You can't necessarily hide bad full-backs, but DS's full-back were at least very competent. They were solid and they were in the right position. So while they are a relative weakspot in terms of the draft, you are not going to get a huge amount of change out of either of them. They certainly won't win you any games, but I didn't feel they'd really lose you many either. On your particular one (and Billy's to an extent) I felt you had someone who could be either phenomenal or a liability.
Sorry, that makes no sense, unless you're arguing that either Campos was incompetent (despite being capped 129 times for Mexico!) or played in the wrong position (see the bolded parts of your post). And while they may not make shocking mistakes (although I don't see why not), that's not necessarily what makes bad players "bad". All players are prone to shocking mistakes - even great ones. Any team with any decent amount of width will get a very large amount of charge out of them, definitely as much as they would out of Campos. If shots don't reach Campos, he won't have to deal with them. Which was the reason I constructed my defense the way I did and the reason that my fullbacks weren't instructed to maraud forward at all times. I don't think you're being consistent here and your reasoning seems to be "Campos had the potential to be occasionally bad, so I'm going to assume he was always bad", which seems very strange. The best comparison to Campos is someone like David James. And how many games did James lose for his sides? Not nearly as many as he saved, that's for sure.
This isn't even close to a valid argument. * 7 of the Top 10 highest goalscorers in Scottish history played in the 20s or 30s with McGrory. *Only 1 of the Top 10 scorers in Hungrian played in the 60s with Albert. It was Ferenc Bene - who was even then an inferior player to Florian Albert. Albert played in a completely different era from the other players you mentioned. Albert was '59-'74 Don't paint me to be obstinate. Your definition of prolific is sketchy - at best. Clearly, my team has _three_ goalscorers with a higher goal-to-game ratio than several other teams above it at club and international level. On top of that, I've actually included better goal scorers in my attack than most other teams. It's poor reasoning - unless you would have ranked me higher with Alan Shearer, Bob McPhail, or Ottmar Walter? I doubt it.
Well, I had no sheep and was weighted 14th. So, clearly, sheep weren't a factor. Btw, from what I've watched, Stoichkov played (not plaid - mind) very much like a striker for Barcelona in his time there '90-'95. Gullit was an all-arounder who played some RW for Milan, so I can understand not counting on him. But, Stoichkov and Albert were definitely strikers. It was just the only thing they did.
Re. Comme By 'matrix pick' I assume you mean Papin? Personally I just felt he fit my team very well in terms of his pace and first-time striking, as counter-attacking was fairly important to my tactical setup. I had noticed that in that round only two other people were eligible for Germans, and only two other were eligible for Brazilians. This left me with Seeler, Klinsmann, Leonadis da Silva, possibly Vavu and also Arthur Freidenrich. I am not too familiar with da Silva or Vavu - can anybody let me know how they would have fit a counter-attacking unit? Seeler from what I know of him seemed a bit better suited to a team that would dictate the tempo more - he was perhaps the best option and I had him pencilled in for the second pick had I missed Papin, but I felt Papin fit into my team better. Freidenrich I couldn't take as I already had Crompton, Hapgood & Samitier from the pre-WWII era and I wanted a good spread across generations (in fact, barring 1945-62 I had aty least one player active in every single year from 1895 up until 2010 ). I have to admit though, I am a bit irritated that some people seem to be deeming Crompton, Hapgood & Samitier as 'lesser players' solely down to the fact that they played in the earlier days. If that were the case then pretty much every player from before the 1970s/80s at the latest is obsolete in this draft, since they would simply be done to death on fitness by any 1990s/2000s player. Seems a bit of a cop-out to me. Being honest I regret the Samitier pick a little - had I taken Dixie Dean that round I could have easily picked up Dalglish or Cubillas in the 9th round. Oh well.
I appreciate the feedback. I can see your point regarding width but I'd expect both Bergkamp and Mazzola to drift wide at times throughout any given match. But the lack of width was the main point in my team that I expected people to pick up on. Thanks for the feedback. To be perfectly honest when I looked over available DM's and I had Rattin at the top of the list it was your BS profile on him that pushed me to take him. I understand your point over the three players personal profiles but I thought that although they were strong minded, they were also intelligent players that would give and take to an extent for the good of their team and to fit in with the teams tactics. Finally, can I just state that there have been a few comments on my McGrory pick and at the worry of sounding like a broken record, I understand the reservations, especially considering the time in the previous century when he was playing football but I would also hope that the same concerns were given to every player playing in that timescale that was drafted. The one thing that football has increased or bettered in recent generations over previous ones has been physical ability. That rings true whether the player is an attacker or a defender.
