Redafe Champions League Draft - Gio vs Nahealai

[antohan]

Unlucky nahealai, Gio's is simply the superior side across the board. You only really had more firepower, but that's not enough when the rest of the setup is so significantly stronger. Ballack in that midfield never sat right with me. You did give him a run for his money though.

Gio will be awesome once he gets a proper right winger and a striker with more punch (reckon Makaay actually looks better than Owen there).

 

[Buchan]

To be honest, I wasn't expecting a victory as in the drafting thread, everyone was waxing lyrical about Gio's team before a ball was even kicked! I was just hoping to put some respectability on the scoreline and make a game of it. Ballack's inclusion was one which I felt at the time could count against me. It was between Ballack and Deco for me, but my bias for the German won the day (and I also didn't want anybody else getting him! ). Busquets - Xavi - Deco would have been great but I felt that choosing Deco at the stage of the draft would have been a round or two too early.

Anyway, as I said, I enjoyed it and it was an experience.

 

[antohan]

Maybe that would have enabled you to pick better defenders.

It's not about Ballack being a cnut, but more an issue over whether that sort of midfielder would work alongside Xavi and Busquets. We've been seeing for years now how well balanced that unit is with Iniesta, and Ballack is nothing like Iniesta! I don't think a box-to-box player suits that unit, it actually throws it completely out of kilter.

It was worth taking the risk of Xavi-Busquets-AN Other and trying to pick Iniesta up later, no question, but you probably should have moved on to other areas of the pitch and not use a 4th round pick on a midfielder you didn't need and would have replaced later.