If you’re a football fan under the age of 35, chances are you grew up playing Football Manager (FM) - or Championship Manager (CM) as it used to be known.

There have been many examples of players who are known primarily because of the video game. The likes of Tonton Zola Moukoko, Cherno Samba and Freddy Adu were incredible on various versions of the game but amounted to little in real life.

On the flip side, there were players who rose to prominence thanks to the game and then become superstars for real. Carlos Tevez, Sergio Ramos, Javier Mascherano and a handful of other high-profile names first came to our attention on FM/CM.

But which young players were touted as the stars of tomorrow on Football Manager 2008? Let’s take a closer look at the 10 then-teenagers who were rated as the best in the game...

10 Micah Richards

Many people thought Micah Richards would be Manchester City and England’s first-choice right-back for years to come back in 2008.

Stuart Pearce even said of the defender, months before Football Manager 2008 was released, that he “would love to see Micah stay, captain the club, maybe be here for 10 years and carry the club on his back if he can”.

However, Richards failed to fulfil his immense potential and, following a brief loan spell with Fiorentina during the 2014-15 campaign, returned to England with Aston Villa.

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He was unable to prevent Villa sliding down to the Championship at the end of his first season with the club and ended up retiring in July 2019, aged just 31, after the latter years of his career were blighted by injury problems.

Since then, though, Richards has cemented his status as one of football's most popular pundits. Starring for various broadcasters including BBC, Sky Sports, and CBS Sports, Richards has been a true breath of fresh air to the industry.

9 Marcelo

This is more like it, Football Manager. Marcelo had only just joined Real Madrid when FM 2008 hit the shelves, but they were certain that the Brazilian left-back had the potential to become a superstar.

A decade-and-a-half later on and it’s safe to say they were spot on. Has there been a better left-back in world football over the past 15 years?

The 35-year-old, who represented his country on 58 occasions, spent one season with Greek outfit Olympiacos after ending his 15-year association with Los Blancos in 2022. He then returned to his first club, Fluminense, in 2023.

By the way, keep an eye out for his teenage son, Enzo Alves Vieira, who is currently in Real Madrid's youth ranks and looks a real talent. The 13-year-old recently decided to represent Spain, rather than Brazil, at international level.

8 Marek Hamsik

The creators of FM probably didn’t expect that Marek Hamsik would still be a Napoli player right up until 2019, but the Slovakia international ended up making over 500 appearances for the Italian outfit.

The gifted midfielder enjoyed a fine career with the Serie A side, scoring 121 goals in 520 matches, and will always be remembered fondly by fans at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona. Perhaps he would have achieved more had he joined a bigger club when he had the opportunity to do so. We'll never know for sure.

The 36-year-old announced his retirement in the summer of 2023 following spells with Chinese side Dalian Professional, IFK Goteborg in Sweden, and Turkish club Trabzonspor.

“Wonderful 19 years of professional career,” Hamsik wrote on Facebook after calling time on his career. “More than seven hundred competitive matches in clubs, almost 140 duels for the Slovakia national team. Many – many goals scored. Soccer was my love, my passion and my job to which I gave everything.”

7 Zdravko Kuzmanović

Not a name that the wider football public are familiar with, Zdravko Kuzmanović has still enjoyed a half-decent career. On Fiorentina’s books when FM 2008 came out, the former Serbia international went on to play for Stuttgart and Inter Milan before joining FC Basel in 2015.

The midfielder spent five years with the Swiss outfit - briefly stopping off for loan spells at Udinese and Malaga in 2016 - but hasn't played for another club since 2020. Although he hasn't officially announced his retirement at the time of writing, it's hard to imagine him returning to elite-level football at this stage of his career. Not one of Football Manager’s better shouts, this.

6 Jonathan de Guzman

Another player tipped for big things during his early career, Jonathan de Guzman never quite hit the lofty heights expected of him. That said, the Canada-born midfielder has still represented clubs in several of Europe’s top leagues, including Villarreal in Spain, Swansea City in England, and Napoli in Italy.

The 35-year-old, who was capped 14 times by the Netherlands between 2013-2015, also played for Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga before joining Greek side OFI Crete in 2020.

De Guzman has been plying his trade with Sparta Rotterdam in the Dutch Eredivisie since 2022. Although it'd be harsh to say he failed to fulfil his promise, it's probably fair to assume that gamers who signed him on FM 2008 would have expected more.

