The Modern Draft - Semi Finals 2 - Theon vs MJJ

At players career peaks, who will win the match?

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Skizzo

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VS
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----------------Team Theon----------------------------------Team MJJ--------------


Team Theon

Midfield
Schweinsteiger and Khedira is behind Iniesta and Xavi the most successful proven central midfield partnership in the draft. With Germany they finished third in the World Cup '10 - reached the semi finals of the Euro '12 and famously won it in '14.

For Germany they regularly had Özil, an AM - or Kroos in front of them - which got the best of them all.

Here in a "number 8" role in front of them they have Wesley Sneijder. Famously leading his Netherlands to a World Cup final in 2010 - receiving four man of the match awards - in a team that had Robben and van Persie.

The season before he had won the treble with Inter - being voted the man of the match by the fans in the champions league final.

Together the trio has a great mentality and experience in the most important knock-out stage games.

On the right wing we have Arjen Robben and Alexis Sanchez. Both are notoriously hard working and capable of supporting their full backs while absolutely excellent going forward.


Defense
The defense consists of Ashley Cole - Nemanja Vidic - Thiago Silva and Albiol. Three out of four of the defenders are the best in their position in the draft. In goal we have De Gea who has proven himself as an absolute match winner and averages more than a match winning save a game.

The midfield will be greatly supported by this strong defense and the defense will equally so be boosted by the defensive greatness of the midfield.

Striker
Up front we have Zlatan Ibrahimovic who last season - counting NT and club games - scored 50 goals and assisted 14. More than Lionel Messi who scored 46 and assisted 13. That puts him second behind only Cristiano who scored 65 goals and assisted 15.

The year before that Zlatan scored 47 and assisted 18 - and made the most assists in the Champions League of all players.

Tactic
Defensively the team will play a deep line - which will make sure Torres, Kaka and Ronaldinho won't be allowed to play a counter-attacking game against us with a lot of space.

The team will defend deep - with an intelligent aggressive pressing to win the ball back but primarily to force the opponents to attack down his right flank where he will face Schweinsteiger, Ashley Cole, Vidic.

Offensively the team has a great counter-attacking unit where Ibrahimovic will be the main playmaker - looking to make either a run behind the defense or a hold up play to set Robben or Sanchez free and on the run.

Ibrahimovic scores the majority of his goals either by either making runs through behind the defense or from his teammates playing it in from the wings to him in front of goal. And he is also one of the best playmakers in the world and will love the opportunity to find Robben and Sanchez on their runs.

With Sneijder-Schweinsteiger-Khedira in the midfield the team is strong in organized attacks as well with Zlatan dropping deep or making a run behind the defense for Schweinsteiger/Sneijder to play off.

Or he will move out wide to offer a one touch play to Robben or Sanchez to find them making their run towards goal. Both the wingers are capable of creating opportunities themselves with their great dribbling.
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Team MJJ

Key points.
  • Ibrahamovic has yet to score or assist against John Terry
  • Raul Albiol .Thats mata, standing still and then making a fool out of raul, now imagine ronaldinho at full pace with all his trickery and you will get an idea of how this particular encounter will go.
  • Torres against vidic- no need to remind anyone what happened when these two met at their respective peaks.


I will be the first to admit that theon has drafted a wonderful side, with just one notable weakness, his right side flank. Unfortunately for him, I am perfectly placed to capitalized on this weakness with one of the greatest of all times, ronaldinho. Theon has raul albiol as his right back, let that sink in for a second. RAUL ALBIOL! A player who plays the majority of time at centre back and even then is as average as they come. Imagine him against a peak ronaldinho who destroyed some of the best defenses the world has seen effortlessly.

In midfield, theon has the pairing of sneijder, schweinsteiger and khedira. While that is a very good midfield, I believe mine is more suitable for the match. Khedira is positionally suspect and wont be able to control his attacking tendencies to cover for the attacking capabilities of kaka and ronaldinho. Which means either robben would have to spend most of his time tracking back or ronaldinho will have complete freedom to do whatever he wants with albiol. Compare that to my midfield, both essien and matic are brilliant defensively and will cover for my relatively weaker defense while giving my attacking players the platform they need to thrive.

