The best teams to manage in Football Manager 2023

With Football Manager 2023 right around the corner, fans are beginning to get excited. But who will be the best teams to manage in FM23?

Many fallen giants have begun their rise back to the top, while others fell in the 2021/2022 footballing season. In 2022/2023, we have already seen many of the wonderkids fans loved to sign in FM22 move to new teams for the coming season.

With a new crop of wonderkids bound to appear for fans to sign in Football Manager 2023, we’ll need a new crop of teams to sign them as. Here are the best teams to manage in Football Manager 2023:

Nottingham Forest

Nottingham Forest is the first team on our list of the best teams to manage in Football Manager 2023. Forest had an extremely successful 21/22 season, earning promotion back to the Premier League for the first time since being relegated in 98/99. In doing so by winning the Play-Off Final, Forest found themselves with a host of loan stars and aging players not fit for England’s top flight. To combat this, they have had to sign a hoard of new players.

Those new players, 22 of them in fact, haven’t yet gelled together well in the early days of their Premier League return. Languishing in 19th place with just one win, Forest has a huge task ahead of them to ensure survival. That will be your task, and from there, you must strive for the same glory Forest became accustomed to in the 1980s.

In Brennan Johnson, Forest has a home-grown star already fit for life in the Premier League. Add in the likes of Omar Richards and Neco Williams on either flank, and the list of home-grown future stars continues to grow. That’s without mentioning Jesse Lingard, Taiwo Awoniyi, and Remo Freuler, all of whom will be key if you are to survive.

Union Berlin

German football has long been dominated by a team from Bavaria, Bayern Munich. The only real challenger to that dominance has been Borussia Dortmund, although RB Leipzig has given it a good go, much to German fans’ dismay.

After seven games of the 22/23 season, however, a new team has emerged as a frontrunner: Union Berlin. Despite losing their star Awoniyi to the aforementioned Nottingham Forest, Union Berlin still look to build towards giving Germany’s capital city something to shout about. That is the reason why we’re saying Union Berlin will be one of the best teams to manage in Football Manager 2023.

Their budgets aren’t huge to start off with, but Bundesliga prize money should help after a few successful seasons. So too should the Europa League place they earned as part of a stellar 21/22 campaign. Toppling Bayern will be a challenge, but this is just the team to do it with.

FC Girondins Bordeaux

FC Girondins Bordeaux is one of the most successful teams in French football history. Even if they hadn’t suffered their recent financial woes, that fact alone would make them one of the best teams to manage in France in Football Manager 2023 to try to overcome the giants of PSG. The fact they have suffered financial woes, however, makes them even better.

With debt piled high enough to force the French club into administration, Bordeaux found itself on the verge of total collapse. Coupled with poor Ligue 1 performances, the club found itself relegated to Ligue 2 for the first time since the 1990/1991 season.

The task is simple: balance the books and get Bordeaux back to Ligue 1 where they belong. After that, European places call for a side of Bordeaux’s stature. You will have an even harder struggle than with Union Berlin in the Bundesliga to climb to Ligue 1’s summit, but that will only serve to make it all the more rewarding.

Juventus

Juventus have been a bit of a laughing stock in Football Manager for the past couple of years due to their name having to be changed to Zebre for licensing reasons. Thanks to new features and licenses in Football Manager 2023, that will no longer be an issue.

After holding such dominance over Italy in the past decade, many might call Juventus a boring team to manage in Football Manager. We would argue, however, that in Football Manager 2023, they have become one of the best teams to manage.

With an aging squad, and the loss of their brightest young spark in Mathijs de Ligt, Juventus look far weaker than they have for a long time. It is that weakness that has allowed them to concede two Scudettos in a row, one to Inter Milan, and one to their rivals, AC Milan.

As manager of Juventus, it will be your job to return the club back to the top of the table. As well as that, you will be tasked with delivering glory that no other could manage in their decade of dominance: the UEFA Champions League.