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Football: What Football?


polishgenius

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7 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

I can see some proper falling out when people keep getting perverse pleasure in pointing out mistakes.  Ha, let the games begin.

Not so much perverse pleasure as more like I wanted to make the same mistake.

I only remembered Bebeto playing for Deportivo, but checked wikipedia to be sure, and alas, he did play a handful of games for Sevilla. And I had vaguely in mind that Ramos joined from Sevilla.

Anyway, just realized I had the luxury of not having fielded any English player.

8 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Chilavert (GK, Paraguay), Lahm (RB, Germany), Sergio Ramos (CB, Spain), Danny Blind(CB, Netherlands), Maldini (LB, Italy), Kante (CM, France), Nedved (CM, Czech Republic), Giggs (W, Wales), Messi (Argentina), Mane (Winger Senegal), Kane (FW, England)

So that should fix it. That should even fix issues with anybody pointing out that Giggs was in the Academy of City (which would be super nitpicky).

Edit. Just realized without Vieira's journeyman career I could use another former Juventus player.

Now, I am reasonably satisfied with my team. Bring it on.

Line up.

                                            Kane

                            Messi

Mane                                                     Nedved

                                Giggs

                                              Kante

Maldini             Ramos            Blind                Lahm

                                  Chilavert

 

Yes, I put Giggs into a more central position, after I realized my team was a wee bit skewed towards the left. Fortunately Nedved was a super versatile two footed player who could play pretty much all the roles. Messi in his as the slightly deeper lying forward to get the most out of him. Kante just keeps everything together.

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5 hours ago, ljkeane said:

You really have to have Messi, C. Ronaldo and Maldini for me

 

Ronaldo just knocks out too many clubs, for me. In any case I was always gonna have one of Keane, Scholes or Cantona.


Maldini's a good pick as a one-club world class player but I don't think he's that dominant over other LBs or other Italians that he's a no-brainer.

 

1 hour ago, Raja said:

I knew you were one of the good ones


My brother spent hours wrestling with his team coz he refused to drop Bergkamp and his stint at Inter kept clashing with picks.

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3 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

My brother spent hours wrestling with his team coz he refused to drop Bergkamp and his stint at Inter kept clashing with picks.

I haven't even started because it would be very tough, though I think my team would be quite different from a lot of the ones here given that it would mostly be players from 2002 onwards.

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12 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Maldini's a good pick as a one-club world class player but I don't think he's that dominant over other LBs or other Italians that he's a no-brainer.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. I think he was a phenomenal player. One of the greatest defenders ever to play the game and he was world class at two positions. I could see the argument for picking a more out and out attacking left back and going with Maldini at centre back but I definitely think he has to be in the team.

ETA: In fairness I only really caught the tail end of Baresi's career in terms of great Italian defenders you have to consider.

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6 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. I think he was a phenomenal player. One of the greatest defenders ever to play the game and he was world class at two positions. I could see the argument for picking a more out and out attacking left back and going with Maldini at centre back but I definitely think he has to be in the team.

The only way Maldini wouldn't have been picked was because i went back and forth on Van Basten.  Who I remain convinced if not for injuries would be in the Maradona/Zidane/Messi/Ronaldo bracket. 

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32 minutes ago, Raja said:

I haven't even started because it would be very tough, though I think my team would be quite different from a lot of the ones here given that it would mostly be players from 2002 onwards.

 


One of the guys in my boxing site group was born in 2002 and he pointed out that he could have picked every single player I did if he wanted. I definitely didn't make use of my full lifespan.

27 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

I think he was a phenomenal player. One of the greatest defenders ever to play the game and he was world class at two positions.


I don't disagree with any of those things, I'm not saying he's not a great pick or even not a good player to build your own picks around (the way I nailed down Keane in mine). But the last 30 years or so have had some phenomenal defenders so even if Maldini was the best of them (personally I pick Lahm) I don't think he's that by enough that not having him over some others cripples a team the way not having Messi in attack just doesn't really make sense.


Like granted my team would certainly be improved by a Maldini in the CB role, and since I am no longer picking Van Dijk I'm fairly sure I can just replace Godin with Maldini and Del Piero with Bergkamp and call it a day, but if  hadn't needed to drop VVD I don't think the shuffling needed to replace ADP with someone of equal quality to allow Maldini in would necessarily have resulted in a better team (because it would quite likely have resulted in taking Keane out).


I know not everyone agrees with me on quite how good he was, but I think Keane is pretty much the best midfielder available to anyone who isn't dropping Messi so that was why I centered him.


I'm genuinely surprised to be the only one picking Cafu, he was a beast. Admittedly his inclusion does mean putting Lahm left instead of right but Lahm played there a lot anyway.

