Rivals Draft R1: Sjor vs Enigma

With players at their club peak, who would win?

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Physiocrat

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Sjor

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Enigma

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Sjor Tactics

Relatively fluid system around a tactical intelligence of Velimir Zajec. He will dictate how the team plays, whetever he drops/stays a bit deeper to allow one or both wingbacks to bombard forward or will he join in the midfield battle where the defence will form a back 4 and Mackay can hold if needed.
Team is also fluid style wise as you have all ingredients to play both possession football and a counter-attacking style, both progressive or a more defensive one.
Front three is a thing of beauty though, would give them freedom to interchange how ever they want as all three at those specific timeframes were capable of dropping deep as well as playing further up front.

Enigma Tactics

Formation: 4-2-3-1

Defence:
Lovchev is playing as attacking left back, whilst Ze Maria is in a more balanced role on the right. The defence is marshalled by Mozer, who has Tresor next to him forming a solid unit at the heart of the defence.

Midfield:
John Greig, the Rangers legend, forms the double pivot with Karembeu. Greig played numerous roles in his career both in defence and midfield and his body of work will allow our midfield to be more versatile and adjust to the opposition, whilst Karembeu adds additional steel in the center of the park. Riquelme is our main playmaker and his lack of defensive effort will be offset by hardworking left midfielder in Jugovic and the member of the Dutch total team generation - Rep. Jugovic himself played many midfield roles in his career and preferred the left side. His creative spark along with Riquelme will allow more chances for RvP to finish off and also will exploit Rep's movement coming from the right channel.

Attack:
Spearheaded by RvP at his best our attack has the variety to unlock the opposition and also the goals to win us the game.

RvP was genuine world class at Arsenal at some point scoring 59 goals during his last two years and here he will have the ammo to have his chances. Rep is also a threat from the right especially with his movement and finishing, whilst Jugovic is always threat outside the box.
 
Diogo Costa
Destined for a top club after already impressive Porto "career" where he caught the eye of a lot of top teams. Had an early Porto pick so could have pretty much pick anyone(likes of Deco and co.) but he was the only chance in the overall pool to getting a proper progressive modern keeper that is able to sweep if needed as well as play from the back. His long passing is also spectacular so a long pass towards the front 3 is a great asset to have.

Dragan Holcer
Easily the best defender in Hajduk Split history, one of the main reasons why was Hajduk so successful in then a insanely tough league(most likely one of the best in europe) that went across the whole Yugoslavia. Started as a left winger, early on moved to a centerback position and he never looked back, occasional fullback stand in so would be very comfortable if and when the team forms a back 3 with Zajec dropping back.

Luis Pereira
Before Thiago Silva emerged, he was the guy in Brazil when it came to the centerback position and his whole peak was at Palmeiras, no surprise team dominated during his reign.

Velimir Zajec
In croatia, he is probably the guy after the likes of Modric, Boban and Prosinecki. In his time often compared to Beckenbauer because of style of play and positional versatility considering he played from sweeper to n10 with ease.
Game vs Ruud Gullit and co. - not the best on the ball(which was surprise at the time considering that was his major strength) but you can see tactical intelligence and a good footballing brain. Drops back whenever it needed, stays back when someone else pushes up etc. Passing was erratic as feck but still created a good amount for his team, also after watching 2 games of the same team and seeing everyone else in that team how they use the ball, you could easily attribute that to the team tactics.

Game against Linfield in the next round of the European Cup, you can see a bit more of him on the ball here.


Gokhan Gonul
Wont bullshit, never saw the guy play i have no idea about him. Looks good on youtube, rated highly in the overall history of the club and he fits tactically - they dont call him "Turkish Cafu" for nothing.

Yuri Zhirkov
Now this is someone i watched a fair bit, absolutely spectacular player for CSKA. Would have a lot of freedom to do his magic on the wing with Zajec and Mackay in the team next to him.

Dave Mackay
Pretty familiar face in draft circles, fantastic defensive wise and importantly - quite good on the ball. Provides fantastic balance to the side as other get a bit more freedom to play with him holding the midfield - similar to Casemiro.

Paul McStay
Currently watching him play, looks a classy player that is pretty damn good on the ball.
It was a sign of how highly McStay was regarded within the game that Sir Alex Ferguson abandoned his usual 'no testimonials' policy to take his United side to Parkhead for the occasion.
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Not the only United legend that was a fan of McStay, here is Rio Ferdinand talking about him:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/_QK3YmbDnwc

Enzo Francescoli
One of the greatest players in River Plate history, has the freedom to switch around from n10 to a striker position as he wants with 2 great team players that provide energy, pace, of the ball game and are not selfish. Should shine in the role and around Pedja and Weah.

Predrag Mijatovic
Sensational footballer, if i find the time and if there is anything on footballia from the Partizan days i will make at least one compilation from that era regardless of this draft. He had it all, played all over the place for Partizan and pretty much single handedly dragged them to league and cup title while being crowned the Yugoslavia best player 2 seasons in a row


George Weah
At his absolute best at PSG, won Balon d'Or while there.
 
