Your perfect team

Giant Midget said:
United's 1994 side was perhaps as perfect a setup of the classic 4-4-2 you will see.

Schmeichel

Parker Bruce Pallister Irwin

Kanchelskis Keane Ince Giggs

Cantona Hughes

What a bloody team :drool:

The only slight flaw is maybe we could have had a better goalscorer than Hughes, but every single player in that team was world class.
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It was a really good team. Really, really good. But I'd say Pally and Bruce were a great partnership, but not individually world class. And Paul Parker was good but not great. Irwin remains utterly magnificent. You would replace Hughes, as good as he was, with one of the great generational strikers.
 
simonhch said:
The concept of a best team often forces people to shoe horn in the best names throughout history, without any real consideration of how they would actually play. Consequently, I was thinking, what if I was a manager and had the opportunity to pick a match day 18 that I could take with me into any match, with the sole objective of winning - but winning on my own terms. For me that means a balance between pragmatism and flair, between power and poetry. My 18 reflects not only what I think would be as close to my ideal of a perfect unit, as possible, but one which reflects what I was exposed to during my formative football years. Subsequently, there will be some glaring omissions - such as Cristiano Ronaldo - in favour of players I not only believe would fit my team better, but who I simply prefer from a stylistic perspective.

Of course such an exercise has forced me to omit some wonderful players that I would have loved to have made room for. Artists such as Cantona, Bergkamp, Baggio, Del Piero, Stoichkov, Hagi. I have also omitted players that I may have admired greatly, but just did not see live enough to fully appreciate. Maradona is one such player.

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Subs:

Buffon, Maldini, Thuram, Redondo, Iniesta, Robben, Romario
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I would put Cristiano Ronaldo in Brazilian Ronaldo's place purely because the Brazilian was too injury prone.
There would be no need for Keane and Vieira together. You only need one. Replace him with Iniesta, with Keane playing behind Zidane and Iniesta.
Roberto Carlos is nowhere close to Maldini, Maldini would get that place easily. In fact Malidini was better than Ferdinand and Stam.

Schmeichel, was also not as good as Buffon, let's be honest here. Mostly because Schmeichel was prone to those mistakes he decided to downgrade when he left us to lead a more relaxed approach to football.
 
Invictus said:
Your 4-4-2 is lovely too, mate. Though to be honest, I'm always scared of recreating '70 considering of the once in a lifetime levels of chemistry that set of players channeled throughout that run of form. '58 is relatively simple, and more up my alley for a 4-4-2:
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To be honest it was never my intention, just picking Pele as a number 10 with a pure winger on the right and Charlton on the left lead to it. To be honest, I went a little further from my dream team here, which is usually based on a Charlton/Rijkaard/Matthäus midfield as I wanted to include Falcão here. But Lothar is a better fit to those two.
 
sincher said:
Haha, someone put Kahn in goal. Ludicrous.
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Why? There is no doubt for that he is in the highest echelon of keepers alongside Yashin, Zoff, Buffon and a few others.
 
By no means would this be the best team ever assembled, but it does contain an awful lot of my favourite players, so it would be close to my perfect team:



Subs:
Dino Zoff, Rodney Wallace (!), Tony Adams, Philip Lahm, Lothar Mattheus, Pele
 
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alanjohnson said:
I would put Cristiano Ronaldo in Brazilian Ronaldo's place purely because the Brazilian was too injury prone.
There would be no need for Keane and Vieira together. You only need one. Replace him with Iniesta, with Keane playing behind Zidane and Iniesta.
Roberto Carlos is nowhere close to Maldini, Maldini would get that place easily. In fact Malidini was better than Ferdinand and Stam.

Schmeichel, was also not as good as Buffon, let's be honest here. Mostly because Schmeichel was prone to those mistakes he decided to downgrade when he left us to lead a more relaxed approach to football.
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Horses for course I suppose. For me it is about striking the balance I want in a team. You can make arguments all day long about who should go where; and there are myriad different approaches one could take to this. The inclusion of Iniesta over Viera is a very legitimate one, that I struggled with and I am still 50/50 on. But I still remain happy with my choice. Especially as I have Iniesta on the bench.

