Javier Hernández

Javier Hernández made a career out of arriving half a second before the defender understood the danger. His game was never built on hold up play, long carries or creative involvement between lines; it was built on blind side movement, first contact finishing and a rare instinct for attacking the space between centre back and goalkeeper. At Manchester United, especially under Sir Alex Ferguson, he became a devastating rotational striker because the system did not ask him to be everything. It asked him to press, separate, anticipate rebounds and convert fast deliveries, and in that narrower but crucial job he was elite. His finishing was often unorthodox, sometimes scruffy, but technically more complex than it looked: headers from difficult body angles, toe pokes, near post darts, improvised redirections. With Mexico, his scoring record confirms both longevity and mental sharpness, even if his overall game could feel limited when teams needed a forward to link play or dominate physically. Chicharito was not a complete number 9. He was a specialist of timing, optimism and penalty area electricity.