The First Redcafe Sheep Draft

Polaroid said:
I wouldn't mind Thuram/Cafu but they were taken, not so lucky this time:lol:
The one-touch interplay between Zidane-Redondo-Busquets will be awesome



Tempted to pick Stam/Vidic as a United fan but Cannavaro is better than both. Mind over heart this time. Reckon there will be quite a few who will bang on about Vidic's lack of pace too.
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Absolutely outstanding choice with Busquets Polaroid. I really respect the decision to go for a lesser name but you certainly completed one of the absolute best possession midfields one could hope for with these restriction.

Anybody facing you will have nightmares as I can't see anybody stand a slightest chance if you put the effort in to the tactical write-up and nail that too.
 
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Polaroid said:
Tempted to pick Stam/Vidic as a United fan but Cannavaro is better than both. Mind over heart this time. Reckon there will be quite a few who will bang on about Vidic's lack of pace too.
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I wouldn't say Cannavaro was better than Stam. I think most strikers would fancy their chances with Cannavaro rather than Stam.
Yeah Cannavaro over Vidic is more reasonable.
 
Cannavaro was absolutely the right call for me and should compliment Rio perfectly.
 
I think Pol has only one obvious weakness at the full back positions. Gallas at RB and Alaba at LB can be match losing if he comes up against a side with good wingers.
 
Annahnomoss said:
Absolutely outstanding choice with Busquets Polaroid. I really respect the decision to go for a lesser name but you certainly completed one of the absolute best possession midfields one could hope for with these restriction.
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Interesting as I thought otherwise as they might be operating in the same area's here. Usualy Redondo's midfield partners are the likes of Seedorf/Steve McManaman etc. How well do you think he can adjust to Busquets?
 
What do you guys think about my picks?
I was really conflicting between Effenberg/Makalele/Seedorf, but than decided to go for Effenberg as I think Effenberg-Modric-Laudrup is such a brilliant midfield all round and it will be hard to match, as opposed to Makalele-Modric who will lose offensive ability and Seedrof-Ince who will lose creativity or Seedorf-Modric who isn't sufficient defensively.
Would you consider Effenberg-Modric not defensive enough?

And A.Cole joining his former partners Terry-Carvalho, with a very upgraded Chelsea's best defensive line with A.Cole-Carvalho-Terry-Lahm :drool:
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
Interesting as I thought otherwise as they might be operating in the same area's here. Usualy Redondo's midfield partners are the likes of Seedorf/Steve McManaman etc. How well do you think he can adjust to Busquets?
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I'm not too sure about it either, imo Redondo can play with anybody, but I don't think he needed Bosquets, Seedorf would've been a whole lot better choice. If he had a weak CB pair that's one thing, but I think it's a waste not taking a winger or a less defensive-minded DM when you got Redondo and a good CB pair.
 
VivaJanuzaj said:
What do you guys think about my picks?
I was really conflicting between Effenberg/Makalele/Seedorf, but than decided to go for Effenberg as I think Effenberg-Modric-Laudrup is such a brilliant midfield all round and it will be hard to match, as opposed to Makalele-Modric who will lose offensive ability and Seedrof-Ince who will lose creativity or Seedorf-Modric who isn't sufficient defensively.
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If you think Seedorf-Modric wouldn't be solid enough defensively, why would you go for Effenberg-Modric? That's even worse?
 
Pippa said:
If you think Seedorf-Modric wouldn't be solid enough defensively, why would you go for Effenberg-Modric? That's even worse?
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I defensively might rate Effenberg higher than Seedorf. But it really depends on which midfield I'll face, it will be either Effenberg-Modric or Effenberg-Ince if I need more defensive minded midfield. Whatever happens, with Laudrup-Effenberg & Lahm possession will never be a problem really..
 
VivaJanuzaj said:
What do you guys think about my picks?
I was really conflicting between Effenberg/Makalele/Seedorf, but than decided to go for Effenberg as I think Effenberg-Modric-Laudrup is such a brilliant midfield all round and it will be hard to match, as opposed to Makalele-Modric who will lose offensive ability and Seedrof-Ince who will lose creativity or Seedorf-Modric who isn't sufficient defensively.
Would you consider Effenberg-Modric not defensive enough?

And A.Cole joining his former partners Terry-Carvalho, with a very upgraded Chelsea's best defensive line with A.Cole-Carvalho-Terry-Lahm :drool:
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Not sure on defensive stability of Effenberg/Modric. If Effenberg is to operate in a DM role, then not much difference from Ince. However if you are thinking of switching to a 4-3-3 with Ince behind Modric/Effenberg, it might work.

