Ever seen the opponent's striker swing through your slow, sloppy defenders?. Not if you've had those guys! The best defenders in Football Manager 2008

Name: ergey Ignaschevic
Club: CSKA Moscow
Position: DRC
Age:27
Nationality: Russian
Value: 0

Pretty good attributes for a free player!

Name: Aurelien Teaudors
Club: Sochaux
Position: DC
Age:18
Nationality: French
Value: around 300k at the start, gets up pretty quickly

Screenshot here is from his 3rd year, showing a huge improvement over his original stats.

Name: Arthur Sorin
Club:Kalmar FF
Age:22
Position:DC
Nationality:French
Value: 20k EUR

At 20k, you can't hope for more.

Name: Oded Gavish
Club:Turun Palloseura
Age:17
Position:DC,SW
Nationality:Israel
Value: 2 k EUR
PA:-9, CA:70

Due to the huge difference between CA and PA, Gavish, with shit stats at the beginning, can improve, given the correct training conditions, beyond imagination. Screenshot is from fm scout, from fmgreece.gr. Second screenshot shows potential attributes.