5 Ismail Aissati

Football Manager weren't alone in thinking Ismail Aissati was a potential future world beater. In 2007, prestigious football magazine World Soccer named the Moroccan attacking midfielder second on their top 50 list of the world’s most exciting teenager footballers.

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Sadly, though, the 35-year-old failed to live up to the promise he showed as a youngster. A former Netherlands Under-21 starlet, Aissati only managed to earn two caps at senior international level - both with Morocco.

He's spent the vast majority of his career playing in Turkey with the likes of Antalyaspor, Denizlispor, and Adana Demirspor, but did briefly play in Russia with Terek Grozny between 2013-2016.

4 Anderson

Anderson looked exceptional when he burst onto the scene with Gremio and then FC Porto in the mid-2000s. He then sealed a move to Manchester United in 2007, where he spent eight years which were blighted by various injury problems.

The Brazilian made just 181 appearances for the Red Devils during that time but left Old Trafford with a host of silverware, including four Premier League titles and one UEFA Champions League winners’ medal.

Sadly, Anderson's career spiralled after departing United. He returned to Brazil in 2015, following an unsuccessful loan spell with Italian side Fiorentina, but was unable to prevent Internacional being relegated from the top-flight for the first time in their 107-year history,

He then moved to Turkey in 2018, joining Adana Demirspor, before retiring one year later aged just 31.

Anderson's former United teammate Rafael wrote in his 2021 autobiography: "I will say something about Anderson – if he had been a professional football player, he could have been the best in the world. I'm saying this with all seriousness. I don't know if he ever took anything seriously. He just loved life in such an easy and casual way.

“In some ways that was a quality. It was what made him so popular and one of the most popular players at the club. But he would just eat whatever was put in front of him.”

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3 Sergio Aguero

FM 2008 got this one spot on - although there was little doubt at this point that Sergio Aguero was going to be top class.

The Argentine forward netted 27 goals for Atletico Madrid during the 2007-08 season, at the age of just 19, and was soon courting the attention of Europe’s big guns. He stayed loyal to Atleti, though, until Manchester City lured him to England in 2011.

Aguero, who netted arguably the most famous goal in Premier League history to win Man City their first league title in 2012, scored a total of 260 goals in 390 games for the Citizens before moving to Barcelona in 2021.

He also bagged 41 goals in 101 games for Argentina - making him the South American nation's third-highest goalscorer of all time, behind only Lionel Messi and Gabriel Batistuta.

Just a few months into his spell with Barça, though, and Aguero was sadly forced to hang up his boots, aged 33, when a heart condition was unexpectedly detected. He now lives in Miami, close to his old friend Messi, and is a popular streamer on Twitch.

2 Alexandre Pato

Alexandre Pato looked like a phenomenon when FM 2008 was released, so it’s no surprise the game’s developers rated him so highly. Sadly, though, the 28-year-old is another player whose career has disappointed.

It looked like it might happen for him when he first joined AC Milan but just six years after joining the Italian giants he found himself back in Brazil with Corinthians. Pato has since played for a host of clubs around the world including Chelsea, Villarreal, Tianjin Tianhai in China, and Orlando City.

Now in his mid-30s, Pato has just started his third spell at Sao Paulo. In 2022, in a fascinating piece for The Players' Tribune, the striker wrote: "Maybe I didn’t become the best player in the world. But, brother, let me tell you something. I have an amazing relationship with my family. I am at peace with myself. I have a wife that I love. The way I see it, I have a lot of Ballon d’Ors. If life is a game, I have won."

1 Karim Benzema

Yep, the best teenager on 2008’s version of Football Manager was Karim Benzema. You have to hand it to those who worked on the game because that was a brilliant shout.

At Lyon at the time, it soon became clear that Benzema had the potential to become one of the world's leading centre-forwards. Signed by Real Madrid in 2009, the Frenchman often spent the next nine years playing second-fiddle to Cristiano Ronaldo. Because he's a proper team player, he was always more than happy to do so.

But when Ronaldo left the Bernabeu for Juventus in 2018, the Bernabeu faithful saw the very best of Benzema, who ended up winning the Ballon d'Or in 2022. After scoring 354 goals in 648 games for the Spanish giants, Benzema decided to join Saudi Arabian outfit Al-Ittihad in the summer of 2023.

Regardless of what happens between now and the day he retires, Benzema will always be remembered as one of the greatest strikers - if not players - of his generation.