Nice defensive line though!
 
I'm struggling to see any upgrades from the pool to be honeset, but the Romanian always offers something different.

@antohan
 
Edgar Allan Pillow : 1. Matthias Sammer
Cutch: 1. Kaka
Thisistheone 1. Cafu
Pippa: 1. Vieira
antohan: 1. Thuram
Gio 1. Kohler 2. Hagi
Polaroid 1. Busquets 2. Cannavaro
VivaJanuzaj 1. A. Cole 2. Effenberg

@antohan
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
Not sure on defensive stability of Effenberg/Modric. If Effenberg is to operate in a DM role, then not much difference from Ince. However if you are thinking of switching to a 4-3-3 with Ince behind Modric/Effenberg, it might work.
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Well the question is unless I face someone like Pol who has Zidane and I need someone to help marking him, will I need more defensive minded midfield than that? I personally think it's good defensively. Plus the upgrade from Ince is all round not only defensively. Effenberg was bloody amazing like Balu stated over and over again
 
VivaJanuzaj said:
Well the question is unless I face someone like Pol who has Zidane and I need someone to help marking him, will I need more defensive minded midfield than that? I personally think it's good defensively. Plus the upgrade from Ince is all round not only defensively. Effenberg was bloody amazing like Balu stated over and over again
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Pol's Zidane, Cutch's Kaka, anto's Bergkamp, Tito's Savicevic, Gio's Rivaldo - every team other than Pippa and myself are playing 4-2-3-1 with damn good AM's and both me & Pippa usually play 2 strikers on top. I don't see any reason to gamble against defensive stability as the players your team will face will be top notch and small liabilities are apt to get punished.
 
Viva.. I told you people are simply not going to give Modric credit for any defensive work. You are on a loser there. I would play Effenberg + Ince if I were you.

Though I still think you should have taken Becks.
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
Pol's Zidane, Cutch's Kaka, anto's Bergkamp, Tito's Savicevic, Gio's Rivaldo - every team other than Pippa and myself are playing 4-2-3-1 with damn good AM's and both me & Pippa usually play 2 strikers on top. I don't see any reason to gamble against defensive stability as the players your team will face will be top notch and small liabilities are apt to get punished.
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The idea that you need a destroyer in DM to have defensive stability is really strange. Effenberg, Modric + Laudrup with Lahm as leftback moving into midfield in possession and Neved's workrate on the left wing? Where's the problem?
 
crappycraperson said:
Viva.. I told you people are simply not going to give Modric credit for any defensive work. You are on a loser there. I would play Effenberg + Ince if I were you.

Though I still think you should have taken Becks.
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Yeah I might play Effenberg-Ince.. I didn't want Becks because I think my attack was better than midfield and wanted to go for balance before going "all out attack" with my team, and with Laudrup-Nedved with a good striker like Crespo you know goals will come anyway...

Plus even someone who underrates Sanchez's tactical pressure, movement in attack and defensive awareness will know he can always contribute goals too like this:


:D
 
Balu said:
The idea that you need a destroyer in DM to have defensive stability is really strange. Effenberg, Modric + Laudrup with Lahm as leftback moving into midfield in possession and Neved's workrate on the left wing? Where's the problem?
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Lahm is RB, A.Cole is LB, but this seems to be a problem at every draft with the whole Destroyer thing.
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
Interesting as I thought otherwise as they might be operating in the same area's here. Usualy Redondo's midfield partners are the likes of Seedorf/Steve McManaman etc. How well do you think he can adjust to Busquets?
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Busquets entire role is to work like a magnifying glass. He has been the third string for Iniesta and Xavi and the more quiet you think he is the better he is doing his job usually. He makes sure there are always a triangle in the middle which means that there is almost no loss of possession through stress or from misplaced passes.

In my eyes the bigger question is how Zidane will be able to keep up with that playing style. Will he have the ability, composure and desire to create triangles when he usually was a more direct player. Personally I think it will work for the reason that this midfield trio will dominate all other midfields by quite a large margin so Zidane will not be forced in to entering that central midfield possession battle.

I can see some teams who play with diamonds handle the midfield because Zidane won't thrive in that particular playing style. But of course Polaroid has Bale-Laudrup out wide and there'd have to be one good full-back pairing to handle them over the course of a game.

Zidane can of course drift wide as well against a diamond.
 
