The hard player: Yossi Benayoun
Yossi Benayoun, born on May 5, 1980 in Dimona, Israel, is of Moroccan Jewish origin and belongs to a rare breed: Israeli players who genuinely made their mark in the Premier League. An active midfielder from 1997 to 2019, he began his career at Maccabi Haifa (154 appearances, 60 goals) before charging across Europe at pace. First West Ham, then Liverpool – where he played 134 matches and scored 29 goals – Benayoun moved through English football with an ease that earned him lasting respect on both sides of the Atlantic.
He also spent time at Racing Santander in Spain (104 appearances, 20 goals) before returning to Maccabi Haifa for a second stint (61 matches, 13 goals). Above all, Yossi Benayoun stands as the all-time record holder for international caps with the Israeli national team – a player who had already signalled his quality from a very young age, scoring 12 goals in 8 games for the under-18 side.
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PlayThe medium player: Claudio Marchisio
Claudio Marchisio, born on January 19, 1986 in Turin, never had to go looking for a club – he already had one, and had done since 1993. Developed in the Juventus academy from his earliest years, he turned professional there in 2006 and would not leave until 2018, racking up 389 appearances and 37 goals in the bianconero shirt, eventually wearing the vice-captain’s armband. A loan spell at Empoli (29 matches) gave him the grounding he needed before he truly established himself in Turin.
At the end of his Juventus chapter, he joined Zenit Saint Petersburg, making 15 appearances and scoring 2 goals. A regular with the Italian national team, he embodied for the best part of a decade the ideal of an elegant yet combative midfielder, loyal to the city and the club that built him from scratch.
The easy player: Hugo Sánchez
Hugo Sánchez Márquez, born on July 11, 1958 in Mexico City, is far more than a striker: he is the very symbol of Mexican football. Small but athletic, this penalty-box predator made a habit of celebrating every goal with a somersault – his unmistakable trademark. At Real Madrid, he scored 208 goals in 282 matches, ultimately finishing with 234 Liga goals and ranking as the fifth highest scorer in the history of the Spanish championship. He won the Pichichi trophy five times, four of them consecutively, a feat that remains in the record books.
On the international stage, Hugo Sánchez wore the Mexican shirt for seventeen years, notching 29 goals in 58 matches and appearing at the 1978, 1986 and 1994 World Cups. After hanging up his boots, he turned to coaching, winning two Mexican championships before taking charge of the national team for sixteen months. In 1999, the IFFHS ranked him the best footballer of the CONCACAF zone in the 20th century.