I'll get to my detailed rankings eventually (slowly working on them - stupid work!) but I disagree with that. They were definitely both support strikers in my mind. If you have 2 support strikers you lack an out and out striker. I thought your team would have been a lot better with an out and out striker, personally, because otherwise your personnel was excellent. In the very first collaborative all time draft one of the teams decided to have Gullit play up top and I hated that too.
http://pesstatsdatabase.com/30-s/leonidas-da-silva-1938-1940-t2646.html Leonidas was fast as hell apparently. And by Vavu you mean Vavá?
Sorry mate. I don't mean to go on but can you tell me who was 2nd behind McGrory and what his stats were, just for comparison. Because... you're making it sound like there wasn't a lot between them. And as comme stated, I've already explained why McGrory had so few caps for his country, which I believe to be a fairly legitimate reason. lanman has mentioned on an entirely different thread in The Beautiful Game that he couldn't understand why McGrory didn't receive more international recognition. But I'm more than willing to admit I'm a little biased on the subject.
Vava, yes. Cheers for the info btw, even if it is just PES ratings, it would have been a useful tool to have during the draft.
Well, I can certainly understand the criticism that maybe the puzzle pieces don't fit. I just don't think that a team with _NO_ sheep and 3 Ballon d'Or winners in its attacking line should finishes second to last in 14th. ---- I was pretty much sunk when I took Albert. He was a great player, and I am happy to have learned so much about him, but it was definitely not the best "piece" at that time. More forwards were to be had in the 9th and 10th rounds that might have "won" the tournament. All along, I wanted Gullit as an AM. An attacking diamond of Stoichkov, Rush, Lato, and Gullit was my initial "dream".
I can. Bob McPhail. And, judging by the stats, McGrory benefited from being the only legit goalscoring threat that Celtic had for almost 20 years. Rangers had 3-4 different guys. By comparison, here are the stats I found for most of the 20s and 30s... * Celtic's forward line - Jimmy McGrory (550 goals). There is literally _no one_ else.^ * Rangers forward line - Bob McPhail (305) _and_ Jimmy Fleming (223) _and_ Jimmy Smith (249) ^Patsy Gallacher comes close. 4 years overlapping with McGrory, but Rangers have Will Thornton with an equivalent goal tally and 4 years with McPhail * Celtic's # of titles in McGrory's time: 4 * Ranger's # of titles in McGrory's time: 13 Obviously, McGrory would not have scored 550 with Fleming and Smith in his team also scoring goals. No doubt, McGrory could play. But, his scoring record is simply an aberration.
Gah. This pains me so much, b/c I'm not a Rangers fan by any stretch... But, this doesn't mean McGrory would have succeeded in the national team. As stated, Rangers had 4 other guys that could be considered equally comparable and had played with each other at some time or another. Celtic had 1 goal scorer for almost 20 years. McGrory was good. But, to point to his goalscoring record and say he's "550" good - is silly. No one here saw him play. There were more than a couple comparative talents in Scotland at the same time with _huge_ goal tallies. Florian Albert played in one of the greatest eras of football (60s) and was success in domestic club, European club, and international play - winning titles and individual awards in all 3 arenas.
Co-signing in agreement, re my point about Crompton/Hapgood/Samitier a post or two above yours. FWIW I did a little research on Wiki. The SPL section seems hopeless in terms of getting any info before when it became the 'SPL', so I just checked Rangers & Celtics top goalscorers. I got the Rangers stats from Wiki, and the Celtic ones from their Kerrydale Street fansite. Glasgow Celtic: 1. Jimmy McGrory - 472 goals in 445 games, 1922-37 2. Bobby Lennon - 273 goals in571 games, 1961-1980 3. Henrik Larsson - 242 goals in 315 games, 1997-2004 4. Stevie Chalmers - 231 goals in 393 games, 1959-71 5. Jimmy Quinn - 217 goals in 311 games, 1900-...1912 I think? Glasgow Rangers: 1. Ally McGoist- 351 goals in 581 app's, 1983-98 2. Bob McPhail - 261 goals in 408 games, 1927-40 3. Jimmy Smith - 249 goals in 359 games, 1930-46 4. Jimmy Fleming - 220 goals in 267 games, 1925-34 5. Derek Johnstone - 210 goals in 546 games, 1970-85 This is for all competitions btw. Bolded are the players from similar timeframes to McGrory - none of which matched his goalscoring ratio (only Fleming really got close), and none of which come close to matching his longevity in terms of production.
