Yacine Brahimi makes Europe sit up and take notice after Champions League hat-trick

In the best-selling football book, 'Soccernomics', the authors provide a handy statistical guide to maximising the chances of successfully navigating the transfer market. There is plenty of sound advice which includes a warning over buying players who have just had a good tournament, such as the World Cup, European Championships or African Nations Cup. Such short-term bursts of form often artificially inflate the transfer fee of any star who grabs the headlines around the world.

But that surely does not apply to Yacine Brahimi. The near $9million that FC Porto paid Spanish team Granada in the summer looked like a decent deal at the time. After recent events, it is looking like a real bargain.

Just last week, Yahoo Middle East produced an article looking at the exploits of players from the region to make an impact on the UEFA Champions League. If that feature had been delayed just a little, then the French-born Algerian international would have been prominently featured.

A hat-trick in the biggest club competition in the world is something that even some of the best attackers around never managed yet to do so in your first ever game in the tournament truly is something special. Only six other players in history have managed to do so.

WORLD CUP

In the summer, Brahimi was a driving force as Algeria eased into the last 16 of the World Cup for the first time ever before exiting at the hands of Germany. In truth, the Fennecs were the team that gave the eventual champions the most problems in the whole tournament with the result in doubt right until the final whistle.

The 24 year-old was at his best against South Korea, giving the a fragile defence all sorts of nightmares with his dribbling, though his goal was all about awareness and composure. One Seoul scribe said that Brahimi had given one of the best individual performances that he could remember in 20 years of covering the Korean national team. He was everywhere.

In the Korean camp at least, there should have been more awareness of this threat. It was not like his talents were hidden. In La Liga for Granada Brahimi impressed with his dribbling and directness. What he was lacking, though had been a part of his game as a youngster, was his finishing. It looks as if that is no longer an issue.

Even before his first season in Spain, there had been reported interest from Arsenal and Real Madrid. He had turned enough heads as a young player in France to play for all every version of the country's national team from the U16 to the U21 - and starring at more than one stage. Fortunately for Algeria, he never became a fully fledged member of Les Bleus and last year he made his debut for the North Africans against Benin in February.

After a French footballing education that included time at Clairefontaine, it can't have been an easy decision especially given the fact that Algeria were by no means certain to qualify for Brazil at that stage and hadn't even managed to score a single goal at the 2010 World Cup. Yet it has surely been the right one.

His exit from French club football was not a smooth one and at Granada, his confidence started to return. Now, he is full of it.

HAT-TRICK HERO

A free-kick helped Porto negotiate past Lille in the qualification play-off for the right to enter the competition proper, the group stage. Against BATE however, he was head and shoulders above anyone else on the pitch and what must have have been pretty much any other player in action around Europe last week - including Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.

The first of three came as the goalkeeper spilled a throw. It landed at Brahimi's feet just outside the area but there was still work to do, a defender to be skipped past and a shot to be fired into the roof of the net from close range. Then came a lengthy run down the left and a fine finish from outside the area. Another free-kick strike gave Brahimi the possession of the match ball and when it comes with the UEFA Champions League logo, it is a precious memento indeed and one that no other Algerian has received, including the great Rabah Madjer who scored for Porto in their 1987 European Cup triumph.

All he needs to do now is keep doing it. He has improved so much in the past 12 months. For now, his target is to help Porto, for so long a giant of European football but now almost reduced to the also-rans thanks to the financial power that the big leagues have, get past tougher opposition in Atletico Madrid and Shakhtar Donestk and into the second round. If he can do that, he has already repaid his transfer fee. There may be more transfers to come as well. At this rate, this player is unlikely to stay in the Portuguese league for too long.

The World Cup may sometimes give a false impression of a player's talents but that is not the case for Yacine Brahimi. It has taken him to a new level.

* John Duerden is a Middle East and Asia football correspondent for Yahoo Maktoob Sports as well as the Guardian, ESPN & World Soccer. He also writes for New York Times, AP, Daily Telegraph and various other Asia media outlets. Follow him on Twitter at @JohnnyDuerden