Rivals Draft QF - Pat vs Gio

With players at their club peak, who would win?

  • Total voters
    15
  • Poll closed .

Physiocrat

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Pat



Gio

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Pat Tactics

Formation: 4-2-3-1

  • Recber's big move to Barca ended in dismal failure, but he enjoyed a distinguished 12 season career at Fener and was, briefly, seen as one of the best GKs in the world, finishing third in the IFHHS Goalkeeper of the Year rankings in 2002.
  • The distinguished defensive organiser Vasovic led Partizan Belgrade all the way to a European Cup final in 1966, even scoring in a narrow loss to Real Madrid. Carlos Mozer, the athletic powerhouse who hit his imposing peak at Marseille, comes in to partner him.
  • The athletic, technically sound Alex Sandro emerged as one of the most promising flank-dominators around at Porto, while on the other side Danny McGrain is a Celtic all-time XI shoo-in, with sports writer Hugh McIlvanney commenting, "Anybody who saw him at his best had the unmistakable impression of watching a great player, probably one who had no superior anywhere in the world."
  • Wim Jansen and Marco Verratti form a feisty and tenacious midfield pivot, and Verratti's freakish press-resistance and stratospheric passing stats should ensure steady and punchy service to the attackers.
  • A youthful Hernan Crespo, who fired River Plate to the 1996 Copa Libertadores with 10 goals in 13 matches, leads the line. Behind him, Bale, Edmundo and Reus possess an impressive range of abilities to unlock defences, and have freedom to interchange and overload as they wish in the attacking phase. This ability to create dangerous overloads was a notable feature of Reus' performances under Tuchel especially, and it will be an important way of discomfiting Gio's excellent FBs.
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  • Edmundo's signing was a catalyst for Palmeiras to win two successive Brazilian championships after 17 trophyless seasons, while Bale hit an extraordinary individual level at Spurs, winning the PFA Player of the Year award twice in three seasons. At this point Reus has cemented himself as one of Dortmund's greatest players and is a personal favourite of mine - a match-winner with excellent end product, but also a grafter and team player.

Gio Tactics

ON THE BALL:
  • Classic 4-3-3 with a false 9. Several classy technicians in central midfield and wide areas. The Benfica legends partnership of Mario Coluna and Rui Costa should hit it off.
  • Litmanen should particularly enjoy the freedom to drop into the hole and then burst forwards.
  • Various routes to goal - two wide forwards/wingers who can stretch the play and go direct for goal, both cutting onto their stronger foot; central midfielders who can probe, cut open and threaten from range; dynamic overlapping full-backs from the top shelf in this pool.
OFF THE BALL:
  • Compact positional play with moderate line. A few thematic partnerships - the French full-backs in Amoros and Lizarazu; the crafty South American trio in Da Guia, Gamarra and Cordoba; the silky Scandinavian pair of Laudrup and Litmanen; and the Portuguese central midfield - should ensure players are in sync.
 

PLAYER PROFILES​

OSCAR CORDOBA
Outstanding goalkeeper who built on an imperious South American career at club and international level when he moved to Europe - first as an emergency rescue act for Perugia in Serie A, then at Besiktas for four years, winning the league in his first season.

MANUEL AMOROS
Top class wing-back who was an important part of the all-conquering Marseille side of the late 1980s and early 1990s, winning the title in 3 seasons and reaching 2 Champions League finals. Should forge a dominant wing partnership with Savicevic.

BIXENTE LIZARAZU
Won 18 titles whilst at Bayern Munich edging past Maldini and Carlos to be chosen as the left-back in the 1998/99 ESM Team of the Year and 2000/01 UEFA Team of the Year.

DOMINGOS DA GUIA
Often regarded as Brazil's best ever defender who spent two seasons at Boca in his mid-20s.

CARLOS GAMARRA
Played for Corinthians at the peak of his late 1990s powers, when he was also voted as the best defender in South America and won the Bola De Prata. Read the game as well as anyone and was rarely if ever caught out as evidenced by his exemplary disciplinary record.

VIKTOR ONOPKO
Spartak Onopko was very much peak Onopko, scoring 21 goals in his first two seasons, winning Footballer of the Year in both campaigns, and crowned with three conseutive league wins. Generally under-rated, but a proper defensive player who shone very highly in Russian football.

JARI LITMANEN
Enjoyed several successful seasons at Ajax, culminating in a dominant mid-90s peak where he bossed the Champions League as the fulcrum of Van Gaal's system.

