All-Time Fantasy Draft

Theon said:
What do you meen here Gio?

Edit - think I know now, thought you were saying his only peers are Messi and Maradona. But you're saying between the peaks of those two players he had no equal?

Not sure I'd agree if you are.
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Between the Maradona and Messi eras. Considering their prime form, I'd say Ronaldo (96-99), Ronaldinho (04-06) and arguably Zidane (98-03) hit a similar level to Rivaldo (97-02). With Ronaldinho sustained dominance is an issue and with Zidane consistency is another. Michael Laudrup also deserves consideration in that tier, but I cannot speak as authoritatively on him as the other three.

Brwned said:
Where is it you're intending to stick Rivaldo in your team, Gio? Wide left?
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He's played a lot of his time wide left under Van Gaal and even for Brazil, however I'd probably give him a more central role, inside-left perhaps. Depends how the draft opens up though.
 
Gio said:
Between the Maradona and Messi eras. Considering their prime form, I'd say Ronaldo (96-99), Ronaldinho (04-06) and arguably Zidane (98-03) hit a similar level to Rivaldo (97-02). With Ronaldinho sustained dominance is an issue and with Zidane consistency is another. Michael Laudrup also deserves consideration in that tier, but I cannot speak as authoritatively on him as the other three.
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Frankly I believe Iniesta has surpassed all of those players. And he hasn't even finished his career. Big game player if ever there was one, times greater than Zidane who lost 2 out of 3 Champions League finals he played in and headbutted his way out of the World Cup final. Dinho at his peak was probably the best out of the lot but then we have to take his decline into consideration. Iniesta is easily better than those players on club, barring maybe Laudrup but as you I am also not too confident speaking about him, and at international level after Iniesta carried Spain in the last Euro, he clearly deserves to be ahead of those players, nevermind the winning goal in the World Cup final that he has to his name.
 
Surprised Gio took Rivaldo when he already had arguably the best (maybe after Didi) attacking midfielder in the draft. With a player as good as Rivaldo it will be easy to make it work though.

Disagree that Iniesta has surpassed Zidane, Rivaldo and Laudrup, though he does belong in thier bracket.
 
Not for me Aldo, wouldn't have Iniesta in that Ronaldo/Zidane bracket.
 
For me he is greater than Zidane easily. He would have won the individual honours had it not been for Messi, and Zidane's Ballon D'or in 98 was undeserved anyway. Zidane shone well in the Euro 2000 which Iniesta matched and bettered in Euro 2012. Iniesta was much more influential in Spain's World Cup win than Zidane was in France's while at club level there is a much greater difference imo.

Rivaldo is close, and he was a class act himself. Not many can forget that hat trick against Valencia. And he was a great player for Brazil as well. I think one can make a case for Rivaldo rivaling Iniesta in his career, but not Zidane, no.
 
Theon said:
Not for me Aldo, wouldn't have Iniesta in that Ronaldo/Zidane bracket.
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Well that is just the romantic Zizou factor that I at least would never understand. When a player gets marked out of the game by Paul Lambert in a Champions League final when he is argubly enjoying the best time of his career, questions needs to be raised. Iniesta has been more consistent than him at both club and country level. And disappointed in big games much lesser than Zizou did. I can understand why people have that romance factor with Zizou, with his style of play and things he would try and pull them off, but once you look at it a bit more objectively and see what all Iniesta has done, and try to get rid of Zizou's reputation for one second, you may understand what I am getting at here. The semi final goal v Chelsea, that final performance in Rome, WC final winning goal, carrying the team to a Euro win, and still day in day out taking defenses out. With a good amount of years left in his career.

In fact this comparison is still understandable, but I get really baffled when someone comes and says Zidane is as good as Platini or Zico was. That is just atrocious.
 
Iniesta has never carried his national team, to say otherwise is clearly stretching the truth. Zidane was more influential for his national team in 2000 and 2006 than Iniesta ever was.
 
Zidane's certainly overrated for me but the same is true of Iniesta. Not in the same class as Ronaldinho or Ronaldo at his peak.
 
AldoRaine18 said:
For me he is greater than Zidane easily. He would have won the individual honours had it not been for Messi, and Zidane's Ballon D'or in 98 was undeserved anyway. Zidane shone well in the Euro 2000 which Iniesta matched and bettered in Euro 2012. .
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Agree that Zidane's 1998 award was almost entirely on the basis of his two goals in the final, but he wasn't among the top 5-10 players of the tournament. His Euro 2000 series of performances were talismanic and for me quite a bit better than Iniesta's Euro 2012. Iniesta started off well but didn't sustain that level of performance and ultimately Pirlo was the star of the tournament.
 