For my money, Maldini was not a better center half than Ferdinand or Stam. A better pure left back than Carlos? Yes, I might agree. But with Keane and Viera in my midfield, I wanted my full back bombing forward and able to still get back. Carlos is the best I've ever seen at that at his peak. I have Thuram and Maldini on the bench, which has my entire back four covered.

As for Ronaldo vs Cristiano. This is pure preference. Ronaldo Luis is one of my favourite players ever. The perfect striker for me. C.Ronaldo is obviously great, but he just doesn't fit how I want my team to play. I have Romario off the bench if I am chasing a goal. And Arjen Robben for the sheer explosiveness and pace that can change a game.
 
simonhch said:
I've got you. The only thing is, if you had to win that one match that you put the team out for, wouldn't you pick players who had seen a lot of, live, as to mitigate against any unknown factors?
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There aren't a lot of unknown factors involved with the likes of Platini, Neeskens, Baresi and the likes, though, especially once you've seen a decent number of matches featuring them. Plus, they've played in much tougher physical conditions where referees were hesitant to discipline players, in ultra-competitive leagues (Serie A in the '80s and '90s for the former duo - which was arguably the pinnacle for club league football), performed in massive games at incredible levels, evidenced a great level of consistency in terms of performances for several seasons in a row, played in World Cup/Euro/European Cup finals in pressure cooker situations without losing regularly their bottle, etc. - which has adequately prepared them for a hypothetical doomsday matchup. Moreover, some of them have the exact characteristics needed for the role. eg. Platini was a super-creator and a super scorer, but also highly proficient in terms of defensive workrate for an attacking player), and frequently dropped really deep to orchestrate play - which will reduce any overlap with Messi and open up the field for the Argentine to exploit.

eg.


 
Invictus said:
There aren't a lot of unknown factors involved with the likes of Platini, Neeskens, Baresi and the likes, though, especially once you've seen a decent number of matches featuring them. Plus, they've played in much tougher physical conditions where referees were hesitant to discipline players, in ultra-competitive leagues (Serie A in the '80s and '90s for the former duo - which was arguably the pinnacle for club league football), performed in massive games at incredible levels, evidenced a great level of consistency in terms of performances for several seasons in a row, played in World Cup/Euro/European Cup finals in pressure cooker situations without losing regularly their bottle, etc. - which has adequately prepared them for a hypothetical doomsday matchup. Moreover, some of them have the exact characteristics needed for the role. eg. Platini was a super-creator and a super scorer, but also highly proficient in terms of defensive workrate for an attacking player), and frequently dropped really deep to orchestrate play - which will reduce any overlap with Messi and open up the field for the Argentine to exploit.

eg.



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Ok. Point nicely made. It's your perfect team, and that's what matters. Nice defence of it too.
 
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By no means the absolute best, but how I would love to see this team play.
 
Moby said:
Should have gone all samba/latin if you were keen on 1982. The Italians/Germans stick out like a sore thumb, specially Gentile.
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In hindsight you and @harms are completely correct. i through that together real quick before heading to a meeting and didnt even think about theme of the americas draft template i used. ill definitely update this later when i can
 
sincher said:
He is not even close, IMO.
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Who is better? He was voted as the 3rd best player in the world in 2 consecutive seasons (as a goalkeeper!), as well as winning the WC Golden Ball and countless of others club and individual honors over the career (+ European Championship)
 
simonhch said:
Ok. Point nicely made. It's your perfect team, and that's what matters. Nice defence of it too.
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Pretty much. To bore you further with trivial details, parts of the entire back 6 unit played with each other at some point of their career, and can converse in Italian to organize things.

Nesta with Buffon (for Italy), Cafu (for Milan), and Maldini (Italy + Milan).
Buffon with Maldini and Nesta (for Italy).
Cafu with Maldini and Nesta (for Milan).
Rijkaard with Maldini and Baresi (for Milan).
Maldini with Cafu and Rijkaard (for Milan), Baresi and Nesta (for Italy and Milan), and Buffon (for Italy).
Baresi with Rijkaard (for Milan), and Maldini (for Italy and Milan).

