Next Draft - Ideas and Discussions

I need some volunteers.

Can one/more here picks a player of your choice and see if you can trace his links to build a credible team?

1. Ronaldinho
2. Eto'o
3. Zanetti
4. Veron(country card)
5. Desailly
6. Vieira
7. A. Cole
8. Makelele
9. Figo
10. F. De Boer
11. Van Der Sar

--------------VDS----------------
Zanetti----Desailly--De Boer---Cole
-------------Makelele-------------
---------Veron-----Vieira---------
Figo------------------------Dinho
------------Etoo-----------------

Country card played, max 3 per nations(3 from france) and i didnt pick one club players as i always picked a teammate from a different club. Picked this in short time so i didnt really payed attention on club peaks....
 
These drafts are getting mental.

I'd be down for Annah's auction idea. Prefer the drafts with as much forward planning as possible.
 
1. Pele
2. Beckenbauer
3. Rummenigge
4. Breitner
5. Pirri
6. Puskas
7. Czibor
8. Suarez
9. Facchetti
10. Burgnich
11. Charles
12. Cudicini




@Edgar Allan Pillow

edit: draft peak is not their peak form? what, then, the moment when they played together with the player that got them picked? or the moment when they played with the player that they are "picking"?
 
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edit: draft peak is not their peak form? what, then, the moment when they played together with the player that got them picked? or the moment when they played with the player that they are "picking"?

Neither. Just their peak with the club that is used as a link to pick them up.

Pele to Beckenbauer :lol: The Cosmos link? Then their peak for this draft would be what they achieved with NY Cosmos.
 
THanks mate.

Let's see how this works:

Davids to Xavi is through Barca loan spell, right? - This means we get Davids peak as during that loan spell for this draft.
Xavi to Messi becomes invalid as you can't use Barca consecutively.

How was the drafting? Challenging or meh?

Invalid - I like that. Too easy but lets be honest I would not get those picks uncontested in a live draft.

Right so no consecutive clubs, club limit in terms of picks and nationality restrictions too maybe?
 
These drafts are getting mental.

I'd be down for Annah's auction idea. Prefer the drafts with as much forward planning as possible.

Yeah, was looking forward to an auction draft as I really love the mechanics of it and would be down for it as well.
 
Right so no consecutive clubs, club limit in terms of picks and nationality restrictions too maybe?
No consecutive clubs is a must, and 2 or 3 per club limit too. Not sure about nationality, but, hey, the harder the better.
 
Have a look in the current draft thread, @Balu came up with something similar to what perhaps you have in mind; for the final match picks. Not sure how it would work for so many managers at once, though.

With so many players to choose from I think you'd either have to be seriously unlucky/stupid not acquire one upgrade. The sheep blocks would only last for that reinforcement round- so if Pele was blocked in the first reinforcement round he'd be available for the nest one.

I wouldn't mind a group stages although it would probably work better in auction format as the teams are generally better balanced. What's dull is one player which sticks out like a sore thumb and everyone harping on about it for three games.

@Annahnomoss

With the auction idea would you just allow each manager say 11 picks to auction and let them all run simultaneously to avoid the wait until the end to pick up cheap tactic?
 
With the auction idea would you just allow each manager say 11 picks to auction and let them all run simultaneously to avoid the wait until the end to pick up cheap tactic?
There would be overlapping bids, a lot of them - and if you want for every manager to have 11 unique bids since the beginning, there would be players that no-one wants, but their managers were forced to bid on them.

If it weren't so time-consuming, we could've just had a snake draft to determine the auction pool and then to start the auction.
 
The issue has also been that if you want someone, you just keep it quiet and hope nobody brings him in to the transfer list until you want to. Which makes everything a very boring and passive contest of who can be bothered to wait the longest.

Indeed – and that (the waiting game) is really all you can do if you want to be a clever sod and draft some sort of under-the-radar pearl: You wait until everyone else has filled his position.

Just doing one round is a possibility – yes. What you gain there is plenty of confusion as to who has done what, making it easier to play the clever game: Keeping an eye on when the bids expire becomes part of the game to a much greater extent – and there will be plenty of meltdowns over deadlines missed (which is good fun, of course).
 
