I can't remember the great players from the first couple of ISS, iirc they were all fairly balanced. ISS Pro Evolution 2 on PS1 was my favourite against the CPU, especially the Master League.
In the PS2 / Pro Evolution Soccer era, 2000 to 2003-ish, fast, skillful strikers became essential and unplayable in human vs human matches. Brazil and England were the best teams to be thanks to Ronaldo (and Roberto Carlos who helped to negate fast opponents), and Michael Owen. They were both strong teams that had great strikers with max pace.
I used to play all-night tournaments with two or three other mates, and Brazil and England would always be first taken. Ukraine were decent in a couple of editions, with a good keeper (Shovkoyovskyi?), and two speedy, skillful attackers, Shevchenko and Rebrov but the rest of the team especially the defence were terribly slow. Nigeria had some fast players (Agahowa) but were difficult to control and had mediocre finishing. Henry became good at one point, but I think he had issues with finishing or control in some of the earlier editions - maybe he was positioned as a winger rather than a striker.