Balu said:
The idea that you need a destroyer in DM to have defensive stability is really strange. Effenberg, Modric + Laudrup with Lahm as leftback moving into midfield in possession and Neved's workrate on the left wing? Where's the problem?
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"Who's on Zidane"

:p
 
VivaJanuzaj said:
Lahm is RB, A.Cole is LB, but this seems to be a problem at every draft with the whole Destroyer thing.
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Even better then :lol:. More freedom for Nedved to join the midfield battle and Lahm as rightback is even stronger :drool:.
 
AldoPaine18 said:
"Who's on Zidane"

:p
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Said it before, on that level, man-marking players is pretty much stupid and often hurts your own team more than the opponent - see Beckenbauer on Charlton and Matthäus on Maradona as examples. Same with the whole possession brainfeck. We've seen countless times that games went back and forth all game long against players like Zidane and Redondo, now with Busquets in there the games against Pol will be even more ridiculous, many (everyone seems a bit harsh, after all I got lots of positive comments and votes) will ignore how important Barca's pressing to win the ball back was to achieve those ridiculous possession numbers that starved the opponent of the ball and assume the opponent will be forced to rely on counters instead of looking at what the opponent does with the ball in possession. Zidane and Redondo never played that way, imo, and even though it's a nice idea to use them for a hypothetical possession thing, it's not the style they peaked in. Makes no sense to me.

VivaJanuzaj said:
:)
Wouldn't you say(like everybody else besides me said) that Effenberg will be better partnered with Ince than Modric?
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I can see both work, just differently. But I rate Kroos defensively a lot too, he played several times in a 2 man midfield, on Saturday as the holding midfielder for example. Yet, he seemed to watch from the bench while Redondo made pretty babies with @AldoPaine18 while also giving two assists and winning the ball back on his own against my 4 in possession very capable midfielders ;). Modric probably will be seen in a comparable light. Nope, I'm not bitter btw. :p
 
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Balu said:
Said it before, on that level, man-marking players is pretty much stupid and often hurts your own team more than the opponent - see Beckenbauer on Charlton and Matthäus on Maradona as examples. Same with the whole possession brainfeck. We've seen countless times that games went back and forth all game long against players like Zidane and Redondo, now with Busquets in there the games against Pol will be even more ridiculous, everyone will ignore how important Barca's pressing to win the ball back was to achieve those ridiculous possession numbers that starved the opponent of the ball and assume the opponent will be forced to rely on counters instead of looking at what the opponent does with the ball in possession. Zidane and Redondo never played that way, imo, and even though it's a nice idea to use them for a hypothetical possession thing, it's not the style they peaked in. Makes no sense to me.


I can see both work, just differently. But I rate Kroos defensively a lot too, he played several times in a 2 man midfield, on Saturday as the holding midfielder for example. Yet, he seemed to watch from the bench while Redondo made pretty babies with @AldoPaine18 while also giving two assists and winning the ball back on his own against my 4 in possession very capable midfielders ;). Modric probably will be seen in a comparable light. Nope, I'm not bitter btw. :p
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I think there are examples in favour of man marking as well. I think your point is "You shouldn't waste your best player to man mark the opposition's best player", which applies to both your examples, whereas if you do have a proper man marker in your team and he has it in him to take out a significant threat from the opposition without hurting the ability on the ball of your team then why not. Vogts on Cruyff, etc.

And :lol: about the rest, I do really love Redondo. :drool:
 
AldoPaine18 said:
I think there are examples in favour of man marking as well. I think your point is "You shouldn't waste your best player to man mark the opposition's best player", which applies to both your examples, whereas if you do have a proper man marker in your team and he has it in him to take out a significant threat from the opposition without hurting the ability on the ball of your team then why not. Vogts on Cruyff, etc.

And :lol: about the rest, I do really love Redondo. :drool:
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Imo, that is also a bit overrated. The Dutch should have made it count, they wasted so many chances, not only in this game, but throughout the tournament. Vogts did limit Cruyff's influence in the attacking third, but that was part of the gameplan, drag a defender out, have Cruyff as a deep lying playmaker and exploit the gaps behind. His teammates failed to make use of that and prime Beckenbauer defended for two. Replace Beckenbauer there with a non superhuman defender or Rep with a winger, who isn't useless in front of goal and Vogts marking Cruyff would have caused countless problems for Germany.

Oh and any decision on the names? I think my team should be reflected in there, so Toni-Matthias or Mehmet-Stefan would be a good choice, don't you think?
 