I also think my attack is a tad more complementary than theon's. Torres, Hazard, Kaka and Ronaldinho is as good an attack as you get. I have pace in abundance while will allow to counter attack at will and to great effect.

Finally, my defense. I admit that my defense has been a weak point for the majority of the draft but having finally drafted terry I believe that it is now relatively upto the standards of most other sides left. Puyol-Pique was a wonderful partnership that faced some of the best attackers in world football successfully and in Terry I have the perfect player to replicate puyol's leadership(when he is not sleeping with his teammates wives), defensive organisation and aggressiveness allowing pique to play a sweeper role.

Baines being an offensive oriented fullback will help as well as robben cant focus too much on attack, lest theon decides to let ronaldinho run free while piczsczek can handle sanchez.

And behind the sticks, I have another all time great in manuel neuer.
 
@Rado_N @Damien

Usual poll please

At players career peaks, who will win the match?
- Team Theon
- Team MJJ
- Withdraw vote

Public poll. Who voted whom to be visible. Votes can be changed. Votes to be visible without voting. Poll for 24hrs.
 
Khedira is positional suspect, that right flank with khedira and albiol is really weak(assuming robben won't do a lot of tracking bsck). Otherwise, he will just have ibrahamovic attacking most of the time.

And you can't stopped Ronaldinho with a deep defensive line, that just allows him to be closer to the goal.

Has ibrahamovic worked with a deep defense line up before?
 
What's the deal with this poll options/editing business? You need a mod to create the polls?
 
Skizzo said:
Yeah. Especially if they have to be reset after you get 7 votes :nervous:
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Seems like an unnecessary pain in the arse to me. I can understand the trouble with halfwits starting inane threads w/polls frivolously, but a firm banning policy on such matters should do the trick, you'd think.
 
MJJ said:
Khedira is positional suspect, that right flank with khedira and albiol is really weak(assuming robben won't do a lot of tracking bsck).
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I agree that Khedira is positionally suspect. But he is teamed up with a player who isn't - and who has proven himself to be more than capable of making up for precisely this flaw.

As for Albiol, I personally would rate him above both your fullbacks in a purely defensive sense. As far as modern fullbacks go, he ain't bad defensively for my money.

Just my opinion, of course. Pros and cons both here and there, but as far as defensive prowess as such is concerned, I rate Theon's defence above yours - and his four ain't more badly protected than yours either.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
I agree that Khedira is positionally suspect. But he is teamed up with a player who isn't - and who has proven himself to be more than capable of making up for precisely this flaw.

As for Albiol, I personally would rate him above both your fullbacks in a purely defensive sense. As far as modern fullbacks go, he ain't bad defensively for my money.

Just my opinion, of course. Pros and cons both here and there, but as far as defensive prowess as such is concerned, I rate Theon's defence above yours - and his four ain't more badly protected than yours either.
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Who Schwein? He will have his hands full with Essien, Matic and Kaka in the middle. Don't see him coming over from the left to help put on the right flank with those three against him?

Not sure I agree about albiol, how much has he played as a fullback? Baines was the pfl defender of the year two years in a row while Picsczek was the best defender in Germany scored better than Lahm as Balu kindly pointed out last match.

Vidic Terry is on par, but Torres destroyed vidic while Ibra never did anything of note against chelsea. That has to count for something.
 
Actually, strike that last comment, @MJJ

Your duo of Essien + Matic is more solid and more to my liking than his.

I don't think much of Khedira, to be honest. But his defence is certainly better than yours for my money.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Seems like an unnecessary pain in the arse to me. I can understand the trouble with halfwits starting inane threads w/polls frivolously, but a firm banning policy on such matters should do the trick, you'd think.
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If we banned people for stupid polls we'd be told we're being harsh. We can't win.

