Position: Midfielder
Born: 28.09.86
Club: Atlas

Andres Guardado's meteoric rise to the top has caused widespread excitement in Mexico.

This young prodigy only made his senior debut last year for Mexican giants Atlas, a club known for their outstanding youth system, but he has gone onto become an integral member of the side.

It only took three months of tireless performances to alert the attention of Ricardo Lavolpe who promptly picked the youngster for Mexico's comfortable victory over Hungary in December 2005.

Since then he has featured in all his country's friendly internationals and no one was surprised to see him called into the World Cup squad.

As a flying winger, Guardado has searing pace to cause even the world's best full-backs all kinds of problems but it's also his acute intelligence on the ball which will provide a key weapon for the Tricolors this summer.