The First Redcafe Sheep Draft

I think Gio has the right way about it with the pick, best wait til morning and hopefully he'll show up. Probably hasn't even seen the thread because he's not been posting at all.
 
He was around after it started but before Cutch picked. Will hopefully hear from him in the morning.
 
I don't really have a clue about backups, nothing stands out. I'll likely decide on the spot based on where others have strengthened.
 
There are enough good wingbacks left to make it work.
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
Yeah, but Sammer was too good to pass.
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Depends really, Cafu was a better right back than Sammer was a defender IMO

I think Cafu is one of only a handful left in the draft who have a shout as being one of the best of all time in their position.

But yeah, if your sticking with your 3/5/2 then I guess you needed Sammer.

Why did you not go to a diamond? IIRC you were drawing at the time of the switch, and then won pretty much every vote bar one or two
 
And I guess this means from having no backup I may now end up choosing. Bugger, wouldn't mind the decision being out of my hands...
 
Theon said:
Depends really, Cafu was a better right back than Sammer was a defender IMO

I think Cafu is one of only a handful left in the draft who have a shout as being one of the best of all time in their position.

But yeah, if your sticking with your 3/5/2 then I guess you needed Sammer.

Why did you not go to a diamond? IIRC you were drawing at the time of the switch, and then won pretty much every vote bar one or two
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There's only so much influence a fullback can have though and that will never match up to the influence of someone in Sammer's position - as demonstrated by Sammer being the key player in Dortmund's back to back title wins and CL win with his imperious performances in Euro '96 sandwiched in between. The key to EAP's side is the spine and this just takes it up a level. What it also means is this 352 or 4312 is now redundant as Sammer will dictate how the team is set up depending on the circumstances. If it is appropriate he will just step into midfield and make it a strong midfield quartet. If there's some serious danger from the opposition then he will marshal the defence. There is now someone in there capable of dominating that area of the pitch against most teams and at the very least making things difficult for even the best attackers. He brings energy, authority, fluidity and class to the most important area of the pitch which just overshadows anything a fullback can offer. The step down from Cafu to someone like Reuter is acceptable when you look at what Sammer gives you in return.

If there are no wingbacks left at the end of it then it'll be a different story of course...

EDIT: Or essentially what antohan said much more concisely
 
I like the decision from Brwned/EAP to go for Sammer instead. Like Anto said Sammer will be at the heart of the action and his presence will be impossible to negate tactically. The wing-backs however are very reliant on not facing wingers who may punish them if they venture too far up.

I think a 5-3-2 is at its best when the central areas is dominated already so the opponents has to primarily try to handle the central battle. Then the wing-backs has a free passage out wide most of the game and they are up against just a full-back. The difficulty for the defending full-back lies in deciding when to leave their zonal and flat 4 man defense to venture towards the wing-backs.

Usually the wing-backs will have quite a free passage far enough up the pitch to provide crosses(and other plays) towards the box.

Brazil managed to abuse this fact a lot with Ronaldinho/Rivaldo/Ronaldo terrorizing the central areas which left Cafu/Carlos as second priority. That cost a lot of teams and was a big reason that the two were so efficient.
 
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Brwned said:
There's only so much influence a fullback can have though and that will never match up to the influence of someone in Sammer's position - as demonstrated by Sammer being the key player in Dortmund's back to back title wins and CL win with his imperious performances in Euro '96 sandwiched in between. The key to EAP's side is the spine and this just takes it up a level. What it also means is this 352 or 4312 is now redundant as Sammer will dictate how the team is set up depending on the circumstances. If it is appropriate he will just step into midfield and make it a strong midfield quartet. If there's some serious danger from the opposition then he will marshal the defence. There is now someone in there capable of dominating that area of the pitch against most teams and at the very least making things difficult for even the best attackers. He brings energy, authority, fluidity and class to the most important area of the pitch which just overshadows anything a fullback can offer. The step down from Cafu to someone like Reuter is acceptable when you look at what Sammer gives you in return.

If there are no wingbacks left at the end of it then it'll be a different story of course...
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Couldn't agree more. Not sure if I ever said it as well in my game :(.
 
Balu said:
Couldn't agree more. Not sure if I ever said it as well in my game :(.
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I think you nailed it well in the end how he was supposed to defend. The more shady area was how Sammer would attack and how your team would attack. I suppose that the idea was that Sammer would either drop down to the defense which meant Reuter/Ziege as pure wing-backs both pushing up their wing - and at other time play a 4 man defense with Ziege or Reuter staying back and just one of them bombing forward but with Sammer as a midfielder?
 
Brwned said:
There's only so much influence a fullback can have though and that will never match up to the influence of someone in Sammer's position - as demonstrated by Sammer being the key player in Dortmund's back to back title wins and CL win with his imperious performances in Euro '96 sandwiched in between. The key to EAP's side is the spine and this just takes it up a level. What it also means is this 352 or 4312 is now redundant as Sammer will dictate how the team is set up depending on the circumstances. If it is appropriate he will just step into midfield and make it a strong midfield quartet. If there's some serious danger from the opposition then he will marshal the defence. There is now someone in there capable of dominating that area of the pitch against most teams and at the very least making things difficult for even the best attackers. He brings energy, authority, fluidity and class to the most important area of the pitch which just overshadows anything a fullback can offer. The step down from Cafu to someone like Reuter is acceptable when you look at what Sammer gives you in return.

If there are no wingbacks left at the end of it then it'll be a different story of course...