Don't complicate the peak thing. It's tough enough as it is.

I think Annah's original idea has merit – but the problem isn't so much the peak thing itself (you can define that clearly) as the practicality of actually enforcing it: You can't force the voters to consider the write-ups, for instance. If they think X and Y are grand, they can vote for 'em regardless of whether they actually meet the set standard.

That's the problem with any theme which specifies something...er specific in terms of peak or form. Annah's idea – as I take it – is that the managers have to do plenty of research and be able to present write-ups which demonstrate that their players do meet the standard – and that can be very interesting in itself. But unless we regard the matches as nigh irrelevant, we have to consider the voting – the latter being the only plausible way to determine the outcome of said matches.

If you just operate with “define peak as you please and argue about it in the match threads” you don't get this problem – at least. But what you do get, potentially, is that people...argue about peak ad infinitum, which is not very interesting.
 
I think Annah's original idea has merit – but the problem isn't so much the peak thing itself (you can define that clearly) as the practicality of actually enforcing it: You can't force the voters to consider the write-ups, for instance. If they think X and Y are grand, they can vote for 'em regardless of whether they actually meet the set standard.

That's the problem with any theme which specifies something...er specific in terms of peak or form. Annah's idea – as I take it – is that the managers have to do plenty of research and be able to present write-ups which demonstrate that their players do meet the standard – and that can be very interesting in itself. But unless we regard the matches as nigh irrelevant, we have to consider the voting – the latter being the only plausible way to determine the outcome of said matches.

If you just operate with “define peak as you please and argue about it in the match threads” you don't get this problem – at least. But what you do get, potentially, is that people...argue about peak ad infinitum, which is not very interesting.

I don't think that draft idea is good for now. Better of when the urge for a research heavy draft is back. I just can't see the Euro-managers feeling like another draft in the same mold.

It was time consuming as hell as a dedicated follower of the draft watching everything people put out and then further trying to watch as many matches yourself as you can.
 
I'd rather prefer a 2 cycle blind auction draft.
- Each manager nominates 2 players with a bid amount. Can be a minimum bid for or a higher amount if they want him.
- After 12 hrs or when everyone submits, the bid amounts are revealed and the process starts again. The highest bidder in 2nd cycle wins.
 
This is something I've been tinkering with on and off – and which I might try to run at some point (not anytime soon, but sometime).

Let's call it The Restriction Draft for the time being.

The idea is to restrict the managers in any number of ways, forcing them to assemble hopefully diverse, interesting and somewhat realistic (in terms of strength) teams.

Pool: Unlimited

Format: Snake

Number of teams: 16

Preliminary GOAT-blocking round. Every manager picks a GOAT to block, the usual business – in the end 16 GOATs are blocked. NOTE: This is optional, really. If the restrictions are severe enough, it may not be necessary with any GOAT blocking.

Restrictions (these are just off the top of my head – needs more work to make it ideally balanced):

Your XI must at all times feature players from at least three continents/confederations.

Your XI cannot feature more than X players from the same nation (nations being defined clearly in the OP, of course).

Your XI cannot feature more than X players born in the same decade.

Your XI cannot feature more than one World Cup winner.

Your XI cannot feature more than one Ballon d' Or winner.

Your XI cannot feature more than X representatives of one and the same club.

Your XI must feature at least one player who never played in any of the following leagues: A, B, C or D.

Your XI must feature at least one player whose mum OR uncle was at one time wanted by Interpol.

...and so forth.

A combination of “can't have X” and “must have Y”.

At the end of drafting, the teams will be reviewed. Any manager whose team falls short of the requirements, will be killed. Or at least punished – sheep being the obvious punishment.

Point being – as stated above – to create interesting teams with, ideally, more realistic combinations of players (water carriers, non-descript but competent fullbacks – and of course well known stars, nuggets and wild cards).
 
So which time-period on the auction draft? First I thought a 2014-15 season only, but that pool was used not long ago more or less when Skizzo I believe was in the final with that Atletico defense.

Then I thought that either a 1992-93 and forward(til today) pool could be fun, but then I thought that an all time draft hasn't been played in a while I believe?

So an all time draft is what I am leaning towards.
 
