Marquinhos

Three Hungarian league titles in a row, and each of them came with Marquinhos in the side. Between 2022 and 2024 the Brazilian was part of the Ferencváros teams that took the championship in 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24, adding the Hungarian Cup in his first half-season in Budapest and returning to the final in 2023/24.

The route there ran through Atlético Mineiro, where he came up through the youth ranks and made his senior debut. He was a runner-up in the Brazilian championship with the club in 2017 and won the Liga Mineira in 2020, with a loan at Chapecoense in 2018 in between. A second loan, to Botev Plovdiv in 2021, was his first move to Europe; Ferencváros made it permanent in February 2022 for a reported €3.8 million.

Spartak Moscow paid a reported €5 million in August 2024 to sign him outright. Russian football took to him quickly: he arrived wearing number 8 and now has the number 10.

Full name José Marcos Costa Martins, he grew up in Cajari, in the northern state of Maranhão. At 165 cm he is among the shorter players in the Russian Premier League, which has not stopped him pulling the strings from midfield. He has yet to be capped at senior level by any country, though in May 2024 he said publicly that he would be interested in playing for Hungary.