Just seen him play for the first time for Basel against Benfica. Far from the finished article, but f*ck me, the boy's exciting.

Firstly, he looks like a teenage bodybuilder; huge muscles, rosy cheeks and a strange hair-cut. Next he's really small, so he looks a lot like Ram-Man from He-Man as the following photos prove:

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQAgxBboEZgAg7i_fetly-L1YcdBcGqEzflgovhUl1HF-q5NigH

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRNCjuQ_ZNdZMjVRBHoZfA8sxAMWGR6caMUVDbpF2npGE_lD4IDnQ

On the plus side, he's fast, unbelievably fast. I've watched Benfica left-back Emerson put Porto's Hulk in his pocket this season, but I've never seen him under such pressure as Shaqiri put him tonight. Emerson was eventually sent off, unable to cope with Shaqiri's pace and skill.

The guy is one to watch, reminded me of when I first saw Cristiano Ronaldo play for Sporting against Manchester United.

One of my favourite buys on Football Manager. Fast and everything, just lacks good aerial ability (short as stated above). Will come to low reputation teams and quite cheaply. I Recommend this player.

All I can say on this person, having never seen him play in real life.

XS(his nickname...) is already very popular in Switzerland, the national side has one potentially brilliant player on the books there...

All well and good, but that shot's going way over the bar.

If he played in England his nickname would have to be Enter.

Shaqiri, Shaqiri...

His hips don't lie

I appear to recall him tearing Phil Jagielka (possibly?) a new arsehole against England in the game at Wembley early in the Summer.

Looked pretty bloody quick there.

He was without doubt one of the fastest players I've seen for some time - although it was on TV and I believe TV makes a lot of players look quicker than they really are.

Saying that, his marker Emerson is a very fast left-back and he just couldn't get close to him. His acceleration from a standing start, turning with his back towards goal was simply incredible. He had a great range of passing, took most of their free-kicks and was more than comfortable on the ball. His only failing was choosing the right pass at the right time, which on a couple of vital occasions was shocking.

You have to imagine a player built like him, with his pace, is going to suffer a lot of injuries - but if he doesn't he'll become a huge star, I can say that confidently after seeing him play only once - he's unique.

Yeah. I saw that A Bola (basically an in-house Benfica paper and always loath to mark down their players) gave Emerson a 3 out of 10, while it gave all the rest 5 and above (Man of the Match Gaitán with 8). I think that probably reflects well the problems Emerson was having.

the hat trick he scored against bulgaria last month was brilliant. why would you say he'd suffer a lot of injuries steveee? he looks powerful and stocky, a bit like aguero.

I get the impression he could have similar problems as Michael Owen. A hamstring tear or two, he loses his pace and he's half the player he was.

I really hope not. At work this evening, a couple of kids I taught last year but always like to talk to me about football came rushing up to me as I entered the school. They wanted to know if I watched the game last night, I said yes and that it was one of the most professional performances I'd seen from Benfica in the CL. They looked at me and just said, "But what about the Basel player, Shaqiri? He was incredible!"

As long as I've been living in Portugal, I've only known one time when attention was switched away from their own players to that of the opposition. That was Ashley Cole in 2004 marking Ronaldo out of the QF. Alright, he hasn't had the finest of careers, but it goes to show just how impressive Shaqiri was last night.

Quick update on this guy after seeing him play last night.

Obviously, he'd never match the impact he had upon me when I first saw him play, but the guy is really one of the most exciting players I've seen for a very long time. Only negative point was the one I mentioned above, his choice in making the final pass isn't good enough and he needs to really work on this aspect of his game.

Moment of the night in yesterday's game came with about 5 minutes to go. Benfica had a corner and it was cleared into the path of Shaqiri, waiting to counter. Benfica's substitute left-back Miguel Vitor saw him turn towards goal and didn't even give him the chance to run, deciding that dropping him to the ground with an attempted sleeper hold was the better course of action. The most significant aspect of this tackle was that Vitor had been brought on to do exactly this. Shaqiri had had the better of third choice Benfica left-back Luis Martins all night and Marins was dangerously close to a red card, due to the fact once Shaqiri turns towards goal, you can't get near him. Benfica brought Miguel Vitor on just to rough Shaqiri up a bit. Vitor is a centre-back, sometimes plays right-back, but he was brought on for the unique purpose of some thuggery.

I'm really looking forward to the final game between Basel and Man Utd in this group, I get the opinon Shaqiri will become a huge name after that game.

Nice!

i think i read that he will be moving in the summer to bayern. (*sigh*)

Not only do Bayern like to buy the best players of their main rivals, they also have a habit of buying the best players of teams they are about to play against in big matches.

.....while delivering a moral lesson on the role of money in sport.