Aside from me mistakenly not making the first one public we've had no issues and polls have been added to all draft threads within minutes of the request.
 
MJJ said:
Newbies killing me with no comments :(
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Starting from the back; i feel Theon has a more balanced pairing in central defence (and better). Silva will help Albiol with Ronnie, Vidic can take care of Torres. His fullbacks would have it easier than yours. Central midfield is fairly even. Also, Zlatan is my favourite player currently playing so there's that too.
 
MJJ said:
Not sure I agree about albiol, how much has he played as a fullback? Baines was the pfl defender of the year two years in a row while Picsczek was the best defender in Germany scored better than Lahm as Balu kindly pointed out last match.
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Doesn't really matter when you highlight his weakness as a pure defender - which is what you did, no? He has played plenty as a fullback - and he is far less suspect as a pure defender than either Baines or Pisczek. If the idea is that he will struggle against his man - then that idea isn't worth highlighting, as your boys will struggle just as much, if not more, against Robben and Sanchez (who can easily swap sides too, to make things worse).
 
Rado_N said:
If we banned people for stupid polls we'd be told we're being harsh. We can't win.

Aside from me mistakenly not making the first one public we've had no issues and polls have been added to all draft threads within minutes of the request.
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Duly noted, sir. As long as you don't think it's a hassle yourself, it's obviously no problem.
 
The Stain said:
Starting from the back; i feel Theon has a more balanced pairing in central defence (and better). Silva will help Albiol with Ronnie, Vidic can take care of Torres. His fullbacks would have it easier than yours. Central midfield is fairly even. Also, Zlatan is my favourite player currently playing so there's that too.
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Vidic can take care of Torres? Seriously! Do you remember how he handled Torres last time?

@Chesterlestreet I would say Cole is far better than Baines, vidic-terry on par(but terry is facing a striker who won't exploit his weaknesses as much as Torres will), Silva better than pique(but would need to help his fullback more) and albiol is inferior to Picsczek (lesser pace and against a far better winger).

Goalie I would say mine is better while my midfield is more solid.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Doesn't really matter when you highlight his weakness as a pure defender - which is what you did, no? He has played plenty as a fullback - and he is far less suspect as a pure defender than either Baines or Pisczek. If the idea is that he will struggle against his man - then that idea isn't worth highlighting, as your boys will struggle just as much, if not more, against Robben and Sanchez (who can easily swap sides too, to make things worse).
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I think it does Jones in the center is much better than Jones as a fullback. Same with smalling.

Disagree with my fullbacks struggling as much as his, hazard and Sanchez are around the same level. But Ronaldinho is on a different level to robben and Baines will contribute more in attack than albiol.
 
MJJ said:
Disagree with my fullbacks struggling as much as his, hazard and Sanchez are around the same level. But Ronaldinho is on a different level to robben and Baines will contribute more in attack than albiol.
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Yes, 'Dinho is better and more of a handful. And, yes, Hazard and Sanchez are about the same level - actually I'd give that one to Hazard myself, so that's another plus for you.

But Cole and Albiol are, no matter how you look at it, clearly better defensively than your pair. And his CB pairing is arguably slightly better than yours too.

That said, there's that bloody Vidic-Torres thing. What can you say? It's practically kryptonite, ain't it? If we are to give credence and weight to the so-called real world here, Vidic did struggle with that fecker - it's undeniable.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Yes, 'Dinho is better and more of a handful. And, yes, Hazard and Sanchez are about the same level - actually I'd give that one to Hazard myself, so that's another plus for you.

But Cole and Albiol are, no matter how you look at it, clearly better defensively than your pair. And his CB pairing is arguably slightly better than yours too.

That said, there's that bloody Vidic-Torres thing. What can you say? It's practically kryptonite, ain't it? If we are to give credence and weight to the so-called real world here, Vidic did struggle with that fecker - it's undeniable.
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As a pairing I absolutely agree his is better, but I think mine is more suitable to facing the opposition striker than his.