Except that *duh* the other guys were in the same team. This is like saying Gerrard has won more games single-handedly for Liverpool than Paul Scholes ever won for Manchester United. Well, yea, look who Scholes played with. McGrory's absence of teammates just gives him more opportunities to score goals. Clearly, the Rangers players were dividing a finite number of chances. And, it was indicative of the club performance. In McGrory's time at Celtic, Celtic had 4 titles; Rangers had 13.
I agree with you - that's why, iirc, I had you right in the middle. I didn't think you were any worse than that.
Beckenbauer is clearly in the top five in my book, and Rattin is one of my favorite players, I picked him in the all-time draft. But their co-existence was enough of a question mark for me in terms of chemistry to be a bit of a factor in the rankings. That, along with a couple of other issues, like lack of width and your choice of Mazzola. BTW, any reason why you picked Mazzola when Gianni Rivera was still available? Do you like Mazzola better, or did you think Rivera would be blocked? Anyway, I ranked you 9th, and the consensus for your team was 7th, so given how close all the teams were, I wasn't that far off. And I enjoyed researching your team.
First off, I hope you don't think I'm arguing for the sake of arguing it's just that I don't agree with the facts or the way they are being presented. I appreciate the fact that you agree that McGrory could play but I disagree with your opinion that his goal scoring record, and therefore, his career, was an aberration. Would Herbert Chapman have been so desperate to sign him for Arsenal if this was so? As for the Rangers players you have mentioned above, no doubt that they were great players but McGrory played from '21 to '37. McPhail played for '27-'40. Fleming from '25-'34, Smith from '30-'46. It would seem that you are weighing up these three players against McGrory when it's reasonable to say that 8-9 years of that time was outwith McGrory's years. Furthermore, Adam McLean played for Celtic as a left winger between the years of '17-'28 and scored 138 goals. Incidentally, how many caps did he win for Scotland at that time? Surprise, surprise.. 4 caps. And Patsy Gallacher was still a big Celtic favourite when McGrory launched his career at Celtic. Gallacher scored 192 goals for Celtic between '11-'26.
It isn't that they played against McGrory, it is that they scored 200+ goals always playing alongside each other. At every point in that time, 2 of those players for Rangers were playing with each other in the same team. McGrory did not have that kind of competition in his own team. If McGrory wasn't scoring for Celtic no one else was. Who is to say that if McPhail had not played with Smith and Fleming that he wouldn't have had 550 also? And, if it's reasonable to say that McPhail could have had 500, then the whole era looks a bit soft defensively with that many guys scoring that many goals.
That can work both ways, however. If McGrory was Celtic's only goalscorer for so many years, how come no other teams figured out how to mark him more effectively, to at least hold him to less than his goal-per-game ratio? Likewise (and I have no knowledge of Scottish football at the time) pointing to the 13vs4 titles doesn't exactly settle the debate - you would then need to look at the rest of the team, as well, e.g. who got the better service and who played on the team more likely to dictate possession, etc? I agree with your assertation that Scholes is a superior player to Gerrard mind, so maybe you're onto something . Actually, truth be told their styles of play have a major role in this too. Let's (please, please, please!) not go down this alley - but Lampard it could be argued has won more games for Chelsea than Gerrard has for Liverpool since 2005, despite having far more talent around him. Yet when Lampard had less talent around him (2000-05) he won considerably less games for Chelsea than Gerrard did for Liverpool. "Must spread..." in relation to your link about goalscorers though. Great resource (and a fatload of good to me at this stage!).
It actually worked out very clearly for me over the last three rounds. By that point I knew that I needed a DM, a LB and another striker/SS. Now, I've admitted earlier in the draft that I lost track of what was going to happen in the 10th rd and I had based my selections on what I hoped to achieve without that knowledge. When the criteria for the 8th rd was revealed as the Olympic round I had already placed Rattin and Mazzola as my top choices for two of my three remaining positions. Neither where available in the olympic rd so I had to focus on a LB and it was slim pickings, from what I could gather(I'd be more than happy to know otherwise) so I plumped for Demiyanenko. After that I was set for my final two picks, if I could get them. Rattin fell perfectly for me in rd9(the international rd) and then rd10 threw a spanner in the works. I offered, to lanman, Mazzola as an alternative but I had delusions of grandeur regarding players such as Cruyff and Zico. After the 1st chance in the 10th rd(when I picked Cruyff) I sat back and thought about what other teams would deem I needed as a final pick. I decided it was fairly obvious that I needed an SS/AM and the longer I took to select one and the more people were successful would work against me. The less players left to pick would focus the successful drafters more on who was left and the players they needed. I opted for Mazzola because he was a player I originally wanted before the 10th rd began and I doubted my chances of getting someone better than him with my remaining chances. And I couldn't afford another sheep(I already had Borimirov).