The Baresi + Maldini tandem in particular was too good to overlook (only 23 Serie A goals conceded in 196 games alongside each other at Milan):

Especially when it's being shielded by Rijkaard (who had great chemistry with them in a similar-ish role under Sacchi).
 
harms said:
Not sure what's the arrow on Müller is about, though (or is it Thomas? Unorthodox if so)
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It's Gerd playing a false 9-ish role with Cruyff in a free role and esp Rummennigge cutting in. The team doesn't have a static #10/playmaker and a reference point in midfield but Cruyff and a more fluid make with the likes of Charlton and Breitner who would love having someone to play off with. Müller is his 1972 role (but less drastic given the presence of Cruyff as opposed to the lack of a fixed playmaking presence in the final third for Germany 1972 - Netzer was more deep-ish) is perfect for it and better than Ronaldo, Romario and arguably van Basten for that role imo. Besides I consider him to be the best #9 of all time, so there's that.
 


This is by no means the greatest, but full of players that I absolutely adore and that I believe would complement a system of fluidity and positional interchange. I found it very difficult to leave out Baresi, but opted for Beckenbauer's superior attacking ability with license to move forward. It's also ridiculous that I have omitted arguably the best 3 players in history, if not best 4 or 5, but I've gone with a system and style that values team play and movement over individual skill. There's only room for one genius, and I've chosen the Best.

This team could comfortably switch to a four at the back with Zanetti or Breitner moving into midfield, and in Nedved, Scholes, Mattheus and Beckenbauer you can expect plenty of screamers :drool:
 
Invictus said:
The Baresi + Maldini tandem in particular was too good to overlook (only 23 Serie A goals conceded in 196 games alongside each other at Milan):
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Was pretty sure that it was a made up stat, but on an official Serie A twitter! Wow. Even more impressive than, well, than any defensive record, probably.
 
harms said:
Was pretty sure that it was a made up stat, but on an official Serie A twitter! Wow. Even more impressive than, well, than any defensive record, probably.
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Aye, there's a caveat for that particular stat, though: they recorded it for Maldini and Baresi's defensive zones, not the overall volume of goals that Milan conceded from the day of Maldini's debut to the day of Baresi's retirement (that number was much higher).
 
Infordin said:
What's wrong with Kahn :confused:
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IMO he is one of the most overrated keepers in history. He was like the German Shay Given, made saves look spectacular and had lots of personality but was generally quite easy to beat. Nowhere near the class of Buffon or Schmeichel.
 
Invictus said:
Aye, there's a caveat for that particular stat, though: they recorded it for Maldini and Baresi's defensive zones, not the overall volume of goals that Milan conceded from the day of Maldini's debut to the day of Baresi's retirement (that number was much higher).
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Oh, that makes much more sense. Couldn't believe it, even if they are, probably, the best center and left back ever.


edit: German Shay Given :eek: fecking hell
 
From players I've seen and are from my generation

(1)Schmeichel

(2)Cafu (5)Rio (3)Maldini

(6)Keane

(4)Xavi (8)Scholes

(11)Zidane

(10)Messi (9)Ronaldo9 (7)CR7


Subs: (13) Buffon, (12) Zanetti, (14) Ramos, (15) Pirlo, (16) Iniesta, (17) Henry, (18) Batistuta
 
ADJUDICATOR said:
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Of that, Martinez (2012-14) is an interesting shout. Was an absolute monster of a DM at that time.


Raees said:
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Kohler is one I really like, and I thought about him in there. So many great CB choices. Maldini and Cafu is such a delicious full back pairing. Many have gone for it. It's probably superior to my Roberto Carlos/Zanetti pairing, but I love those two.

Charlton in a CM two though? I wouldn't have picked that with any degree of confidence.
 
simonhch said:
Of that, Martinez (2012-14) is an interesting shout. Was an absolute monster of a DM at that time.




Kohler is one I really like, and I thought about him in there. So many great CB choices. Maldini and Cafu is such a delicious full back pairing. Many have gone for it. It's probably superior to my Roberto Carlos/Zanetti pairing, but I love those two.

