Who is Ayyoub Bouaddi? The lowdown on FM26’s #1 wonderkid linked with Arsenal and Man Utd | OneFootball

Football Manager 26 is finally set to be released in the coming days, but the Beta is out now and the full database of players is available for your viewing pleasure.

Barcelona superstar Lamine Yamal, Brazil international Endrick and Chelsea winger Willian Estevao are well-established as three of the most promising youngsters in world football – but the latest edition of Football Manager rates a relatively lesser-known starlet at Lille just as highly.

FM Scout have given France Under-21 international midfielder Ayyoub Bouaddi a potential rating of 92, marking him as a potentially all-time elite player and the joint-highest rated wonderkid on Football Manager 26.

We’ve put together the full lowdown on Lille’s rising star.

The story so far

Bouaddi only turned 18 earlier this month but he’s relatively established as far as teenagers go.

Akin to Lamine Yamal, Max Dowman and Warren Zaire-Emery, Bouaddi is prodigiously talented and entrusted enough to be thrown straight into senior men’s first-team football at an outrageously young age.

In the summer of 2024, he signed his first professional contract with Lille when he was 15 years old. Just three days after his 16th birthday he became the youngest player to ever feature in a UEFA competition – a Conference League draw with Faroese outfit KI.

Later that month he became Ligue 1’s youngest player in almost half a century and continued to be bed in slowly as a fringe player in Paulo Fonseca’s senior set-up.

But it was last season in which he really caught the eye, given the responsibility of starting Champions League outings, named Man of the Match in a 1-1 draw with Juventus.

Bouaddi also produced a remarkably composed midfield display when Lille beat the reigning champions Real Madrid 1-0 – quite the way to celebrate his 17th birthday.

Given his sturdy midfield role, he isn’t as flashy or eye-catching as the likes of Yamal and Estevao, who routinely produce magic in the final third. But Football Manager obsessives, amateur scouts and regular readers of outlets like Scouted will have long noted his frightening potential.

Arsenal and Manchester United are among the clubs linked with his signature, but scouts from every elite club in Europe will surely be keeping tabs on his progress. It’s surely a matter of time before he outgrows the French football bubble and starts making waves in the mainstream.

He’s contracted until 2027, so you imagine that next summer might be the time for Lille to cash in – their long-established model, underlined by big-money, profit-generating sales like Nicolas Pepe, Victor Osimhen, Leny Yoro and Rafael Leao.

Play style

If you want a purely algorithmic idea (via FBref) of what Bouaddi brings to the pitch, Brentford rising star Yehor Yarmoliuk, Tottenham’s Lucas Bergvall and Burnley’s key summer signing Lesley Ugochukwu are among the players who most closely resemble – statistically speaking – the Lille midfielder over the past 365 days.

He’s industrious, ranking highly for tackles and blocks when compared to his positional peers, while he’s in the top 6% for successful take-ons – he’s not an especially prolific dribbler, but he’s adept at beating his man when required.

Bouaddi isn’t your kind of metronomic pass master honed in La Masia. He’s nothing like Pedri, for example, ranking in the bottom 10% for progressive passes and the bottom 22% for passes attempted. He’s not the kind of player likely to make a direct impact in the final third, with zero goals and just three assists (from 67 games) from his senior club career to date.

But his strengths lie elsewhere. As a modern six/eight hybrid, he’s remarkably press-resistant – very composed in possession and able to keep the ball in tight spaces. He possesses positional awareness and reading of the game out of possession way beyond his years, albeit without boasting monstrous physical ‘enforcer’-style output, and is excellent at contributing to build-up.

Football Manager 26

If you’re taking on the challenge of a modest-sized club on Football Manager 26, you can probably forget about signing Bouaddi.

The game reflects his potential and status within the sport in real life – he’s going right to the very top, and it’ll cost you handsomely to land his signature.

But given his potential, he could well be worth investing as a key pillar of your future world-beating glamour club.

With his age and lack of physical maturity, you’d probably want to partner him with a more imposing, aerially dominant midfielder in the short term.

You’d probably also want a proper playmaker to provide more creativity, but get those cogs working in tandem and Bouaddi can complete the puzzle of a wonderfully well-balanced midfield trio in a 4-3-3, or – as is currently the case with his role at Lille – one half of a serious double pivot.