The fall of a wonderkid - Souleymane Coulibaly

I'm currently compiling a little look at how various Wonderkids progress in FM2013 and it's interesting to see how the AI can let certain players fall by the wayside.

Souleymane Coulibaly has a potential ability of -9 which makes him have equally the highest potential of any other young player on the game. Admittedly players with a minus potential are randomised so he may infact only have a PA of 160, however he could also have a PA of 200. This should make him at least suitable as Premiership player, even if he doesn't set the world alight. Yet as you can see from my little experiment, he wound up playing less than 100 games in a disastrous career which finally ended in 2025 at the tender age of 30.

What could have been Souleymane, what could have been.....

Looking forward to seeing how the list turns out, wish there was some story behind it. Maybe he found drink or drugs? Or Fantastic

-9 is 150-180 iirc. -10 is 170-200.

Still though, he's had a shite career on your game. The AI were largely shit at developing young players on FM12, disappointed to see not much has changed (unless this is an anomaly).

There is no -10 in the new game so it's definitely changed. -9 is the highest (well lowest...) it goes.

Didn't know that, was just basing it on FM12.

Did he have any bad injuries?

No -10 or no players set as -10? Like last year there was only 1 -10 rated player.

Anyone remember Savio Nsereko who used to play for West Ham? Just came across him on FM, his career has turned out even worse than this.

via wikipedia:

Tottenham signed him, but never played him. Genius.

Apparently this is another bug where players with very good potential don't get played and just go downhill bigtime... A few big names, Bale was one of them. Saw a thread on SI community.

Forgive my ignorant question…

What is the difference between a player with a potential of say 180 and one with -9 or the equivalent value with a '-' prefix?