Born Francisco Alcacer Garcia, but better known to millions of football fans as Paco, Alcacer is one of Europe’s premier strikers. In the prime of his career, he has played for some of the world’s most successful teams, including Barcelona, Valencia, and Borussia Dortmund. He currently finds the net for Villareal, one of the top 25 teams in Europe. He has made over 300 appearances for club and country, scoring nearly 150 goals.

Alcacer was born in Torrent, a city in Valencia, in 1993. It was with Valencia that he trained as a schoolboy, graduating to become part of their reserve team, who play in the Spanish league’s third tier. He made his debut for them, aged just 16, in 2009. The team were relegated, but the following season, Alcacer’s 27 goals helped them to win the league and secure automatic promotion. The same season also saw him make his senior debut. After a loan spell with La Liga rivals Getafe, Alcacer began to firmly establish himself as part of the Valencia first team — their Europa League campaign of 2013/14 saw him become the joint-highest scorer of that season’s tournament.

In 2016, Barcelona bought Alcacer for €30 million and he became their fourth-choice striker. That may not sound much, but the other three were Lionel Messi, Neymar, and Luis Suarez, three of the world’s greatest. Alcacer acquitted himself well in such intimidating company, making 37 appearances for one of the world’s biggest clubs, before moving to German team Borussia Dortmund, where he was the Bundesliga’s second-highest goalscorer of the 2018/19 season. He returned to Spain in 2020 becoming Villareal’s record signing and scoring on his debut.