Fergus' son said:
Iniesta has never carried his national team, to say otherwise is clearly stretching the truth. Zidane was more influential for his national team in 2000 and 2006 than Iniesta ever was.
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Well, in ideal terms, neither did Zidane. France always had a tight defense and some world class defensive midfielders to give Zidane the freedom. In 2006, the game against Spain where France were trailing 1-0, it was Patrick Vieira not Zidane who won them the game. Vieira single handedly owned the midfield of Xavi, Xabi Alonso and Fabregas.

Iniesta was the focal point of all of Spain's attacks in the Euro 2012, and Xavi was having a mediocre tournament till the last game. More importantly, Iniesta didn't blow it in the final, like Zidane did in 2006.
 
Brwned said:
Zidane's certainly overrated for me but the same is true of Iniesta. Not in the same class as Ronaldinho or Ronaldo at his peak.
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Clearly not. Those peaks are something unreal. But in case of Ronaldinho, as good as he was during those years, his decline is really well known, and if you consider those aspects as well, then Iniesta would overtake him. Obviously if you just take the peak ability into the picture, hardly anyone from this era barring Messi can rival him.
 
Fergus' son said:
It's inaccurate to say Didi contributes nothing defensively IMO and its strange to call any midfield anchored by Beckenbauer as lightweight.
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Beckenbauer always had a grunt next to him to do the dirty work and get stuck in and let him go about being brilliant. He's capable defensively, but if you've set up for him to be doing that job primarily, you're wasting one of the best visionary players the game has ever seen, and next to Didi, without a buffer, that's precisely what would happen.

Neither are capable donkeys, and both are wasted should they be tracking back too often.
 
paceme said:
If we are taking peak form into account then it's obviously Zidane. The guy was dominant in almost every big game played. I know Iniesta is also a big game player but he doesn't affect games in the same way.
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This is a misinformed opinion. How can you say that he was dominant in every big game he played, when he lost two Champions League finals at Juve, and hardly affected the game at all? Scored a wonder goal in the 3rd, yes, but Iniesta does hell lot more than Zidane did in big games. At Rome he completely schooled our midfield and was head and shoulders above any other player that night, including Messi.
 
AldoRaine18 said:
This is a misinformed opinion. How can you say that he was dominant in every big game he played, when he lost two Champions League finals at Juve, and hardly affected the game at all? Scored a wonder goal in the 3rd, yes, but Iniesta does hell lot more than Zidane did in big games. At Rome he completely schooled our midfield and was head and shoulders above any other player that night, including Messi.
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The magic word 'almost'

So one big game against a midfield that all players his level should dominate? His performances at international level are overrated. He has scored important goals and played well but people talk about him as if he was dribbling past five players then cutting about five more with an unbelievable pass when in actual fact he, like all Barcelona's players, just don't choke in big games. That is why they are so impressive.
 
paceme said:
The magic word 'almost'

So one big game against a midfield that all players his level should dominate? His performances at international level are overrated. He has scored important goals and played well but people talk about him as if he was dribbling past five players then cutting about five more with an unbelievable pass when in actual fact he, like all Barcelona's players, just don't choke in big games. That is why they are so impressive.
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Except they did choke in the sense that they found it incredibly hard to convert possession to goals without Messi. For the past 2 years at least, Iniesta has been taking out defenders day in day out. He has been attracting defenders, even more than Messi at times creating ample space for others to attack. Did that for Spain in the Euro consistently.

If there is anyone who is overrated because he scored goals and hardly did anything of note otherwise, it is Zidane. As Gio rightly said, he was not even France's best player in the 98 World Cup, let alone deserving the Ballon D'or. Ronaldo clearly deserved that award back then. All Zidane did was score 2 goals in the final.
 
You are completely twisting my point, I never said iniesta doesn't do anything of note. I said he plays without chokeing Or to rephrase it plays without fear. You are picking at one campaign at the moment in regards to Zidane, does the fact that he didn't deserve it over Ronaldo in 98 take away from all his other performances? No. It's ridiculous to underrate him because some people gave him a reward he didn't deserve.
 
Fortitude said:
Beckenbauer always had a grunt next to him to do the dirty work and get stuck in and let him go about being brilliant. He's capable defensively, but if you've set up for him to be doing that job primarily, you're wasting one of the best visionary players the game has ever seen, and next to Didi, without a buffer, that's precisely what would happen.