RUI COSTA
Early 20s Benfica star who knew how to play alongside other creatives and who would hit the ground running in Serie A with Fiorentina.

MARIO COLUNA
With 10 Portuguese league titles, 6 Portuguese cups and 2 European Cups to his name, Coluna comes with pedigree from the top shelf for his exploits at Benfica. Individually he was an influential player - captain of Benfica for the bulk of his career - who was well recognised by international audiences - an ever present in the World Soccer World XI for 4 seasons from 1963 through 1966. His physicality aligned with a probing playmaking style should dovetail well with Rui Costa.

BRIAN LAUDRUP
Prime Laudrup who enjoyed his best years at Ibrox where he stayed despite a bid from Barcelona. For many the best to have ever played in the Scottish game, he was twice Player of the Year and showed his class for Denmark at every tournament in the 1990s (winning the Euros in 92, player of the tournament in the 95 Confederations Cup, second top scorer at Euro 96, and in the all-star team at World Cup 98). To give a flavour of just how influential he was, he scored or assisted 12 out of Rangers' 14 goals in the first three months of the season after joining.

DEJAN SAVICEVIC
2nd in the Ballon D'Or for Cvezda where he won the European Cup.

 
I'm not a huge fan of @Gio 's midfield personally. Coluna is a very odd player – top notch on the ball and strong as an ox but not that mobile or agile... not someone who I'd want next to an essentially a number 10 and a CB-ish defensive midfielder Onopko (both of whom are fine on their own there). Coluna's at his best as the furtherest attacking midfielder where his weaknesses aren't as exposed and his shooting & passing are well used – but you've already got Costa, Litmanen and Savicevic contesting the space.

Edging towards Pat but I'm not certain yet.
 
A few thoughts...

With Litmanen and Savicevic vs Bale and Edmundo natural playing styles, i can see Pat being outnumbered and outplayed in midfield/more central areas quite often. Litmanen dropped deeper and got more involved over a wider area (especially defensively) than Edmundo, and Savicevic roamed about in deeper central areas more than Bale, and combined better. I don't remember Laudrup too well, though.

Pat has more varied goal threat between the traditional box stuff of Crespo, Edmundo's second striker positioning and moments of genius, Bale's long range shooting, Reus as a good all-round direct goal threat/

As much as i had a lot of time for him as a player, i think Onopko would be far better suited to a more conservative back five libero or sweeper role at this level, and in particular when up against players with great pace like Bale and to a lesser extent Reus. Like Koeman, F. De Boer and other similar players from that era his main problem was his lack of agility and acceleration. unlike those two, he was quite fast over longer distances, but that was often much more of a practical asset offensively. He would sometimes play as a DM or very aggressive libero against weaker teams than Spartak/Russia who were getting pinned back, and provide intelligent late or overlapping central runs to open them up. In games against equal or better opposition, you would often not see that side nearly as much. He played almost entirely as a more balanced (leaning towards conservative) libero of the era, or just a centre-back with lots of distributing/organising responsibility.

Compact style and moderate line, along with my belief Gio would often have a numerical advantage in midfield would mitigate it somewhat, but like a Koeman or Blanc, he's not agile/fast enough to push too far up the park without getting destroyed for pace at times by Bale and Reus. I think he'd struggle with counterattacks and be targeted eventually, especially by Bale, and forced into sitting deeper than you would ideally like in a 4-3-3.
 
harms said:
I'm not a huge fan of @Gio 's midfield personally. Coluna is a very odd player – top notch on the ball and strong as an ox but not that mobile or agile... not someone who I'd want next to an essentially a number 10 and a CB-ish defensive midfielder Onopko (both of whom are fine on their own there). Coluna's at his best as the furtherest attacking midfielder where his weaknesses aren't as exposed and his shooting & passing are well used – but you've already got Costa, Litmanen and Savicevic contesting the space.

Edging towards Pat but I'm not certain yet.
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There does seem to be a lack of pace and mobility through the centre in Gio's team that I'd back Reus and Bale in particular to exploit on the counter. Both of them could be lethal at slicing through teams in those central zones.





