................................................. TEAM HARMS .............................................................................................................. TEAM MICKEY7 ..................................................
TEAM HARMS
It looks like this is going to be 4-2-3-1 vs 4-2-3-1 and at this stage it's hardly a surprise that the teams will be incredibly hard to separate quality-wise. Still, I do believe that I have a slight edge in terms of the personnel — or, at least, I have more of my own personal favourites. There's also the historical precedent of Franco Baresi facing Romário at the peak of his powers and stopping him, producing one of all-time greatest individual defensive performances (in a World Cup final no less!) — it's important not to dwell into those real games too much but I simply can't not mention it, given a chance:
Overall I believe that my team isn't that hard to visualise.
- Rinat Dasayev stands in goal — he's one of those marginal difference that I believe bring my team closer to victory. Chilavert was a great keeper but I'd take Dasayev over him any day — he was as complete as they come & ridiculously consistent.
- Paul McGrath is a perfect counterpart to Franco Baresi with his God-like athleticism and outstanding defensive nous.
- Ahead of them there's the perfect no-nonsense midfield of the late 90's — Roy Keane & Edgar Davids (with the latter covering Marcelo's wide left channel).
- My fullbacks are from an era when their roles became one of the most important in football — and both were absolutely crucial in their teams winning countless trophies (Marcelo is the most decorated player in history of Real Madrid, ahead of Di Stéfano, Gento, Puskás, Raúl & Cristiano; for Brazil he, surprisingly, got into 2 World Cup's TotT, although I'd say that his inclusion in 2014' is a bit dubious; Philipp Lahm had won everything there was to win on the club level and was absolutely immense in different roles for West Germany — twice getting into Euros TotT, twice into World Cup's TotT, obviously winning it in 2014). A lot of creativity is going to come from them.
- Luis Suárez is going to shine in his Barça role once again — and while I do rate Platini a bit higher it's important to note that Suárez is absolutely an all-time great player on his own, capable of standing up to the likes of Di Stéfano & Puskás during his time in blaugrana's shirt.
- My front trio is absolutely electric and, which is important, hard-working as well as, well, genius. The interplay between Denis Law & Oleg Blokhin is really something that I'm looking forward to and Tom Finney should be a nice addition to those two, playing a more classic wing role that Oleg on the left. It coincides well with their respective fullback partners — Marcelo will bomb forward & overlap like he did with Cristiano while Lahm will probably be a bit more focused on the build-up & playmaking (although his occasional overlaps will be a great secondary threat).
TEAM MICKEY7
My team will be playing a 4-2-3-1 formation. As my players are all well known the area's that I feel are particularly strong/that I have an advantage in for this match are as follows:
- The proven combination of Platini, Boniek and Tardelli
- My left hand flank of Czibor and Nilton Santos has an advantage over the opponent's right hand flank of Lahm and either Finney or Blokhin
- My SF reinforcement CB pairing of Ferdinand and Cannavaro
Bessonov does have the engine to run up & down the wing for the whole game but I'd still count on Blokhin to came out on top in their duel.