So which time-period on the auction draft? First I thought a 2014-15 season only, but that pool was used not long ago more or less when Skizzo I believe was in the final with that Atletico defense.

Then I thought that either a 1992-93 and forward(til today) pool could be fun, but then I thought that an all time draft hasn't been played in a while I believe?

So an all time draft is what I am leaning towards.
Good idea. Perhaps we should ban the likes of Pele, Maradona, C. Ronaldo and Messi from the start? Or even ban a couple of players from recent semi-finals and final so that we can get a more diverse team later on
 
Good idea. Perhaps we should ban the likes of Pele, Maradona, C. Ronaldo and Messi from the start? Or even ban a couple of players from recent semi-finals and final so that we can get a more diverse team later on

I think it would be interesting to see the differences in what they go for. Will Messi cost more than Maradona etc.
 
I think it would be interesting to see the differences in what they go for. Will Messi cost more than Maradona etc.
I always have concern on GOATs that can literally carry the whole team by their own. Perhaps the voters in mains are more sensible?

Still not 100% sure I will play. Very much depends on how much time is needed. I want to try something different when drafting my next team. Could be a cluster feck in the end, but better lose trying than not trying at all
 
I wanted an all time team draft whereby each manager is allocated an all time team and we pit them against each other to see what redcafe believes to be the greatest team of all time.

Not a draft per se more a fun research project which is more about the real life teams of the past and emphasising why that team faced greater hurdles than others and deserves to be named the king of kings. I.E. Antohan with Brazil 70 v Gio AC Milan 88-90.

I guess without the reinforcement stuff and all that jazz it could be seen as boring but perhaps we could unlockccertain players from within those great teams the further you progress.
 
I always have concern on GOATs that can literally carry the whole team by their own. Perhaps the voters in mains are more sensible?

Still not 100% sure I will play. Very much depends on how much time is needed. I want to try something different when drafting my next team. Could be a cluster feck in the end, but better lose trying than not trying at all

For auction drafts you need one shorter period of being available quite a lot. It will be far easier than one of those requirement drafts, a Euro/CL/WC draft, where you need to research really heavily. In an auction draft like this you will most likely know which team you want to form and the time is spent on evaluating bids rather than researching for the best players who played between 90-100 international matches or whatever.

It is really hard to do research on a phone for requirement drafts, I've tried - absolutely hopeless. So it depends on your preferences.
 
I wanted an all time team draft whereby each manager is allocated an all time team and we pit them against each other to see what redcafe believes to be the greatest team of all time.

Not a draft per se more a fun research project which is more about the real life teams of the past and emphasising why that team faced greater hurdles than others and deserves to be named the king of kings. I.E. Antohan with Brazil 70 v Gio AC Milan 88-90.

I guess without the reinforcement stuff and all that jazz it could be seen as boring but perhaps we could unlockccertain players from within those great teams the further you progress.

Sounds really fun to do one day more casually. Not much of a draft, but rather it would be a great way of showcasing the greatness of the best teams in history.
 
So which time-period on the auction draft? First I thought a 2014-15 season only, but that pool was used not long ago more or less when Skizzo I believe was in the final with that Atletico defense.

Then I thought that either a 1992-93 and forward(til today) pool could be fun, but then I thought that an all time draft hasn't been played in a while I believe?

So an all time draft is what I am leaning towards.

I'd say just block everyone who has featured in Skizzo's Sheep draft. That should renew the pool totally!
 
A-team-that-never-were-formation-tactics.png


A team that never were. Chickened out before the final because of all the applause your team was getting defensively and didn't field all my big guns from the beginning. It was a very exiting draft, with Gio also picking Trap I thought that I was doomed, but then I managed to create a very true to the spirit team and gave some remarkable appearances for likes of Furino or zebrine Cuccureddu. Fecking boring Capello :(


My first (iirc) team was supposed to be great, but Stielike got caught on a drug test and my dream midfield of Neeskens-Stielike-Falcao never get a chance to play together. I still believe that I should've won that game though :wenger:

My last team I liked very much, it was a challenge for me to pick some Eastern greats and to do something with them and it was a good run.

