faster than mental ones.
• As players get older (especially 19+), physical development becomes slower/less likely.
• Therefore, between 15–17, emphasize physical improvements using individual training focus:
  • Acceleration / quickness
  • Strength
  • Endurance
  • Agility
  • Balance
• Training should match the role you want them to become:
  • Set a positional/role training target (natural position vs converting roles like advanced playmaker).
  • Train in in-possession roles, and also use FM26’s out-of-possession training choices.
• Training intensity:
  • The creator prefers normal intensity to reduce injury risk.
  • Double intensity increases workload but raises injury chances.

Traits and attribute efficiency notes

• Players learn traits more easily when young.
• Traits cost attribute points, so don’t overload them and waste growth potential on what you don’t need.
• Players have a hardcoded potential rating (maximum achievable CA ceiling in your save).

Ages 18+: shift priority toward game time

• Once players hit 18, physical specialization becomes less effective.
• The main driver becomes: get first-team football (or a development-grade alternative like a good loan).

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3) Use Squad Planner to decide who’s ready (and when to loan or move on)

• At 18, the key question is: Are they ready for first-team minutes?
• The creator warns that big clubs (like Liverpool) have too much depth ahead of youth talents, so many won’t breakthrough immediately.

Core planning workflow

• Use Recruitment → Squad Planner to see depth by position.
• Include U18/U21 players so the tool reflects youth competition.
• Identify where a player ranks in the pecking order (example: predicted to be around 9th choice).
• Use the tool’s “next season” view to see expected improvement and future ordering.

Age-based decisions emphasized

• 15–17: develop physically.
• 18: ensure real match time (often via loans).
• 21–22: evaluate whether they’re good enough for your squad.
  • If not, sell early while value is still reasonable.
  • If development stalls due to lack of minutes, value drops later as contract problems worsen.

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4) Loan Players Correctly (don’t just “offer a loan” randomly)

The creator criticizes common behavior:

• Offering loans without ensuring the player will actually play and develop.

Minimum loan requirements (set these)

• Agree playing time
  • Set to Regular Starter
  • Add push squad player if the receiving club otherwise won’t give minutes
  • Otherwise, the loan can fail even if they “accepted” the loan—minutes matter most.
• Enable Recall
  • Especially helpful if the player stops playing (often around January)

How to judge whether a loan is “good”

• Adaptability (hidden attribute) check (from coach report)
  • Better adaptability improves the chance of adapting to a new country/league.
  • If adaptability is poor, prefer loans within the same country.
• Facilities of the receiving club
  • Training facilities affect development quality.
  • Don’t choose a lower club with terrible facilities—choose better training conditions when possible.
• Squad fit and expected role
  • Check whether the club uses the player’s position/role.
  • Confirm they’ll be better than existing options in that spot.
• Request a specific position
  • When needed, specify a role/position in the loan agreement to improve the chances they develop where you want.

Affiliate clubs (bonus improvement)

• If you have an affiliate club, loans can be easier and more effective.
• Affiliate loans can help multiple players develop together under shared style/structure.
• Example concept referenced: Chelsea → club abroad (e.g., a Strasbourg-style model).

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5) Don’t Forget Mentoring (the “missing” development lever in FM26)

• Mentoring is found in Training → Mentoring.
• The creator stresses a key misconception:
  • Staff responsibility training coverage does not automatically handle mentoring.
  • You must set mentoring yourself (or explicitly ask the assistant).

What mentoring changes

• Mentoring helps pass down:
  • personality influence and determination
  • often player traits (depending on mentor/mentee trait fit)

How to choose mentors (core rule)

• Mentor should have higher-quality personality and/or determination than the young player.
• Often a club leader / model professional (the creator references “leaders”).
• Outcome depends on comparison:
  • If mentor determination/personality is higher, the mentee benefits.
  • If mentor is worse, the mentee can decline in determination/personality.

Example mentoring logic shown

• Mentoring groups were set with a small number of mentors (e.g., 3 as referenced).
• Mentored players can show positive learning effect lines, while other directions show “no learning” or weaker effects.

Position does not need to match

• Mentoring does not have to be the same position.
• Position fit mainly matters for trait-transfer relevance.
• A high-quality leader mentoring a different-role player can still improve personality/determination.

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Key Strategies / Takeaways (condensed)

• Prioritize training facilities + coaching staff quality.
• For 15–17, train for the physical profile and the specific role they should grow into.
• For 18+, prioritize minutes (often via loans).
• Use Squad Planner to avoid wasting time: decide breakthrough vs loan vs sale at the right ages.
• When loaning:
  • Set Regular Starter
  • Set Recall
  • Check adaptability, facilities, and squad fit
• Add mentoring deliberately:
  • Don’t rely on staff responsibility
  • Choose mentors with high determination and model-professional traits/personality.

Gamers / Sources Featured (end of subtitles)

• No specific other gamers or named external sources are referenced in the subtitles.
• Real-world football references and club examples are mentioned (e.g., Liverpool/Chelsea, and player examples like Thiago Silva and Virgil van Dijk).