Charlton in a CM two though? I wouldn't have picked that with any degree of confidence.
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I'll be honest I am really struggling to pick a CM who I really like. My ideal midfielder would be like a Paul Scholes/Modric but with Matthaus B2B ability. I picked Charlton because he is one of my favourite players of all time and the more videos I watch of him, the more deeper he seems to play than your archetypal attacking midfielder. He really plays as a deep lying attacking midfielder if that makes sense, and therefore I reckon CM with a defence that strong would be okay for him to still be at his best. But yes, I agree it isn't ideal.

Hmm maybe Schweini?
 
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Raees said:
I'll be honest I am really struggling to pick a CM who I really like. My ideal midfielder would be like a Paul Scholes/Modric but with Matthaus B2B ability. I picked Charlton because he is one of my favourite players of all time and the more videos I watch of him, the more deeper he seems to play than your archetypal attacking midfielder. He really plays as a deep lying attacking midfielder if that makes sense, and therefore I reckon CM with a defence that strong would be okay for him to still be at his best. But yes, I agree it isn't ideal.
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Charlton is definitely misrepresented, especially on the account of him being (until just now) United's and England's topscorer, at his peak he was a central midfielder, even though with great end product (those long shots!).

Falcão suits your description though.
 
Raees said:
I'll be honest I am really struggling to pick a CM who I really like. My ideal midfielder would be like a Paul Scholes/Modric but with Matthaus B2B ability. I picked Charlton because he is one of my favourite players of all time and the more videos I watch of him, the more deeper he seems to play than your archetypal attacking midfielder. He really plays as a deep lying attacking midfielder if that makes sense, and therefore I reckon CM with a defence that strong would be okay for him to still be at his best. But yes, I agree it isn't ideal.

Hmm maybe Schweini?
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I see your conundrum. The ones I considered for that role were Zidane (because at Juve his engine was terrific) and Seedorf. Also a huge fan of Nedved for a blend of technique and work rate.
 
Started watching in 97 so limiting this to players I saw:

---------- Fat Ronaldo
---- Ribery Messi Robben
---------- Xavi Keane
---Maldini Cannavaro Ferdinand Zanetti
----------- Schmeichel

- Granted I didn't get a glimpse of the Great Dane in his prime, so might have to go with DDG, Kahn or Cech

- Hard to omit my Top 3 all time fave in Zizou, but I think Messi has him beat here
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
Fascinating team. Not a tactic I would have expected at all but very interestingly constructed.
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You can stick your joga bonito up your arse, we're punting it long to big Gunnar up top.

But aye the idea is to be as solid as possible off the ball and counter attack devastatingly on it.
 
harms said:
Charlton is definitely misrepresented, especially on the account of him being (until just now) United's and England's topscorer, at his peak he was a central midfielder, even though with great end product (those long shots!).

Falcão suits your description though.
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Yeah he was one I was looking at, Schweinsteiger is another.

Right now, anyone else want to do their perfect 3-5-2 and 4-4-2?
 
Giant Midget said:
United's 1994 side was perhaps as perfect a setup of the classic 4-4-2 you will see.

Schmeichel

Parker Bruce Pallister Irwin

Kanchelskis Keane Ince Giggs

Cantona Hughes

What a bloody team :drool:

The only slight flaw is maybe we could have had a better goalscorer than Hughes, but every single player in that team was world class.
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I'd go for that team. My favourite United team and Hughes my all time favourite player (hence the username).
 
All-Time-XI-formation-tactics.png


Taking inspiration from Pep, but more direct and individually focused than his sides. It's my modern interpretation of the 2-3-5. Without the ball it's a 433. With the ball Der Kaiser is an attacks (essentially the old centre half), Neeskens moves up to RCM, Rikjaard drops to CB and Lahm operates as a DM. The front five move essentially take the roles of wingers, CF, left-half and right-half. It is maybe a little crazy but I would be awesome to see. Two proper wingers, inside left and right plus an attacking CB (libero) - my favourite things!

Here's what it looks like in possession

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:
 
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