Every great soccer team, not only in Football Manager 2023 but also in real life, starts with a good goalkeeper.
A good goalkeeper helps to keep the team safe and to fix mistakes made by the center-backs and full-backs. If you’re playing FM23, you’ll definitely want to invest a good chunk of your club’s cash to assure you have someone capable of stopping goals and keeping a clean sheet that will help steer your squad to victories.
When you go look for a goalkeeper in FM23, don’t look only at the 13 Goalkeeping stats. You must also check if the player you’re hiring has great Mental attributes, on top of good Physicals. The perfect goalkeeper has a good balance of these three areas.
To save you some time from searching for the best goalkeepers available in the game, we have put up a list of the best. This way, you can focus on playing matches and training your squad rather than looking for players.
Best goalkeepers in Football Manager 2023
Ederson
The Brazilian goalkeeper of Manchester City is simply one of the best available in FM23. He’s expensive, but when you take a glance at his stats, you realize why. Ederson is a well-rounded keeper who dominates all the most important aspects of his role. If you have the money to afford him, sign him and let him conduce your defensive squad.
Alisson
This other Brazilian goalkeeper isn’t worse than Ederson by any means. Alisson also has all the right attributes in FM23 to thrive. If you don’t buy him, you’ll see him ruining your day whenever you go against Liverpool, that’s for sure.
Gianluigi Donnarumma
We present you to Donnarumma, the Italian goalkeeper who made Paris Saint-Germain spend top dollar in 2021. He seems just a small step behind Alisson and Ederson, but the advantage of signing Donnarumma in FM23 is that he’s younger than the Brazilian pair, meaning you’ll have one of the best goalkeepers in the game for at least 10 or more seasons.
Thibaut Courtois
Courtois, the Belgian goalkeeper of the almighty Real Madrid, is the best goalkeeper on this list in some regards, like Aerial Reach and Reflexes, making him one hell of a player for you to sign in FM23 and stop allowing goals.
Manuel Neuer
For many passionate soccer fans, Neuer is the best goalkeeper of the past 20 years. He helped redefine the goalkeeper role with his great passing technique and that’s well reflected in FM23. If you coach Bayern Munich or somehow manage to get him off of the German club, you’ll have a goalkeeper who excels in goal-stopping and ball distribution. The only downside of Neuer is that he’s already 36 years old and doesn’t have much time left in his playing career.
Jan Oblak
The Slovenian wall, Oblak is one of the reasons Atlético de Madrid has managed to become one of the best soccer teams in the world during the past decade. He’s an incredibly solid goalkeeper in FM23 as well and actually cheaper than anyone else on this list, at least when you start your save game.
Marc-André ter Stegen
The true Neuer successor, Ter Stegen has been spending time all these years preparing to take the mantle from Neuer and will certainly become one of Bayern Munich’s targets once the veteran goalkeeper retires. Ter Stegen is a superb option for your club in FM23, especially because you might be able to snatch him from Barcelona easier than you may think due to the current state of Barça’s finances.
