TEAM MOBY
Building a team composed of players from the greatest footballing heaven in the history of the game couldn't have been short of a beautiful journey, which is what it was. Needless to say, the team is going to go out and play an exquisite brand of football, showcasing a level of flair, technique and skill that cannot be matched by another.
The Marauding Defense
If there's a position in this country that hasn't been blessed as much as the others it is the central defense, which is why I am glad to add the greatest defender produced by the nation, by far - The mythical Domingos. The Divine Master - who made defending look like an art with his elegance and masterful skill in winning the ball while being a true force on the ball. No doubt he will be leading this backline and will be at home being the first wave of attack from the back. Partnering him is the complete all round presence of Thiago Silva.
Quickly moving on to the flanks, one of the greatest left backs of all time takes the stage - The Encyclopedia Nilton Santos. An immense playmaker from the back and a true wall in defense. A bit more flair and madness on the other side as Dani Alves completes the backline, no one here is a stranger to his insane impact down the right for Pep's Barca and just how deadly a match winner he can be.
The Men in the Middle
Quickly going over the names - the midfield duo is comprised of the tactically astute and incredibly intelligent Leo Junior and the all round dynamo Paulo Roberto Falcao. Junior made a great name for him on the left flank but it was his midfield masterclass in Italy that prompted him to be classed as one of the best players in the league when it was littered with all time great talent. An incredible foil for the highly flamboyant Falcao and would allow him a great partner in possession. Not much needs to be said about the main man here. Falcao is absolutely at home as the heart of the team here, surrounded by incredible support and the responsibility to bring it all together with his unmatched ability to control the tempo and link up play.
Coming to the attacking midfield, is the pair of two absolute geniuses on the ball who couldn't be happier with each other's company. Socrates - no stranger to an attacking midfield duo takes up his role again providing incredible vision and penetration and would be absolutely honoured to support The Ethopian Prince, Didi! The hero of 1958 World Cup will be the final cog in the midfield four providing constant unstoppable ammunition for the attack and wide players in the team.
When Joga meets Bonito
You cannot think beyond these two names when you try to think of someone who provided endless amount of joy and highlights playing a brand of football that simply dazzled audiences day in day out, were absolutely unplayable and dominated everyone under the sun while revolutionising the game itself. Ronaldinho and Ronaldo. RONALDINHO AND RONALDO! The front duo of the team that is packed with absolutely elite skill, dribbling, pace, creativity and FLAIR! I'll leave the rest to your memories. More on them later.
- Building from the Back
As expected, a team based on moving the ball all around the park must start from the back and the entire back four is absolutely seasoned in that regard. In Domingos and Nilton we have two elite passers who can connect any two points on the pitch with a little swing of the boot. In Alves we have one of the most dangerous and skillful ball carriers to play in defense and rounding it up is Silva who is one of the better passers of the ball in his own right.
- The Square
Right, so the elephant in the room is likely to be the midfield setup. Falcao and Socrates shouldn't have any problems whatsoever in finding themselves back in a setup they are most remembered for. Junior will be assuming his league form here to partner Falcao as the DM and provide the required freedom and more importantly the passing and intelligence to keep the ball moving. In Socrates, we have probably one of the greatest attacking midfielders who was just as happy to be the deputy and form an elite partnership with a dominant playmaker. Didi will be the home of the final ball and one who would constantly provide key exchanges with Falcao and Socrates in his role of taking out opponents either with a thread of the needle pass or bringing both the midfielders and the wide players into crucial positions with the ball. Importantly, his ability to control midfield will be a great asset in allowing Falcao freedom to maraud forward and take those dangerous shots at goal. Lastly, with him dropping into midfield there's an easy bet that the control of the middle of the park will never be let out of our hands.
- The Flanks
Evidently, the fullbacks are absolutely key in this formation and there are few better in performing the required role here than what we have. On the left Nilton will provide his dominant presence from the back. With a presence like Ronaldinho on that side who can just as easily peel wide as he can drift inside, an astute and tactically elite presence like Nilton is absolutely ideal, who can make a call on when to overlap and provide him support. While on the other side there's a bigger need of an out and out freight train that can dominate the entire flank from end to end and that's literally Dani Alves to a tee. A physical specimen of endless stamina and work rate, he will be an absolute menace with that space in front of him. Both Falcao and Didi are well capable of attracting opponents as they will allowing Alves an incredible opportunity to go out there and stamp his mark on the game.
- The Fire
I won't be going on about just how deadly a duo of Ronaldinho and Ronaldo in full flight will be, as it will be. Tactically, Dinho will have a free role as he was best in at his prime at Barca, getting to use the entire outside-inside left channel and driving towards goal or making unstoppable plays to bring others in. Similarly, there's no restriction positionally for Ronaldo, who is no stranger in using the full length and width of the pitch to pull the defense and rip it apart. With his direct runs at frightening pace and unreal dribbling skills, he will be taking the ball all around the goal and running with it. The front two both have excellent natural chemistry and would be providing the required mobility as well as constant 1-2 punches especially with the service behind them.
TEAM PAT MUSTARD
The Formation:
A 2-3-2-3 Metodo seems the only fitting choice for this group of players and this theme. It’ll be a familiar system for my La Maquina nucleus of Moreno,Pedernera and Loustau, who will slot in seamlessly.
