5 Players who give it their all on the pitch
It’s easy to spot an up-and-coming star who occasionally displays a flash of skill or scores a screamer, but such natural talent is seldom met with an equally admirable work ethic. Sensational strikes and swashbuckling dribbles may be easy on the eye, but it’s the individuals that fight for every ball, dig deep and don’t stop running who, form the clockwork of a good side.
Every footballer has to attain a certain level of fitness and contribute to the team but few come close to matching the effort these boys put in on the pitch…
Koke - Atletico Madrid
An industrious player that merely masters the basics, Koke is a variation on the archetypical Spanish midfielder. The 24-year-old prefers to pull strings outside of the box, with his average pass length a rather large 16m last campaign. He also won 45% of duels and created more than 75 chances in the 2015/16 season for Atletico.
He fits the ‘box-to-box’ category perfectly, contributing at both ends of the pitch. The Spaniard is versatile and able to play anywhere in the middle from in an anchoring midfielder role to a dynamic number ten. He epitomises Diego Simeone’s philosophy of sacrificing the chance of showing individual brilliance in order to support the defence and suffocate opposition attacks in a deep, narrow set-up.