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My main selling point is what we do on the ball. I imagine Bale and Edmundo are too forwardy to offer much resistance when Coluna, Costa and Savicevic start bouncing the ball about. Leaves a lot of heavy lifting for Verratti and Jansen to do off the ball. Especially when Litmanen overloads too. And it’s difficult to push up with Laudrup’s sheer pace stretching the defence back.

harms said:
I'm not a huge fan of @Gio 's midfield personally. Coluna is a very odd player – top notch on the ball and strong as an ox but not that mobile or agile... not someone who I'd want next to an essentially a number 10 and a CB-ish defensive midfielder Onopko (both of whom are fine on their own there). Coluna's at his best as the furtherest attacking midfielder where his weaknesses aren't as exposed and his shooting & passing are well used – but you've already got Costa, Litmanen and Savicevic contesting the space.

Edging towards Pat but I'm not certain yet.
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Yes, I’d acknowledge it’s a possession-heavy approach - better to fully commit balls-deep - rather than compromise and then weaken the more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts strategy.

So the idea here is a #6 and two #8/10 hybrids which has become the model structure for elite midfields in the modern game. There would be a fixed midfield positional structure where I wouldn’t expect the midfield trio to move too much from their positions. For example, I don’t see it massively different to the Ndidi/Tielemans/Maddison midfield (better examples out there I know). Rui Costa was always closer to 8 than 9.5 on the 10 spectrum. It’s hard to assess Coluna in a modern set-up - and would defer to you on anything from that era - but if he shares style with Seedorf then he has always been an adaptable cog to join up disparate midfield units.

Elsewhere in terms of individual fits, Onopko feels fine as a sitting 6, able to drop inbetween the CBs to allow Lizarazu and Amoros to thrust on into more of a 3-4-3 shape. That too suits Gamarra who played as RCB for Paraguay in a back 3 at World Cups, shutting out pacy counter-attackers in Henry and Stoichkov who presented many of the same threats as Bale would. Same applies for Da Guia who had to defend wide open spaces in the old back 2 system. Arguably it better suits Lizarazu who spent his Bayern years as wing-back in a 3-5-2. So I think we could proactively shift into that shape on the ball, rather than it being a reactive approach to Onopko’s holding tendencies.
 
Lot to like about both teams. Lovely addition of Reus (what a glorious player) and Mozer for Pat to compliment attack and defence, Vasović and Crespo most notably. Also, Jensen - Verratti axis in the middle of the park... Would have a lot of work on their hands (or feets), but in the context of this shit draft great combo to make it hard for the opposition.

As for Gio, brilliant use of Litmanen as a false 9. Think he would absolutely thrive in this role and then Lizarazu and Amoros as kind of fullbacks to run behind Laudrup and Savicevic. Only issue is that I would like Mane type of winger instead of Savicevic or Laudrup considering both thrived with a ball at their feet. Otherwise, fantastic team.

Hard to pick, so I will pussy out.
 
@Gio can you tell me more about the wing-forwards in your team. I didn't really think of either of them as natural wing forwards but I don't know either of them well enough so I could be wrong.
 
Himannv said:
@Gio can you tell me more about the wing-forwards in your team. I didn't really think of either of them as natural wing forwards but I don't know either of them well enough so I could be wrong.
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Neither are classic wing-forwards in the purest Mane-sense. That said I think Laudrup, as good as he was as a wide player, was that well rounded as a roaming attacker he makes it work quite easily. He often played as a centre-forward for Rangers down the middle so attacked those central zones. If Hateley was playing, he'd hang out wide more and service him directly with crosses. If there was an injury crisis as was often the case at Ibrox in the 1990s, he'd be on his own up top, or paired with someone like Durie. Here is a good example of him playing in a more conventional front two to show his movement and style:



Beam makes an insightful point about Savicevic preferring the ball to feet, which I'd agree with. Why he works for me is he loved to make that run from outside-right to inside-right, usually with the ball at his feet - but he could certainly start wide and combine well with others. And get on the end of things to score pretty regularly from that wider position. Goals 3-4, 12-14 and 17-19 are all good examples of this:

 


Someone's 5 favourite Onopko Spartak goals...shows some of his clever runs.



Goals at Oviedo, the last is a beast of a shot.