The only team that I didn't like was the one with Hidegkuti, Kubala and Ibra as a front axis, in Skizzo's sheep draft, I was very busy traveling and failed to create something balanced.
 
tardelli and platini, the inseparable duo :D
But its cool to see Platini in the same team with a proper striker, 2 drafts in the row he has Elkenigge and Gullenige in front so i thought nobody likes im in classic 10 role.
 
tardelli and platini, the inseparable duo :D
But its cool to see Platini in the same team with a proper striker, 2 drafts in the row he has Elkenigge and Gullenige in front so i thought nobody likes im in classic 10 role.
It was a manager's draft - you picked a manager in the first round and then your pool was restricted only to the players that he actually managed (and their peak was defined by their time with him). So it wasn't really a choice with Tardelli - Platini, or Boniek and such, I had to pick them (not that I'm complaining :D). It was a classic zona mista, with Baggio as a free left-inside forward, Batistuta as a №9 and Platini as a free 10 - he still was the main player in this set-up, but this side was not so dependent on his goalscoring - as it wasn't at insanely high Euro peak ratio.

Oh, and Tardelli was a very late pick, he was in the rival's team and I only smuggled him in in the quarter or semi's, I don't remember.
 
It was a manager's draft - you picked a manager in the first round and then your pool was restricted only to the players that he actually managed (and their peak was defined by their time with him). So it wasn't really a choice with Tardelli - Platini, or Boniek and such, I had to pick them (not that I'm complaining :D). It was a classic zona mista, with Baggio as a free left-inside forward, Batistuta as a №9 and Platini as a free 10 - he still was the main player in this set-up, but this side was not so dependent on his goalscoring - as it wasn't at insanely high Euro peak ratio.

Oh, and Tardelli was a very late pick, he was in the rival's team and I only smuggled him in in the quarter or semi's, I don't remember.

sounds fun, never played that type of draft....btw love the team:)
 
so i thought nobody likes im in classic 10 role.

Nah, he is a great #10 but he is much more than just that and it's better to play him in a fluid attacking set-up, with mobile and dynamic strikers - not just in their vertical movement but also their horizontal ones - to fully utilize Platini's goalscoring and match-winning potential. Could he play behind someone like Batistuta or Müller? Yes he could, and he would be brilliant at it but he could be even more than that.
 
Nah, he is a great #10 but he is much more than just that and it's better to play him in a fluid attacking set-up, with mobile and dynamic strikers - not just in their vertical movement but also their horizontal ones - to fully utilize Platini's goalscoring and match-winning potential. Could he play behind someone like Batistuta or Müller? Yes he could, and he would be brilliant at it but he could be even more than that.

i agree with you but in both drafts since im here he plays with "fake" strikers and when i said classic 10 i didnt mean there should be a classic number 9 in the team, just a proper striker(Romario for instance or someone like that who would be a good fit for Platini).
 
My best effort was probably the...can't remember the draft theme, but I got knocked out in the semi-final, after having tinkered with a set-up I really liked and which featured a host of my favourite players.

From midfield up it looked like this:



Real Ronaldo, of course. And Enzo and Littbarski in free roles.

I dropped both Valderrama (which was cowardly) and Ronaldo (which was idiotic) for the semi.
 
1230013_Holland.jpg


This is probably my favorite team, Total Football attempt. Its the team for the final so it has few upgrades in relation to the original team. Loved everything about the team, tactic, players(except Robben :nervous:) and it was very fun experience in the buildup, it was a criteria snake draft so my pool of players was not big! Thankfully i got almost every player i wanted.
There is no Cruyff as the main criteria was that the player is born after 1950', at the start i just assumed Cruyff was available but then when i went to check which criteria he fits in i saw he is too old :lol: But as i loved the idea of Total Football so much i decided to go with it even without the most important puzzle.
 
My sheep draft team that lost to Cutch on penalties. Probably my best team ever

n-formation-tactics.png
 
My sheep draft team that lost to Cutch on penalties. Probably my best team ever

n-formation-tactics.png

That was a real beauty :drool:

In the sheep committee convo we actually spent the entire draft laughing at how you kept going for strikers when Hamrin was just about perfect for your frontline! So funny. :lol: