He arrived unheralded and unknown in one of the best football teams in Europe from the biggest team in Mexico, where he rose from obscurity to become one of the biggest stars in the league and the national team having scored 21 goals in 28 matches.

After a summer where he scored against fancied teams such as France, Argentina or Spain, everybody (including himself) were very sceptical about his impact with his new club.  They shouldn’t have bothered.  His hunger and instinct in front of goal have been impressive, and he’s got a catalogue of impressive, resourceful and plain weird goals to his name: with his face, his hip, the back of his head, his heels, between two defenders, running into space, Panenka-style penalties, etc.

The bit that really impresses me about him is his attitude towards life.  You see him playing every game with his heart out both for club and country, he’s always courteous with the fans and seems to have a pretty solid family life.  Youth needs more examples like that.