Forbes Magazine has selected ten professional players from the region for its list of the best Arab football players of 2017.
For their choices, the magazine focused on the total minutes played by players with their clubs this season, the awards they and their club received, their clubs’ position in the latest FIFA rankings, the number of matches they played with their national teams in FIFA competitions, as well as their age. Thus, younger players scored higher points.
According to Forbes, international playerEgyptian Mohamed Salah, who’s also a Liverpool player as well, was the first in the list of Arab players, scoring five goals infor his country in the finals match for qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, afterending Egypthis country’san 28-year absence from the World Cupof 28 yearscompetition.
The magazine praised Salah’s capabilities, explaining that he is one of the most outstanding Arab players abroad, particularly after the distinguished performance and impressive skill that he showed with Liverpool during the English Premier League.
The surprise was that Mohamed Elneny, the Egyptian team and Arsenal player, ranked fourth, while the Algerian Yacine Brahimi, FC Porto player, ranked second, and Algerian Faouzi Ghoulam, the S.S.C Napoli player, took third place. Algerian players dominated, with five players in the list of top ten Arab players.
The ranking of the Arab players on the list, according to the magazine’s order, is as follows:
1. Egyptian Mohamed Salah, Liverpool F.C. player.
2. Algerian Yacine Barahimi, FC Porto player.
3. Algerian Faouzi Ghoulam, S.S.C Napoli player.
4. Egyptian Mohamed Elneny, Arsenal F.C. player.
5. Moroccan Hakim Ziyech, AFC Ajax player.
6. Algerian Sofiane Hanni, R.S.C. Anderlecht player.
7. Algerian Riyad Mahrez, Leicester City F.C. player.
8. Algerian El Arabi Hillel Soudani, GNK Dinamo Zagreb player.
9. Moroccan Medhi Benatia, Juventus F.C. player.
10. Algerian Nabil Bentaleb, FC Schalke 04 player.