Balu said:
. We've seen countless times that games went back and forth all game long against players like Zidane and Redondo, now with Busquets in there the games against Pol will be even more ridiculous, many (everyone seems a bit harsh, after all I got lots of positive comments and votes) will ignore how important Barca's pressing to win the ball back was to achieve those ridiculous possession numbers that starved the opponent of the ball and assume the opponent will be forced to rely on counters instead of looking at what the opponent does with the ball in possession. Zidane and Redondo never played that way, imo, and even though it's a nice idea to use them for a hypothetical possession thing, it's not the style they peaked in. Makes no sense to me.
:p
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I disagree completely with this. Bayern/PSG/Zenit/Porto/Barcelona all have ridiculous possession stats in the Champions League(using it to avoid discussions about opponents quality) without all of them using that extremely high pressure/high line combination.

The high-press is very overrated in terms of its importance to possession. There has been teams and there still are teams who completely dominate possession without using the extremely high pressure defense. Of course the high-press is an amazing offensive weapon as it really demoralizes the opponents to lose the ball instantly - it also sets up great counter-attacks.
 
Annahnomoss said:
I disagree completely with this. Bayern/PSG/Zenit/Porto/Barcelona all have ridiculous possession stats in the Champions League(using it to avoid discussions about opponents quality) without all of them using that extremely high pressure/high line combination.

The high-press is very overrated in terms of its importance to possession. There has been teams and there still are teams who completely dominate possession without using the extremely high pressure defense. Of course the high-press is an amazing offensive weapon as it really demoralizes the opponents to lose the ball instantly - it also sets up great counter-attacks.
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Against what opponents? We're talking about teams on the highest level against each other here. If Bayern wanted possession last year against Barca, they could have had more, way more. They chose not to and if both teams face each other this season, I'm sure it will be different if we look at the managers at both clubs at the moment.

I don't care about what numbers they have against clearly inferior teams, but I highly doubt Porto or Zenith could force a team with comparable quality in midfield into counterattacking, if the opponent doesn't want to.
 
Balu said:
Said it before, on that level, man-marking players is pretty much stupid and often hurts your own team more than the opponent - see Beckenbauer on Charlton and Matthäus on Maradona as examples.
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The point is not to man mark the AM, but more on having a dedicated DM to shiled your defence. Man marking the AM out is just one way to go about it. If there was ever a need for a DM, I would say it is against top class attacking lineup. If not for Zidane, then who else? :lol:
 
@Annahnomoss

recent matches according to UEFA.com:
PSG had 59% possession against a significantly inferior Leverkusen, a team that are a counterattacking team anyway.
Zenit had 55% against Dortmund, another team that happily concedes posssession and relys on counterattacking football. That's no starving of the ball at all against counterattacking teams. Why could it be a ridiculous number against teams that love to keep possession themselves? That makes no sense, imo.
Porto against Frankfurt had 53% at home and 54% away from home, are those ridiculous numbers in your opinion?
 
Balu said:
Imo, that is also a bit overrated. The Dutch should have made it count, they wasted so many chances, not only in this game, but throughout the tournament. Vogts did limit Cruyff's influence in the attacking third, but that was part of the gameplan, drag a defender out, have Cruyff as a deep lying playmaker and exploit the gaps behind. His teammates failed to make use of that and prime Beckenbauer defended for two. Replace Beckenbauer there with a non superhuman defender or Rep with a winger, who isn't useless in front of goal and Vogts marking Cruyff would have caused countless problems for Germany.

Oh and any decision on the names? I think my team should be reflected in there, so Toni-Matthias or Mehmet-Stefan would be a good choice, don't you think?
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Yeah it depends game to game and player to player, works at times.

I love German names as well. Franz, Lothar, Matthias, Bastian all great names. Stefan is a bit gay, though.
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
The point is not to man mark the AM, but more on having a dedicated DM to shiled your defence. Man marking the AM out is just one way to go about it. If there was ever a need for a DM, I would say it is against top class attacking lineup. If not for Zidane, then who else? :lol:
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Laudrup? :angel:

I'd take him over Zidane any day.
 
Edgar Allan Pillow said:
The point is not to man mark the AM, but more on having a dedicated DM to shiled your defence. Man marking the AM out is just one way to go about it. If there was ever a need for a DM, I would say it is against top class attacking lineup. If not for Zidane, then who else? :lol:
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Usually inferior teams use that, because they don't loose a lot of their own strength. Klopp once described it against Bayern as a way to pull them down on their own level. If you have to use average players, then use their workrate to try and make it an even game. It's rarely a great way to win in big games when two strong teams face each other.