Neither are capable donkeys, and both are wasted should they be tracking back too often.
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Spot on. Reason why Kaiser excelled as a libero, as he constantly had players around him concentrating solely on defense. Not saying he cannot mark a player out if instructed to do say, in fact I remember an interview where he said that he was instructed to mark Bobby Charlton out, but that would be wasting one of the best playmakers we have seen. He was a Rolls Royce with the ball, gliding past one player after another with unmatched authority.

I agree that you clearly need a dirty hard man in there to bring the best out of both Didi and Beckenbaur.
 
paceme said:
You are completely twisting my point, I never said iniesta doesn't do anything of note. I said he plays without chokeing Or to rephrase it plays without fear. You are picking at one campaign at the moment in regards to Zidane, does the fact that he didn't deserve it over Ronaldo in 98 take away from all his other performances? No. It's ridiculous to underrate him because some people gave him a reward he didn't deserve.
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One campaign? No not really. He was at his peak when he was at Juve, and he played in two Champions League finals at that time, in an insanely strong team from front to back led by a great manager, losing both. Lambert didn't even break a sweat to pocket him. Then came the World Cup, where again he was up and down throughout. France were going out in the semi had it not been Lilian Thuram's unforgettable brace.

In simple words, stopping Zidane is much more easier than Iniesta, given by their records and their style of play. Zidane's bad temperament is another issue due to which he has suffered at times. His performance in the WC 2006 was without a doubt world class, specially the one against Brazil, even though that Brazil team had plenty of issues and it did take a poor error from Roberto Carlos to give France the win, Zidane's performance was brilliant then. However I cannot see what Zidane has over Iniesta be it achievements, consistency or big game ability.
 
I'd personally be sticking Beckenbauer in a back 5 with Didi perfectly suited to a 3-man midfield sitting in front. You don't need Beckenbauer in centre mid when you've got Didi doing most of the same stuff already, just let Beckenbauer run things from deep while Didi orchestrates things in the attacking end.

And as for Iniesta showing up more often than Zidane, I'd have that purely down to an unparalleled amount of possession and having a better supporting cast. We've never seen Iniesta show anything like the consistent individual brilliance we saw from Zidane in Euro '00. Iniesta's performances in the summer are pretty forgettable in comparison despite the bright start.
 
AldoRaine18 said:
I'd like to hear the reasoning behind that.
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Zidane was the deciding player in '98. You can't say he only scored two goals in the final as if that's not a great feat. France won that World Cup because of him. Without Zidane they would have come up short. I don't get that feeling about Iniesta. Spain would still have won Euro '12 without him IMO. Barca would still have beaten us.

You say Zidane blew it in 2006 but he was a massive reason France got that far. His performance vs Brazil for example was masterful.

I guess Zidane was just impossible to replace. A more deciding factor for his respective country & clubs.
 
That possession was a measure of defense, every team has a defensive tactic. If Spain had all that possession to never put Iniesta under pressure, France had a great defense and ever so efficient defensive midfield to never let Zidane get under pressure. Both are the same situation though being implemented in completely different ways.

In fact, being asked to keep possession forces you to be more disciplined and try risky passes much less number of times. All Barcelona players value possession of the ball higher than anything else, while in Zidane's case, he had the complete license of trying anything, without fearing losing the ball. Despite that sort of demand from the manager to not lose the ball, Iniesta comes up with moments of magic in almost every game, when in reality we all know that he cannot try for a risky pass even if he thinks he would pull it off, just because it is against their philosophy.
 
Thisistheone said:
Zidane was the deciding player in '98. You can't say he only scored two goals in the final as if that's not a great feat. France won that World Cup because of him. Without Zidane they would have come up short. I don't get that feeling about Iniesta. Spain would still have won Euro '12 without him IMO. Barca would still have beaten us.

You say Zidane blew it in 2006 but he was a massive reason France got that far. His performance vs Brazil for example was masterful.

I guess Zidane was just impossible to replace. A more deciding factor for his respective country & clubs.
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Why don't you say the same for Iniesta's winning goal in the 2010 World Cup final? Why isn't he the deciding factor in that case? How can you say Spain would've still won without Iniesta while France wouldn't have, when in France's case there was another scorer besides Zidane in that game while Iniesta scored the only goal of the game?
 
AldoRaine18 said:
Why don't you say the same for Iniesta's winning goal in the 2010 World Cup final? Why isn't he the deciding factor in that case? How can you say Spain would've still won without Iniesta while France wouldn't have, when in France's case there was another scorer besides Zidane in that game while Iniesta scored the only goal of the game?
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Just the feeling I got. Spain were clearly a better team than Holland. Yes he scored the winning goal but if he wasn't playing Spain would still be favourites, brining in someone like a Silva or a Mata. When it came to France I felt they had no hope without Zidane. He was suspended for the Paraguay game and the French looked awful. Blanc grabbing a golden goal.