Pat_Mustard said:
I love that front three @Šjor Bepo . Mijatovic was such a classy player to watch at Real, although I'll admit that I don't really remember many specifics about his playing style.
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in terms of style of play he was a bit like Law, had everything in his locker on a very high level but because he was involved so much in the general play his numbers were not that spectacular. Check the vid in the post above, its short but there are clips from one or two Zvezda games where they included bits of his general play.
 
Really like Enigma’s core, it’s rock solid. Ideally would prefer some more pace in the attack - Rep notwithstanding - to unravel Riquelme’s through-balls.
 
Well done Bepo. You have a fine team and all the best going forward!
 
I remember thinking around that 95-98 time that Mijatovic was as good a supporting forward player as any in the world, then overnight he turned to crap while still only about 28. One of the worst high profile players at the 98 World Cup, and barely a good game after that. Not sure if there were any injuries involved, but i do recall him talking about his son being very ill making it increasingly tough to concentrate on football.

Jugovic i saw mainly playing as a centre midfielder or side midfielder. He was a versatile player that could play most midfield roles, but was best as a supporting, high-workrate creative player. Let him drift, cover a wide area and add balance where needed, while other players are the main DM/AMplaymaker/width. a lot of teams he was in had midfielders playing a more traditional defensive/holding role: Conte, Deschamps, Sousa, Almeyda, Di Biagio, Brnovic and the big unit Jokanovic..

Lovchev is imo a hard player to properly assess. He was probably the first Soviet fullback that was said to be often be attack minded Facchetti influenced, but that's at club level and there's hardly any good film . Most of his full games are in quite deep lying back four international games from 70-73, where the role of fullback was usually similar to main English, German contemporary style that was carried over from the late 60s. I see there's a 75/76 Uefa Cup game, away against Overath/Flohe's Koln on footballia that looks watchable compared to the grainy mess of a copy i have somewhere on an old dvd. Might be worth watching.

Zhirkov on other hand, was definitely a great attacking wingback talent: he had pace, athleticism, good football brain, and an abundance of technique/flair. easily stepped up in biggest domestic games, tougher European ones and internationals; Not as talented defensively, but more than good enough for the demands of that sort of Brazilian style wingback/fullback and not be a liability.

Of the Russian players that moved to premier league after Euro 2008, he was the one i was most sure would make the step up in purely football/league level terms. Bilyaletdinov was technically great, the sort of player a good highlight creator could easily make look like a beast, but not physically strong, had emerging reputation as a nightclub fiend, and a consistent problem getting involved enough in games where he didn't get time/space. Pav never impressed me at Spartak, he seemed a classic overperforming tournament player that was taking advantage of that; to be fair he did a lot better than i expected once he settled, and looked a better all-round player than he used to be, even if not a true success. Arshavin had excellent natural talent, yet seemed more physically suited to Spanish league, was moving too late to likely improve, and always a player that liked to coast for big parts of games once a month or so. I didn't think he would get away with it. As it turned out the physicality and pace didn't bother him at all, but the fecker was lazier than i thought (Korneev/Shalimov early 90s mentality regen, even with almost the same style of play as the first) and indeed couldn't get away with it at an age where he should have been becoming more professional in a tougher league, not less.

However Zhirkov had three things that went against him:

1. He initially didn't adapt at all to England, really struggled with the language barrier and homesickness. That was obviously the main reason things weren't going to work out, even if everything else had been fine. Turned out to have the same domestic comfort zone over succeeding abroad mentality that most players from that generation did and went for the easy money with Anzhi rather than try another PL club or top 4 league.

2. Move to Chelsea was one of the worst he could have made among bigger clubs. They didn't need him at all, with a great, defensively clearly superior LB Cole well established and fitting into their conservative (for a big club) tactics. I think Zhirkov was better pure attacker than Cole by that time, but he was never going to displace him. He could have been as single-mindedly driven for greatness in a big league as Cristiano Ronaldo and still would have needed to move club. Despite looking more restricted than the wingback CSKA role, and tactically not always suited or well integrated, i thought he still played well in most of his appearances; individually, the league step up didn't seem a problem. re-looking at his stats i noticed he had 11 assists in his 49 appearances, statistically not a bad return for a move that didn't work out.

3. He started becoming quite injury prone. A knee injury and reccurring issues from it kept him from even making a subs debut until December or January if i remember correctly. Then in many seasons (including second one at Chelsea) afterward he would have different injuries that would keep him out for 2/3 months of games.
 
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Demyanenko_square_jaw said:
I remember thinking around that 95-98 time that Mijatovic was as good a supporting forward player as any in the world, then overnight he turned to crap while still only about 28. One of the worst high profile players at the 98 World Cup, and barely a good game after that. Not sure if there were any injuries involved, but i do recall him talking about his son being very ill making it increasingly tough to concentrate on football.
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Didnt know that, but interesting thing about him is that he is probably the only one alongside Suker(though he was a bit crap) from that insanely talented generation that actually fulfilled his talent, everyone else underperformed(id say mostly because of the war) even though most ended up as good, very good players but they were so talented that they had the chance to be proper all-time greats.

Cheers for the post, as for the russians abroad....it seems that everyone after Karpin/Mostovoi just loses talent the second they leave the border :(
 
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