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45 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I'm genuinely surprised to be the only one picking Cafu, he was a beast. Admittedly his inclusion does mean putting Lahm left instead of right but Lahm played there a lot anyway.

Can only speak for myself (obviously) but I totally forgot about Cafu.

He is a pretty slick choice, that unlocks a couple of other choices.

Maldini was pretty much a no-brainer for me, because he was the best defender of the 1990s, and he was a one club player. So his career did not interfere with anybody else I'd like to pick. Lahm just blocked Stuttgart, which was just a minor nuisance if you wanted to pick Balakov, or Klinsmann, or  Hleb, Buchwald (for whatever reason). So the trade-off was not that big (ok, he blocked Carlos Dunga).

Otherwise with Brazilians, I instinctively went through the not Messi Brazilians, who also played for Barca (Ronaldo, Romario, Ronaldinho, Rivaldo, Neymar...). Thought of Emerson, but he also traveled around quite a bit after he left the Bundesliga, so he would've blocked Juve and Real. Then thought of Bebeto, and decided I wanted to have my defenders complete, as in Strikers to support Messi I could more easily find (thus Ramos knocked Bebeto out of contention), and I was left without a single Brazilian. Roberto Carlos shortly crossed my mind, on that note. Maybe I should have dropped Maldini, moved Maldini to the center and thus have two of the best fullbacks in history (Lahm and Roberto Carlos).

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I wanted to pick Cafu or Lahm but I had decided that Maldini, Matthäus, Messi and Ronaldo were 'must haves' so had to work around the clashes. The big problem of course is once Messi and C. Ronaldo are included then that suddenly restricts your midfield options quite a lot -- you can't then pick Iniesta, Xavi, Busquets, Casemiro, Zidane, Pirlo, Keane, Scholes etc -- as well as your CF options as a lot of the top CF's have played for either Real, Barca or Juve. 

If there were no restrictions, I'd have gone for: Neuer, Lahm, Baresi, Maldini, Roberto Carlos, Xavi, Matthäus, Iniesta, Messi, Ronaldo Nazario, C. Ronaldo. 

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Yeah, but you could only ever pick one of Messi, Iniesta or Xavi anyway. Once you make your peace with that, it's obvious you either go Messi (99%) or Iniesta (the 1% hipsters).

Messi in contrast to C. Ronaldo at least just only blocks one club (Barca). C. Ronaldo blocks Juve, United, and Real (and also Sporting Lisbon).

And it's just annoying that basically 4-5 clubs pretty much had all the top players under contract at one point or another (starting from 1990).

If you extend that list to 8 clubs it gets really frustrating. (Bayern, Milan, Inter, Juve, Barca, Real, United, Liverpool).

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I am honestly not sure if I can make a full team due to not having watched THAT much highest level football(I don't watch much recently anyway and mostly local stuff), but to me, out of all Barcelona players, I'd always pick Ronaldinho above everyone else I've seen. After that, the picks get much tougher...

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1 hour ago, Melphis Amekia said:

I am honestly not sure if I can make a full team due to not having watched THAT much highest level football(I don't watch much recently anyway and mostly local stuff), but to me, out of all Barcelona players, I'd always pick Ronaldinho above everyone else I've seen. After that, the picks get much tougher...

Eh....Ronaldinho was great for a short while but if you had to pick just one Barca player, it'd really have to be Messi. His peak was miles above Ronaldinho and he has performed at an insane level for about a decade longer than Ronaldinho did. 

 

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Yeah I love Ronaldinho a lot more than Messi but there's no real argument about who was better.

The only Barca players I'd even vaguely consider over Messi are Maradona, obviously, and Ronaldo, because sure, he might only have been there one season, and after that for various reasons he never did reach the height of consistency of Messi, but dammit, he was Ronaldo!

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Technically I could have considered Cruyff (within lifetime criteria) since he left Barca in the year I was born but still continued playing for a few years thereafter. I was considering Gerd Müller as well but I just couldn't leave out Lothar Matthäus - that man was a beast and I was old enough to have seen him play during his prime.

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Most of these teams rely on players from the past decade or so.  Messi is a must have, which knocks out all Barcelona alumni.  But I was born in 1977 so I can lay claim to players like Zico, Gerd Müller, George Best, Dalglish and Platini (can replace Zidane, they’re both Juve but Platini doesn’t remove Real Madrid).  Jimmy Greaves is even possible but he had a short stint at AC Milan.  Ian Rush’s year at Juve knocks him out. 

Here’s my attempt to mix several eras:

                           Jan Oblak 

                John Terry    Alan Hansen   
Wim Suurbier                       Paulo Maldini 

                        KDB      Zico

Messi                                     George Best

            Gerd Muller    Mbappe


Edit: I just realized that Terry and KDB were both at Chelsea

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