In 2000 Zidane was head and shoulders above everyone. Iniesta's never been. He's been one of the best players but never the outstanding player to the degree Zizou was.
 
France wouldve been knocked out way before in that tournament had they been relying solely on Zidane as he was mediocre throughout the tournament. Thuram won them the semi final, and I don't agree that they stood any lesser chance than Spain did without Iniesta, since Iniesta had a better World Cup than Zidane and contributed more.

As for the Paraguay game, they had one of the best defenses in the tournament. It was not because of Zidane's absence that they failed to score, his presence wouldn't have changed anything given his form in that WC.
 
AldoRaine18 said:
One campaign? No not really. He was at his peak when he was at Juve, and he played in two Champions League finals at that time, in an insanely strong team from front to back led by a great manager, losing both. Lambert didn't even break a sweat to pocket him. Then came the World Cup, where again he was up and down throughout. France were going out in the semi had it not been Lilian Thuram's unforgettable brace.

In simple words, stopping Zidane is much more easier than Iniesta, given by their records and their style of play. Zidane's bad temperament is another issue due to which he has suffered at times. His performance in the WC 2006 was without a doubt world class, specially the one against Brazil, even though that Brazil team had plenty of issues and it did take a poor error from Roberto Carlos to give France the win, Zidane's performance was brilliant then. However I cannot see what Zidane has over Iniesta be it achievements, consistency or big game ability.
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Much like Barca against us in 08 and against Chelsea last year?
 
Brwned said:
Yes, exactly like that Anto! That's why I'm leaving Di Stéfano to run the attack and Keane to be the dominant personality in midfield while Falcão knits it all together. Di Stéfano's very much an attacker occasionally dropping back rather than a midfielder pushing forward in my team and I'm relying on Falcão to do what's best for the team as he did so often.
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You know I'm a sucker for having lots of captains on the pitch (so long as they are likely to channel it well). I thought it was an interesing observation though, but I would have been way more concerned with Didi and Alfredo: two captains with the exact same duties.
 
We'll agree to disagree then. Like I say, it was just the impression I got from watching it all unfold. There was always this feeling that France would be in deep trouble without the man. It's not been the case with Iniesta and Spain, and if it has then certainly not to the same degree. And 1998-2000 was one hell of a French team.
 
paceme said:
Much like Barca against us in 08 and against Chelsea last year?
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Much stronger than the 08 Barca and the Barca last year as well. Oh and Dortmund didn't put 10 men behind the wall like Chelsea did, it was Lambert all on his own pocketing Zidane with ease. Many of the Juve players had a better game that night, yet Dortmund played like they wouldve and won 3-1 quite easily, without putting multiple man markers on Zidane, something that is usual these days for Iniesta or Messi.
 
Thisistheone said:
We'll agree to disagree then. Like I say, it was just the impression I got from watching it all unfold. There was always this feeling that France would be in deep trouble without the man. It's not been the case with Iniesta and Spain, and if it has then certainly not to the same degree. And 1998-2000 was one hell of a French team.
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Pretty unfair to their other players who had a better tournament than Zidane did.

What you are saying holds true for probably the 06 WC, but not at all for the 98 WC. Spain wouldn't have won the Euro without Iniesta the way the others were playing. He was the deciding factor not just with direct contributions but with all the attacking moves going through him.
 
AldoRaine18 said:
Much stronger than the 08 Barca and the Barca last year as well. Oh and Dortmund didn't put 10 men behind the wall like Chelsea did, it was Lambert all on his own pocketing Zidane with ease. Many of the Juve players had a better game that night, yet Dortmund played like they wouldve and won 3-1 quite easily, without putting multiple man markers on Zidane, something that is usual these days for Iniesta or Messi.
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Chelsea had 9 men for a good chunk of the game, how could they have 10 behind the ball? They didn't man mark Iniesta either.
 
paceme said:
Chelsea had 9 men for a good chunk of the game, how could they have 10 behind the ball? They didn't man mark Iniesta either.
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What I meant was that they parked the bus and defended in numbers, no need to be pedantic here. Same as we did in 08, and parked the bus and scraped through by the end of that semi, being lucky that Henry's free header landed straight into VDS' gloves. Dortmund never put that much effort in stopping a team led by Zidane at his peak. He was rather easy to stop.
 
paceme said:
I don't they were as concerned about Iniesta as they were Messi in those matches.

How is pointing out that he was playing against 9 men pedantic? It's pretty damn important.
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After what Iniesta did to them in 09, it would've been foolish to let him free again!
 
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