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Mohammad Salah in action. Image Credit: Reuters

Hussein Hegazi

The first African let alone Arab player to have plied his trade in England with spells at Dulwich Hamlet and Fulham in the early 1900s, the striker returned to Egypt and became his country’s first national team manager.

Riyad Mahrez

Became the first Arab player to win the PFA’s Players’ Player of the Year in 2015/16 after the Algerian midfielder led his lowly Leicester City side to their shock first ever Premier League title.


Mustapha Hadji

One of the first and biggest Arab names to break through in the Premier League, this Moroccan got fans all donning the Fez during his time at Coventry City and Aston Villa in the mid-1990s.


Ali Al Habsi

The first and only GCC Arab to break through and stay in the Premier League, this Omani shot-stopper was integral to Wigan Athletic’s survival for several seasons earlier this decade but once dropped they went down.


Mido

Impressed after an initial loan spell with Tottenham in the mid noughties and signed permanently before spells with Middlesbrough, Wigan and West Ham. His star may have faded fast, but he showed this generation the way.