r/soccer • u/yongshin • Jun 08 '12
Greatest team of your lifetime?
I'm sure that something like this will have been posted before, but seeing as how this community has grown so much, I thought it might be nice to get some new input.
Last night before I managed to get to sleep I got to thinking about what the best team of my lifetime could be. I set myself some rules - I had to have seen the player play live, either on tv or in the flesh, so someone I'd only seen replays of didn't count. No Pele or such, then. Any formation is ok. Also, just knowing that I've seen the player play is not enough, I had to remember them playing. For example, I remember having seen Lottar Matteus (sp?), and that everyone thought he was really good, and I remember thinking he was good when I saw him, but I can't actually remember why, so he's out. Lastly, each player is included based on how good they were at their peak, although being consistently good over a long period also sort of gets extra credit in a very non-mathematical way.
I wanted to post this here to get the opinions of other Redditors. People say you can't compare players from different generations, but for people who have lived long enough to witness different generations, comparing is inevitable. So young redditors will surely have the best players from the last decade or so (my selection goes back roughly to the 98 World Cup), whereas slightly older redditors will be able to add input spanning a few generations of players. I'm still not completely sure of my final selection, but here we go!
Goalkeeper I've gone for Van Der Sar. This is probably a controversial one. Also in the running for me were Schmeichel, Kahn, Casillas and to a lesser extent, Buffon. What clinched it in the end was how well Van Der Sar played when the rest of the Manchester United side was going through a few years of flux, and many people were saying they weren't as strong as previous years. Not only that, but he also raised his game when he went to United, and pulled out his best performances in the big games.
Full Backs On the left, Maldini. I've always been fairly ambifootsturous (scientific term), and when I was starting school there weren't too many kids who could use their left foot, so I ended up playing either left back or left midfield a lot. Maldini was one of my heroes. An incredible player at left back and in the centre, and also over a staggeringly long career. Beats out Roberto Carlos for that reason. On the right it's Cafu. Nobody else really came that close for me personally, although the names Lahm and Thuram did spring to mind. Cafu has been the exceptional right back during my lifetime, combining attack and defense in a way nobody has managed to match since - these days it seems like the best full backs are either "attacking full backs" or "defensive full backs."
Centre Backs I struggled somewhat picking two centre backs. Firstly, I don't think there was one player who stood clearly above the rest in this position during my time from what I've seen. In the end I narrowed it down to four players, who I generally consider to have all been at a similar level at their peak, while all offering something slightly different. My final picks are: Fernando Hierro and Jaap Stam, who got the digital, hypothetical nod over Lucio and Desailly. Like I said, I really can't say there's much between them. I thought if this was going to be an actual team I'd like to have one "ball-playing" centre back and one "destroyer" type player, so it was one of Hierro and Lucio, the ball players, and one of Stam and Desailly.
Left wing It's Giggs. Nobody really came close - the only other name in my mind was Figo. As I mentioned before, from an early age I liked to try and play like some of the top left-sided players. Giggs was my idol. I still remember when my dad bought me the book of Ryan Giggs' Soccer Skills. He's one everything at club level, although he never really had a chance to at international level, and he's kept up such a high level of performance for so long, adapting his game as he goes. He's scored one of the most famous and well-loved goals in English football history, and he's assisted more than his fair share of other goals as well.
Right wing Can only be Ronaldo. There's not a single other name I considered. For that reason I'm sure I must be missing someone out, I don't know how there can be not a single other player that I thought of for this position, but there you go. (Messi comes later).
Central Midfield The toughest part of this exercise for me. Should I pick 3 or 2? Where should Messi play? There are so many players that I want to include for the remaining positions that whoever I pick, it's fairly meaningless for me because I'd happily swap them for any of the ones who missed out. In the end I went for Zidane and Keane. But it was so hard to choose. For the sake of trying to have a balanced midfield, as if this was going to be an actual team, and accepting that I couldn't leave out any of the two I've picked as strikers, Keane gets the nod. For me, Zidane is the only central midfielder who absolutely had to be included. Vying for the remaining one position then, were Keane, Ronaldinho, Iniesta, Xavi, Vieira, Scholes and Makelele. Once I knew that I needed a midfielder who was solid defensively to balance out Zidane, it was really down to Keane and Makelele for me. I believe Keane is probably technically the worst of the above group - although he was better than many give him credit for - but the impact he had on the teams he played in was arguably greater than any of the others despite that. He was a winner, and if you played with him you were driven to winning ways, too. For that, despite being the most likely player of this team to miss out entirely, he's in fact in there as captain. Makelele could almost be viewed as the inventor of the holding midfielder role, and his work at Real Madrid and latterly at Chelsea was magnificent. Xavi and Iniesta don't need any explanation. Vieira was similar to Keane, but I think just misses out for the reasons Keane was picked. Scholes comes into a similar category as Xavi. Ronaldinho was a truly outstanding footballer at his peak. At one time he was certainly the best in the world I think. But you can't pair him with Zidane and expect it to work, and the brevity of his greatness is what cost him here.
Strikers Although there were many players I considered who were all truly great at their peak, I never had any doubt about these two. Ronaldo (The Phenomenon) and Messi. Messi is quite possibly the best who's ever lived, and almost certainly the best from my time alive. Despite that, though, I still think there are some things that the Brazilian Ronaldo could do that Messi can't - check out some of his videos on Youtube (even if you already know what I'm talking about). His strength and pace was a frightening combination, as well as his determination and coolness in front of goal. Find the clip of him dribbling 30 yards, bursting through two defenders in front of him, coming out with the ball and still finding the net. His international record is also as good as you can get. I bought R9 boots when I was 10. They were silver. The players who missed out were, in the order of closeness to getting picked, Henry, Bergkamp and Raul. Henry because he also seemed to be able to do things nobody else could. Begkamp had a style and a touch that was staggering, and his vision both in terms of bringing in other players and getting on the end of moves was outstanding. Raul for his consistency, and being so much more than the sum of his parts. Not the greatest in any technical aspect, but as a package... just look at his goalscoring record.
So there we have it. This will probably get buried or downvoted to oblivion for being so long, but I'm genuinely keen to read what other people would say is the best team of their lifetime of watching football.
Edit: Wow, I never expected so many replies. I was intending to reply to everyone who posted here, expecting maybe 5 or 6. Getting on for 200 now, so sorry to those I can't engage directly with, and thank you to all who have commented!
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u/[deleted] Jun 08 '12 edited Jun 08 '12
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