The way Onopko ended up at Oviedo was a classic story of the incompetence and dodgy nature of ex-ussr clubs in 90s transfer market. I don't fully recall all the details given at the time but it was something like: Radomir Antic was a big fan and wanted him at Atletico (who had just won the league) so when they moved for him during january window Onopko/Spartak goes through the process, and he arrives in Spain thinking he was an Atletico Madrid player. Then Oviedo kicked up a big protest to the Spanish FA saying he had already signed for them and had documents to prove it. Onopko (as he tells it in later interviews) seemed to suggest he wasn't made aware of the full implications of some of the stuff he was being told to sign off on during earlier negotiations with various clubs, but was naive to it at the time; if i remember rightly, he thought it was non-binding agreement to reopen negotiations at the end of the season, if he had no offers he liked more. Atletico contested it, but Oviedo won and the spanish fa declared he had to honour the contract or face a ban from Spanish football (not sure how long it was). With Spain as his destination of choice anyway, he opted to accept it rather than stay in comparatively destitute spartak/russia. I hoped he would move on quickly, as Oviedo were by then perpetual relegation battlers and no place to prosper as a footballer, but he seemed to enjoy quickly becoming a big fish/club legend there. He ended up being very loyal to them, even sticking around for a season in the second-tier when they went through great financial difficulty, finally got relegated, and couldn't pay his wages anymore. Of course, that was fecking stupid personally; already slowing down, he just ended up losing the rest of his sharpness for top league level football.

One thing about the earlier comments about him struggling physically in this role, i still think it's not ideal, especially against someone like Bale, buttbf my memory was going more to the later-90s version. The one that had lost a step or two physically, and seemed to be stagnating as a player by then at Oviedo. He had some notable moments around that time of getting destroyed for pace/agility, like Wiltord's proto-Bale goal in Russia's 3-2 qualifying win in Paris and some moments against Zidane/Pires in the earlier-3-2 loss; in general a run of shaky form/dropping a level that made him into an unfair scapegoat for nt issues that truly lay elsewhere. In early-mid 90s he wasn't yet in 90s Koeman/late 90s Frank De Boer mode, and did move more between defence and some defensive focused midfield roles while coping fine physically against strong opposition in the CL/national team; he just couldn't do it often because he was the only international level, tactically responsible defender spartak had.

their strength was in their midfield creativity, and his partner Nikiforov was very formidable in some ways at that time, yet not at all a traditional or tactically responsible defender. He was a converted forward, there for his ball-playing in an experiment in having two CB's that could interchange runs into midfield at will, and interact fully with Oleg Romantsev's proto-pep short-passing/combinations/overload heavy midfield tactical schemes. It wasn't pragmatic or too successful though, as Nikiforov was not positionally responsible, and Romantsev carried on the proud spartak tradition of obsessing over on the ball stuff, while not giving a shit about defensive structure, transitions or pressing beyond the very, very basics (this was always the difference in their long rivalry with Kyiv). So you got some really impressive for the era combination football thanks to numerous gifted technical midfielders that was just too vulnerable at CL level against the better teams, especially as they lacked a very good forward to reliably finish off all the through balls and longer possession plays. Or if there was a few key players missing /off-form, poor bastard Onopko would end up very exposed trying his best to keep some defensive solidity/structure at all.

It was quite a similar situation to Chivadze at Dynamo Tbilisi in the previous era. These were the two "romantic" philosophy clubs of ussr football: Tbilisi more joga-bonito south american style; spartak one of the various prototypes of more collective modern passing styles, but still a lot of improv compared to current sides. In both the defenders were left exposed with a very difficult job to hold it all together.

Probably the best example of Onopko doing well further up in midfield in a system with more defensive security is his duel with Gullit while playing as a side-midfielder/wing-back role at Euro92. i've not watched the full game in many years, but my recollection is he clearly got the better of him to the point Gullit was taken off with 20/25 minutes to go.

Sorry for the rambling, i've had too much spare time on my hands recently.
 
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Crikey, how did that happen? I was 4-1 down when I last looked at the score this morning. Good game and hard luck @Gio . Loved seeing Litmanen get such a meaty role. Wonderful player.

Demyanenko_square_jaw said:
Sorry for the rambling, i've had too much spare time on my hands recently.
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Long may it continue! Your posts during this draft have been a great read.
 