With albiol, I think the reason why am under rating him more is that I have always thought you need pace more out wide than be good in positioning, that's why most center back struggle out wide. Of course I haven't seen much of albiol so can be completely off the mark here.
 
MJJ said:
Khedira is positional suspect, that right flank with khedira and albiol is really weak(assuming robben won't do a lot of tracking bsck). Otherwise, he will just have ibrahamovic attacking most of the time.

And you can't stopped Ronaldinho with a deep defensive line, that just allows him to be closer to the goal.

Has ibrahamovic worked with a deep defense line up before?
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Why would Robben not track back? He has grown as an individual since he developed his defensive game and today he's as complete as a winger can be. He has the abilities to win the match through brilliance when in possession but defensively he's both positionally sound and very hard working.

Ibrahimovic has worked in everything between a high press for Barcelona, a high possession game in PSG or a deep line and counter-attacking set up as for Sweden, Milan and PSG in their biggest games.

His record internationally in this set up is the best in the world the last 2 and a half years with the likes of Sebastian Larsson and Erkan Zengin around him instead of Robben and Sanchez as he has here.

Ronaldinho is no better against a deep lying defense by any means, he's not bad against it either but I certainly fear him more if he gets space like he did for Barcelona and Brazil at the time.

Ronaldinho stayed very offensive when Barcelona were defending and was their go-to man for counter-attacks like Cristiano for Real Madrid. Even if Cristiano is a more direct player who goes for goal and Ronaldinho would be the playmaker of the attack rather.

In the counter attacks Robben and Sanchez will thrive from the hold up play Ibrahimovic will provide in this game - fending off Terry and Pique while setting Sanchez or Robben free in space.

Against an organized defense, Sanchez and Cole are a great threat for Piszczek and Hazard who aren't great defensively. On the other side Baines won't be greatly supported defensively by Ronaldinho either which is risky when you are playing Robben.

I respect all your defenders but they all need to have one of their best performances of the season - in the same game - to really limit the chances here. Ronaldinho-Kaka-Hazard just aren't going to provide the necessary help for the rest of the team in my opinion.
 
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Skizzo said:
On the right wing we have Arjen Robben and Alexis Sanchez. Both are notoriously hard working and capable of supporting their full backs while absolutely excellent going forward.
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That's a strange tactical decision, but an interesting one. Robben AND Sanchez versus Baines... On the other hand, no threat on the left at all.

I know that this is probably a typo
 
MJJ said:
Vidic can take care of Torres? Seriously! Do you remember how he handled Torres last time?
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Fair enough. Had forgotten about that. Doesn't change that his defence is stronger and his wingers would cause more of a threat than yours, imo.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Yes, 'Dinho is better and more of a handful. And, yes, Hazard and Sanchez are about the same level - actually I'd give that one to Hazard myself, so that's another plus for you.

But Cole and Albiol are, no matter how you look at it, clearly better defensively than your pair. And his CB pairing is arguably slightly better than yours too.

That said, there's that bloody Vidic-Torres thing. What can you say? It's practically kryptonite, ain't it? If we are to give credence and weight to the so-called real world here, Vidic did struggle with that fecker - it's undeniable.
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Not only are my full backs better defensively, Sanchez and Robben are better defensively than Ronaldinho and Hazard and Sneijder does a lot more for the defense than Kaka.

The Vidic vs Torres match up was when United played a much more dominant style than the way Theon and I are set up here. We will be sitting low because it means Vidic won't have to face the pace of Torres on the counter - Albiol won't face the pace and trickery of Ronaldinho on the counter - Kaka won't get to attack on the counter and neither will Hazard.

Basically it improves the defensive abilities of my team individually - and of course as a team while it decreases the efficiency of his entire front four.
 
harms said:
That's a strange tactical decision, but an interesting one. Robben AND Sanchez versus Baines... On the other hand, no threat on the left at all.