Antonio Sastre, a forgotten legend of the game, will reprise the same right half back role where he won a Copa America with Argentina and helped revolutionise Brazilian football with Sao Paulo. Luis Monti, meanwhile, was crucial to the genesis of the Metodo system:
Pozzo turned instead to Luisito Monti, who had played for Argentina in the 1930 World Cup. He joined Juventus in 1931, and became one of the oriundi, the South American players who, thanks to Italian heritage, qualified to play for their adopted country. Already thirty when he signed, Monti was overweight and, even after a month of solitary training, was not quick. He was, though, fit, and became known as ‘Doble ancho’ (‘Double-wide’) for his capacity to cover the ground. Pozzo, perhaps influenced by a formation that had already come into being at Juventus, used him as a centro mediano, a halfway house - not quite Charlie Roberts, but certainly not Herbie Roberts either. He would drop when the other team had possession and mark the opposing centre-forward, but would advance and become an attacking fulcrum when his side had the ball. Although he was not a third back - Glanville, in fact, says it was only in 1939 with an article Bernardini wrote after Pozzo’s side had drawn 2-2 against England in Milan that the full implications of the WM (the sistema, as Pozzo called it, as opposed to the traditional metodo) were fully appreciated in Italy - he played deeper than a traditional centre-half, and so the two inside-forwards retreated to support the wing-halves. The shape was thus a 2-3-2-3, a W-W. At the time it seemed, as the journalist Mario Zappa put it in La Gazzetta della Sport, ‘a model of play that is the synthesis of the best elements of all the most admired systems.’
Our style of play will be closer to Renato Cesarini’s great River Plate team of the 1940s than Pozzo’s more direct Italy, with a firm emphasis on probing, possession football with frequent interchanges of position between the attackers and freedom for the flair players to express themselves.
The Modern Dimension:
There are two aspects to consider here. Firstly, whether a 2-3-5 variant that came of age in the 1930s bears any relation to the modern game. Secondly, whether my modern players can work in the system, and moreover in Messi’s case whether the system can work for him.
On the first point:
1) The 2-3-2-3 was in itself a significant departure from the older pyramid 2-3-5 with its archaic five attackers strung across the frontline, and Cesarini’s version at River Plate was punctuated with further tactical evolutions. In the La Maquina system, the nominal attackers contributed hugely to the midfield, and Loustau on the left wing played a significant role defensively.
From the late twenties, inside-forwards in both Uruguay and Argentina had begun pulling deep from the front line, but under Cesarini, River took such movement to extremes…it was Moreno and Pedernera who dropped off into the space in front of the half-line. Loustau, meanwhile, patrolled the whole of the right flank, becoming known as a ‘ventilador-w ing’ - ‘fan-wing’ (‘puntero-ventilador’ is used, but the half-English term seems more common) - because he was a winger who gave air to the midfield by doing some of their running for them.
2) The renaissance of the Monti role: Jonathan Wilson has written convincingly on the positional similarities between Monti’s centro mediano role and that of the modern day DM, describing Sergio Busquets as the ‘modern day Monti’. He goes further and argues that we’ve actually seen modern formations that would be better denoted as a 2-3-2-3 than the more typical 4-3-3:
We understand that full-backs attack and that in a back four the two centre-backs will almost invariably play deeper than their full-backs, but the formation as we note it does not record that. Barcelona tend to play a 4-1-2-3 or a 4-2-1-3, according to our system of notation; heat maps of average position, though, show it as a 2-3-2-3. Barcelona, like Mexico, play a W-W.
Regarding my modern era players plugging into the system, the role of the GK and CBs requires little justification. I’ve opted for Simeone instead of Marzolini as with two wingers in my attacking line I want my half backs to support the midfield rather than be primary width providers. Simeone in any case has played as a left wing back for Argentina during WC 98, and his credentials as a box to box midfielder are well-known. Alongside the rugged Monti and ahead of the two CBs, he’ll add valuable pragmatism to counterbalance the free-flowing attack.
Messi, meanwhile, should be in familiar territory, playing at the apex of a technically brilliant team who frequently toyed with opponents while imposing a revolutionary brand of possession football on them:
They called us the “Knights of Anguish” because we didn’t look for the goal,’ said Muñoz. ‘We never thought we couldn’t score against our rivals. We went out on the pitch and played our way: take the ball, give it to me, a gambeta, this, that and the goal came by itself... Inside the box, of course, we wanted to score, but in the midfield we had fun. There was no rush. It was instinctive.
The Matchup:
There’s two factors that jump out as stylistic positives for my team:
1) Lack of pressing: It’s always a slight concern when packing a team with older players that they won’t have encountered intense modern pressing. This shouldn’t be much of an issue here, as for all their immense gifts Aldo’s team with the likes of Socrates and Ronaldinho won’t be imposing an intense press on us.
2) Centrally-orientated play: Not a criticism in and of itself, but Aldo’s system will rely on Dani Alves as the primary width provider, with others well capable of providing supplementary width. However, with our team being packed with players comfortable operating in central midfield areas, it’s probably preferable to facing a team with a more width-orientated formation.