Himannv said:
@Pat_Mustard I know next to nothing about Edmundo. More info please.
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A picture tells a thousand words, so here's a match comp I made for him a while back:



Not exactly ideal for selling him as a vote-winner, as the lunatic starts a brawl that ends up with himself and five other players getting sent off, but an insight into his style at least. Most of his flicks and dribbles didn't really come off in this match, but it does give an insight into his style and movement patterns - constantly trying to make something happen in the final third with the ball at his feet, and with a tendency to peel out to either flank rather than dropping further back and helping to construct the deeper build up. As @Demyanenko_square_jaw mentioned, very much a second striker rather than an architect and match-organiser in Gio's Rui Costa mould. I liked the turn of phrase in this article about his Palmeiras team that described him as a "study in madcap improvisation".* His two goals showed a good nose for sniffing out goalscoring opportunities in the box too, which reached an apex in 1997 when he broke the record for most goals in a Campeonato Brasileiro season.

*Never better demonstrated than this moment of genius against Utd:



As regards his level, I think 39 caps for Brazil speaks highly for him, given that he was a lunatic and the competition was so fierce for those attacking places: bona fide greats in Ronaldo, Romario and Rivaldo, prolific goalscorers such as Jardel, Elber and Bebeto, and all manner of rival creative talents vying to stake a claim including Djalminha, Rai, Leonardo, Giovanni.

I'll try to make another video or two at some point as I want to know more about him myself.
 
I have no idea what the score was at the full-time whistle - only came online after midnight.

@Pat_Mustard - if you were winning, then take your spot in the semi-final.
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
I was the last to vote before close and it was tied 7-7.

Someone very yed today (after deadline) and it doesn't count.

Send me heads or tails please

@Gio @Pat_Mustard
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It was 7-6 when I posted yesterday at 19:49 (just under two hours after the poll should have closed), and I could have sworn it said the poll was closed then. Are you sure you didn't reopen it by mistake, if that's even possible?

Gio said:
I have no idea what the score was at the full-time whistle - only came online after midnight.

@Pat_Mustard - if you were winning, then take your spot in the semi-final.
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Cheers mate but we can go to the coin flip like Edgar Allan Blatter has decreed - feck all between the two teams really, and I don't exactly have a grand vision for this team going forward.
 
Pat_Mustard said:
Cheers mate but we can go to the coin flip like Edgar Allan Blatter has decreed - feck all between the two teams really, and I don't exactly have a grand vision for this team going forward.
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Same here to be honest. My only plan was to rejig the personnel through the centre of midfield/defence depending on what was available, perhaps moving out a couple to get a greater stylistic alignment for the team.
 
Fingers crossed for Les Cocker to pop up with a 173rd minute winner.

The longest football match in recorded history was the showdown between English clubs Stockport County and Doncaster Rovers at Edgeley Park on March 30, 1946.

The duration of the match was a remarkable three hours and 23 minutes and the world record has stood for over half a century.

It was a Division Three North Cup replay, after the first game ended 2-2 and, as it would turn out, 203 more minutes could not yield a victor.

Tied once more at 2-2 after 90 minutes, the game between Stockport and Doncaster then went into extra time, but 30 more minutes were insufficient, with the two teams unable to score in that time period.

Before penalty shootouts were rolled out across the game, some of the methods used to decide the winner of a match after a 120-minute stalemate inluded tossing a coin and, as in this case, 'play to win'.

The 'play to win' rule was commonplace in English football during the wartime period of the 1940s and it was a form of 'golden goal' - in essence, 'next goal wins'.

Stockport thought they had clinched the winner on the 173rd minute when Les Cocker put the ball into the back of the net, but their elation was shortlived as it was agonisingly disallowed by the referee.

So they played on, each side valiantly searching for the decisive strike until, finally, the setting sun meant became too dark to play - floodlights, of course, not then commonplace at grounds.

It wasn't the end of the matter though. Doncaster won the right to host the second replay in a coin toss and they made little mistake in that game, winning emphatically with a 4-0 scoreline.

A cartoon depicting the match featured the quip: "With leaden feet County and Doncaster were interned at Edgeley Park with [referee] Mr Baker of Crewe a stern jailer."

Such lengthy encounters were relatively common during the period and another notable example came before in a War Cup match between Cardiff City and Bristol City, which lasted three hours and 20 minutes.

In many cases, spectators were able to leave the action to eat dinner at home or tend to other business, and return before the games finished.

However, the novelty soon wore off for wearied players and exasperated fans, so it wasn't long after the 1946 game between Stockport and Doncaster - a few short months - that the 'play to win' rule was scrapped.

By the 1970s, penalty shootouts had become the norm, but the allure of the neverending football match has endured for some.

In 2019, for example, a charity football match in Wales lasted 169 hours - though the conditions were non competitive and players were allowed to sleep for intervals.
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