I know that this is probably a typo
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Indeed a typo, Theon will kill me. :(
 
The Stain said:
Fair enough. Had forgotten about that. Doesn't change that his defence is stronger and his wingers would cause more of a threat than yours, imo.
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They really won't but fair enough.

@Annahnomoss I covered that, if robben is tracking back i really don't see how you guys will move the ball up given that only Sanchez Is a good dribbler. Playing deep means you guys are relying on counter attacks and if robben is defending you can't effectively counter attack with just Sanchez.
 
MJJ said:
They really won't but fair enough.

@Annahnomoss I covered that, if robben is tracking back i really don't see how you guys will move the ball up given that only Sanchez Is a good dribbler. Playing deep means you guys are relying on counter attacks and if robben is defending you can't effectively counter attack with just Sanchez.
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Of course you can counter-attack even if you defend as a team. You don't need to leave someone without defensive duties like Ronaldo for Madrid or Ronaldinho to have them counter-attack perfectly well.

Robben has a job to do defensively against Baines and I will vouch for Robben to have the advantage no matter if Baines is by the corner flag - in terms of the hypothetical counter-attack.
 
A few thoughts so far:
  • Ronaldinho vs Albiol - the biggest mismatch of the game, obviously. The best player in the draft versus one of the worst that still left and out of his natural position
  • Terry - Pique is nothing like Puyol - Pique partnership, Puyol thrived in a high-line defence, Terry - in a deep one. They are both fantastic leaders, headers of the ball (on both ends of the pitch) and a great defenders overall, but their style is completely different - and I'm not sure if Terry is the right fit for Pique
  • I already mentioned this in the main thread, but I actually think that Bale as a left-back would've been better choice than Baines. Baines isn't good enough defensively to stop Robben anyway - and Bale have a physical advantage, and can match Robben's pace here (he is probably slightly faster than him even). And he is a much better attacking outlet and a player, obviously. MJJ won't win this game defending anyway, he needs to outscore the opposition - and Goofy would've loved to have a Carlos-esque presence behind him
  • Vidic - Silva - DDG :drool:
Haven't decided yet, it's a tough one. Both teams have obvious flaws and both teams have some outstanding players to make up for them.
 
MJJ said:
With albiol, I think the reason why am under rating him more is that I have always thought you need pace more out wide than be good in positioning, that's why most center back struggle out wide. Of course I haven't seen much of albiol so can be completely off the mark here.
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Well, the crucial question would - then - be whether he is a CB played at RB (see Smalling) or a player who is actually capable of playing at RB as something more than an emergency solution.

I'd say he is more the latter than the former - but it's certainly up for debate in the sense that you could no doubt claim that he is better in the middle.
 
Annahnomoss said:
...Sanchez and Robben are better defensively than Ronaldinho and Hazard and Sneijder does a lot more for the defense than Kaka.
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That's a fair point.

On a different note, I have a problem with both Kaka and Sneijder. Dunno what it is, precisely. I feel they're both rated...wrongly in one way or the other. And neither of them are personal favourites of mine, to be brutally honest.

Balances out, though - in terms of voting for A or B. I don't really like either of 'em - but your point is valid: I do agree that Sneijder is more capable of putting in a shift of sorts. At least when he's arsed. Which, I suppose, we have to assume that he is.
 
Annahnomoss said:
Of course you can counter-attack even if you defend as a team. You don't need to leave someone without defensive duties like Ronaldo for Madrid or Ronaldinho to have them counter-attack perfectly well.

Robben has a job to do defensively against Baines and I will vouch for Robben to have the advantage no matter if Baines is by the corner flag - in terms of the hypothetical counter-attack.
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You need an outlet up front, someone with pace which you won't have here if robben is defending. Unless he is running from deep which really isn't the best strategy.

The robben-baines bit is hyperbole though. Let me do the same. I will back Ronaldinho to have the advantage no matter if he is being triple marked by Silva vidic and albiol.
 
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