/e.g. using Lambert to mark Zidane makes sense, because that's as much influence of him as you can hope for, using Sammer to do that instead of using his ability to control the space and let him make smart decisions where to help out, is a fecking disaster, you hurt yourself a lot then.

Would you say Pol should use Busquets to man-mark Laudrup in a game against Viva? Of course not, makes no sense at all.
 
AldoPaine18 said:
Yeah it depends game to game and player to player, works at times.

I love German names as well. Franz, Lothar, Matthias, Bastian all great names. Stefan is a bit gay, though.
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Sounds less gay in German than in French, imo ;).
 
Balu said:
Against what opponents? We're talking about teams on the highest level against each other here. If Bayern wanted possession last year against Barca, they could have had more, way more. They chose not to and if both teams face each other this season, I'm sure it will be different if we look at the managers at both clubs at the moment.

I don't care about what numbers they have against clearly inferior teams, but I highly doubt Porto or Zenith could force a team with comparable quality in midfield into counterattacking, if the opponent doesn't want to.
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60-40 and anything above that is dominating possession in my eyes. You compare teams of comparable midfield quality to decide whether or not Polaroid will be able to dominate possession.

I don't think we have too different views on it, it is just that you probably don't rate Polaroids midfield as I do.

In my eyes Polaroid has the best players individually in that central trio, he also has the ones most suited for a tight and packed midfield battle. Why would anybody try to engage in a midfield/possession battle against them? No other teams has really built a possession based team to that extent bar VJ. I think everybody whether playing against Pol or not will be playing very back and forth/direct football.

Of course the press is a brilliant addition to a possession based team, but it is far from a necessity for it to be of the absolute highest level. We've seen plenty of teams around Europe dominate possession with either their own takes on how to do it - or by replicating Barcelona with inferior teams who press inferior. Who has the highest amount of possession in the premier league? City? No. Chelsea? No. United? no. It is Swansea.

Is it because their defense is absolutely outstanding like Barcelona and teams are completely unable to handle it? Their press game is average in comparison but they are great with triangles and have the right personnel around the pitch.
 
So you don't disagree completely with what I've written above now? Because your examples made no sense to me and I think the numbers posted above show, how incredibly difficult it is to reach 60% possession and more and that it needs both, brilliant pressing to win the ball back as soon as possible and brilliant ball retention that uses possession as part of the defensive tactics. Neither is something that Zidane was ever part of, imo. Of course Pol will dominate possession in a 'normal' way, like I said in my game, 55:45 is a fair number that gave him control, while I was forced to defend deep. But that's so far away from forcing a midfield with players that are highly comfortable in possession to rely solely on counters like Pep's Barca could or to a lesser degree Milan in the early 90's and Bayern now can. It's also not necessary at all to be the better team.

The problem with Swansea is that they don't have anyone to turn possession into dangerous attacks. Put Zidane in that team and I wouldn't be surprised if thay have less possession, because they wouldn't pass it around for minutes in their own half, they would actually start attacking a lot. (I've no idea what poessession stats they actually have, but whenever I saw them, that was the problem, imo, so I doubt they are a relevant example here).
 
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Balu said:
Usually inferior teams use that, because they don't loose a lot of their own strength. Klopp once described it against Bayern as a way to pull them down on their own level. If you have to use average players, then use their workrate to try and make it an even game. It's rarely a great way to win in big games when two strong teams face each other.
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In reality it does not seem to be the case, right? Gattuso, Silva, Dunga, Makelele etc have all played for top teams and have played against other top teams in games and trying to win! Rather than the strength of the opponent, it takes more meaning from the strategy/tactics you want to use and balance in your own team. Not on man-marking, but just on defensive cover.
 
Just woke up and I'm stuck between four options. All of them have their own merits for tactical variations that may be useful... but without knowing the draw it's a tough one.

The worst bit is 2-3 of them would then go unpicked and exit the game and I could use them later, just not top priority now.

:thinking:
 
Polaroid said:
Tempted to pick Stam/Vidic as a United fan but Cannavaro is better than both. Mind over heart this time. Reckon there will be quite a few who will bang on about Vidic's lack of pace too.
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If you persist with the high lines, yups arguably the better choice, I like the pairs though and rate them higher as pure defenders.
 
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