EDIT: Or essentially what antohan said much more concisely
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Aye I'm not questioning that man, I agree with you and think you're probably spot on there - I said myself for a 3-5-2 you needed Sammer more, or another defender like Thuram who I would have loved to see in that back three. Any reason you preferred Sammer?

But yeah on Cafu I was disagreeing with the 'too good' part of the comment, because IMO Cafu was a better player than Sammer at what he did. I haven't seen enough of players like Carlos Alberto to really judge them properly, but putting that to the side Cafu is up there with any fullback that I've seen play football. Not saying he is necessarily the best because it's really splitting hairs between him and Zanetti for example, but he's certainly no worse and if someone called him the best ever right back it would be a perfectly fair opinion.
 
I agree that Cafu is right in that mix of best ever fullbacks but I don't see why that's important here. Sammer was only the second defender to win the Ballon d'Or (with the other of course being Beckenbauer) which alone should be evidence enough of his pedigree. He was the best player of the last 20 years in the role and that role is one of the most important in the game so I don't see how someone can say Cafu was the better player. We can debate who was more necessary but if Sammer was recognised as the best player in Europe, the best player in an international team and the best player in the league for three seasons in a row and all of this in a key position for successful club and international sixds while Cafu has none of this then I find it difficult to understand how he could be deemed an inferior player.

As for Thuram, it would be lovely to have him and Maldini on either side of a sweeper but again the influence he can have on a match just doesn't compare to that of Sammer. He's the player that makes that setup great. With Sanchis there it was just a good defence supporting the midfield, now it's a cohesive unit which has a clear structure and approach with a Ballon d'Or winner at the heart of it. And you of course have another couple of Ballon d'Or winners at the other end now with a rock solid spine supporting them and allowing them to have the freedom to run the attack.
 
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Brwned said:
I agree that Cafu is right in that mix of best ever fullbacks but I don't see why that's important here. Sammer was only the second defender to win the Ballon d'Or (with the other of course being Beckenbauer) which alone should be evidence enough of his pedigree. He was the best player of the last 20 years in the role and that role is one of the most important in the game so I don't see how someone can say Cafu was the better player. We can debate who was more necessary but if Sammer was recognised as the best player in Europe, the best player in an international team and the best player in the league for three seasons in a row and all of this in a key position for successful club and international sixds while Cafu has none of this then I find it difficult to understand how he could be deemed an inferior player.

As for Thuram, it would be lovely to have him and Maldini on either side of a sweeper but again the influence he can have on a match just doesn't compare to that of Sammer. He's the player that makes that setup great. With Sanchis there it was just a good defence supporting the midfield, now it's a cohesive unit which has a clear structure and approach.
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It's not important. I'm just explaining what my point was because you asked me - Edgar said Sammer was too good to turn down in favour of Cafu, whereas IMO he wasn't too good at all. He is just more important to the team due to factors including the position.

Not sure what you mean with the second best player to play the role. He has a Ballon d'Or but so does Cannavaro and there are far better defenders than him from his own era. If you mean the second best libero then fair enough, but there isn't many of those knocking about due to its rareness as a position. You can play a back three without someone like Sammer anyway and there have been better players than him who have played there, so I wouldn't call him the second best at anything really. In Euro 2000 Nesta played at the centre of that Italian back three and he was a better defender than Sammer.

I wouldn't have necessailry used Sanchis with Thuram and Maldini, Lucio would have been fine there. He was actually pretty adventurous himself of course so if you wanted someone to step out then he would have been fine.
 
Theon said:
It's not important. I'm just explaining what my point was because you asked me - Edgar said Sammer was too good to turn down in favour of Cafu, whereas IMO he wasn't too good at all. He is just more important to the team due to factors including the position.

Not sure what you mean with the second best player to play the role. He has a Ballon d'Or but so does Cannavaro and there are far better defenders than him from his own era. If you mean the second best libero then fair enough, but there isn't many of those knocking about due to its rareness as a position. You can play a back three without someone like Sammer anyway and there have been better players than him who have played there, so I wouldn't call him the second best at anything really. In Euro 2000 Nesta played at the centre of that Italian back three and he was a better defender than Sammer.

I wouldn't have necessailry used Sanchis with Thuram and Maldini, Lucio would have been fine there. He was actually pretty adventurous himself of course so if you wanted someone to step out then he would have been fine.
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I think you are missing the point here. It's not a debate on Cannavaro vs Sammer, but on impact on fullbacks vs a libero/DM to my team. And the fact that we have much more fullbacks on offer in the pool than libero/DM's make it a probability game, that favours us!
 
What we disagree on is the idea that Cafu was better as a fullback than Sammer as a defender. Ergo Cafu was the better player, essentially. I don't get that at all. When EAP said he was too good to turn down he was saying that a player of Sammer's class is just too good to say no to when there is a system there ready for him to walk straight into and make his own. The only factor there was whether there was a place for him in the team, once that was out of the way you can do a straight comparison on quality and Sammer comes out on top in pretty much every way IMO. He will be a key player for any team and he was recognised as the best player in the world at one point...I don't think Cafu matches up to that.

And I didn't say he was the second best anything?! I did say he was the best in his position since Scirea and that happens to be a role that is essential to this team but it seems we agree on that.

What you're talking about with Thuram necessitates a fundamental change in system. A defence with three stoppers in that trio is much more defensive in nature and not what we're going for at all. Lucio being good on the ball is neither here nor there as he isn't capable of playing as a sweeper and that position is key in this setup.
 
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