TEAM PHYSIOCRAT
VS
TEAM MOBY
VS
TEAM MOBY
TEAM PHYSIOCRAT FORMATION AND TACTICS
Tactics
Asymmetric 433
Defensive Line Moderate/High
Moderate/High risk possession team (possession with a purpose) stretching the play both laterally and vertically.
Marking - Zonal, no man-to-man making during open play.
Player Name - Player Position - Player Role/Info
Walter Zenga - Goalkeeper - IFFHS Goalkeeper of the year '88, '89 and '90. Inter keeper for over 10 years and has 58 caps for Italy.
Elias Figueroa - Ball-playing CB- bring the ball out from the back and utilising his passing range. FIFA voted him best player in the world in '75 and '76. He will be a little more defensive in possession than against Skizz but will still provide an outlet from deep.
Oscar Ruggeri- Centre Back - Classic stopper. La Liga Foreign player of the year '89 and SA Footballer of the year '91. 97 caps for Argentina. In 86' won the World Cup with Argentina and the Libertadores with River Plate.
Anatoliy Demyanenko - Attacking Right Back – Bomb forward and overlap Littbarski. Dynamo Kiev legend with 333 appearances and 80 caps for the USSR. Voted third greatest Ukranian player of all-time behind Blokhin and Shevchenko.
Emlyn Hughes - Defensive Left-back/ CB - Began his career at left back and ended up as a CB so is the perfect play to move to CB when Figueroa moves into midfield. Captain of the great Liverpool side of the 70s (four leagues and two European Cups) and also captained England. Footballer of the year in '77.
Franky van der Elst – DM – Destroyer however he also had great timing and positional sense. Perfect for shielding the back four and for playing accurate simple, passes. Won the Belgian Golden Shoe twice which is pretty impressive for a defensive midfielder. 466 appearances for Club Bruges and 86 caps for Belgium and played in four consecutive world cups.
Johan Neeskens – Box-to-box CM– Replaces Whonoz Munoz. Brilliant engine and technical ability who can link with Littbarski and Demyanenko in possession. The ultimate box-to-box CM.
Carlos Valderrama – Attacking CM Playmaker – the great Colombian playmaker with excellent passing and dribbling ability. He will start off deepish but move forward to a more classic 10 position in possession. His through balls to the front three will be a nightmare for Sizz's defence. South American footballer of the year '87 and '93.
Pierre Littbarski - Right Wing Forward – Wide forward role to cut in with his excellent dribbling and provide a goal threat as well as playing in Careca - Littbarski most assists in the 1982 World Cup. At Koln between '81-85 he averaged nearly a goal every two games which easily equal in this side.
John Barnes - Playmaking Left Winger - Great dribbler and crosser but with far greater intelligence than a typical winger who will be a dream for Careca. Player of the Year in '88 and '90. Also a member of the PFA's team of the century (players between 1977-1996).
Careca - Striker - If he would have been fit Brazil could well have won the '82 World Cup. An almost 1 in 2 record for Napoli in Serie A's ultra-defensive heyday. Excellent movement and intelligence he will be a hand-full on the ground and in the air.
TEAM MOBY FORMATION AND TACTICS
We will play the 4-2-3-1 formation. Claudio Taffarel is the goalkeeper. The central defense comprises of the brilliant all round presence of Paul McGrath coupled with the legendary and one of the greatest defenders and sweepers of all time in Gaetano Scirea. Sccirea would be marshalling the defense with his wonderful leadership and organization skills while McGrath provides the perfect foil in terms of providing the all round presence next to him which can cover a vast array of threats, while sharing a lot of his burden to play the ball out from the back with calmness and composure making a really formidable central defensive pairing.
Flanking them are two absolutely impregnable defensive stalwarts in Berti Vogts and Stuart Pearce. Vogts brings in his tremendous marking ability and is a nightmare for any left winger as Barnes will find out in this match and in addition to his all time great defense his ability on the ball and the combination down the right with Houseman should not be ignored, as the evidence from his club career clearly shows. In Pearce there is another massively tough mentally leader who frequently showcased his tough as nails defense against an array of threats as well as his quality swing of the left foot when having the ball.
The midfield comprises of one of the greatest CMs ever in Graeme Souness, as good as they come in this time period and one who dominated England and Europe as Liverpool's central figure. Partnering him is the insanely talented and hard working Soren Lerby. Souness' tight defense, strong mentality and tactical astuteness is the perfect foil for the all action Lerby to take the battle in his hands and provide his presence both in defense and attack. Both these midfielders provide an excellent shield to the defense and impactful passing and running with the ball going forward.
On the flanks, we have two excellent wingers in Paulo Futre and René Houseman. Two outstanding dribblers, who with their pace and ability to turn on a dime and leave defenders for dead would be vital in providing our attack with ammo down the flanks. Both were good passers and crossers of the balls. They were equally comfortable cutting in and getting involved in the build-up play as they were drifting out wide and beating the opposition full-back to provide the width, and definitely not shy of darting towards the goal and getting goals for themselves.
At the heart of the team is, Zico. Playing in a free-role behind the striker, Zico has been given the license to roam all around the final third and link-up with others. Futre and Houseman can provide him with service and link-up from the flanks along with the full-backs while the midfield can get him the ball in and near the final third where he would get the chance to run at opposition defenders. He would be provided with adequate service to do his magic in the attacking third. Also important to mention that the wide players and the front two pack an enormous amount of skill and trickery allowing Zico a lot of opportunities to get behind the dead ball from deadly situations, and given he's one of the greatest at hitting them into the net that would definitely be a great weapon for us.
Up front, we have Tostao. It is well known that Tostao formed one of the greatest partnerships up front seen in the World Cups with Pelé in 1970, providing the perfect foil in terms of skill, link up, ability to drop deep and release him, and provide elite finishing himself with the service from the great man. Here, he has the White Pele to do the same and we expect him to form a perfectly natural Samba partnership up front with both being perfectly capable of scoring or creating for the other. Not to mention, he will be a great facilitator for the two wide men who love to cut inside and score.
Overall in this game, I acknowledge Physio's fantastic backline which we aim to constantly engange with the breathtaking front four that has been assembled in this team. Zico and Tostao were both right up there amongst the best players of their generation in terms of skill, technique, dribbling, creativity and match winning ability with the former being one of the greatest ever in that regard and both have shown on the highest level that when surrounded with similar high skilled partners they usually create partnerships that are greater than the sum of the parts which we hope to accomplish here. Between the two of them and the great outlets and support from out wide who would constantly inject pace, trickery and stretch the play creating space for the central players it is hard not to see them scoring.
R Greatest Belgian DM of all-time and won the player of the year twice in Belgium, not bad for a DM. Since 1973 only three defensive midfielders have won the PFA Player of the Year and none won it twice. 