UEFA Team of the Year 2008

[Grinners89]

Did they screw it up again this year? :rolleyes:

Just for anyone who is interested in either posting their team of the year from UEFA's nominations or for anyone else, like myself, who loves to complain about how stupid some of UEFA's decisions are regarding these awards.

Here are the 55 nominations and coaches:


Goalkeepers: René Adler (Bayer Leverkusen), Igor Akinfeev (CSKA Moscow), Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), Petr Cech (Chelsea), Edwin van der Sar (Manchester United).

Right backs: Aleksandr Anyukov (Zenit St. Petersburg), José Boswingwa (Chelsea), Maicon (Inter), Sergio Ramos (Real Madrid), Bacary Sagna (Arsenal).

Left Backs: Joan Capdevila (Villarreal), Patrice Evra (Manchester United), Philipp Lahm (Bayern Munich), Giovanni van Bronckhorst (Feyenoord), Yuri Zhirkov (CSKA Moscow).

Central defenders: Jamie Carragher (Liverpool), Ricardo Carvalho (Chelsea), Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus), Rio Ferdinand (Manchester United), Carlos Marchena (Valencia), Pepe (Real Madrid), Carles Puyol (Barcelona), John Terry (Chelsea), Tomás Ujfalusi (Atlético de Madrid), Nemanja Vidic (Manchester United).

Central Midfielders: Mehmet Aurélio (Real Betis), Xavi Hernández (Barcelona), Marcos Senna (Villarreal), Anatoliy Tymoshchuk (Zenit St. Petersburgo), Konstantin Zyryanov (Zenit St. Petersburgo).

Right-sided Midfielders: Hamit Altintop (Bayern Munich), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United), Bastian Schweinsteiger (Bayern Munich), Javier Zanetti (Inter).

Left-sided Midfielders: Andrés Iniesta (Barcelona), Franck Ribéry (Bayern Munich), Arjen Robben (Real Madrid), David Silva (Valencia), Wesley Sneijder (Real Madrid).

Attacking midfielders: Andrei Arshavin (Zenit St. Petersburgo), Michael Ballack (Chelsea), Cesc Fàbregas (Arsenal), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), Luka Modric (Tottenham Hotspur).

Forwards: Emmanuel Adebayor (Arsenal), Sergio Agüero (Atlético de Madrid), Karim Benzema (Olympique Lyonnais), Alessandro Del Piero (Juventus), Daniel Güiza (Fenerbahçe), Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Inter), Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Fernando Torres (Liverpool), David Villa (Valencia).

Coaches: Dick Advocaat (Zenit St. Petersburgo), Luis Aragonés (Fenerbahçe), Alex Ferguson (Manchester United), Temuri Ketsbaia (Anorthosis Famagusta), Fatih Terim (Turkey).


Some strange decisions.

1. Again...no Pepe.
2. Carlos Marchena
3. Arjen Robben...made 12 starting league appearances for Madrid in season 07/08 and has only made 7 this season. Add to this his 6 starts in the CL over the last two seasons. Then, you would have to exclude those appearances that he made in 2007 as they would not count. How can he be nominated :confused:
4. Hamit Altintop
5. Stevie Gerrard in a right-midfielder category when he spent the entire season playing as a SS/AM behind Torres.
6. NO MASCHERANO!!! Are they blind?

Too much has been put on the Euros, as shown by some of the nominations.


My team (Gerrard should replace Lampard in the AM spot if he was in the AM category.

Casillas

Ramos Ferdinand Chiellini Evra

Xavi

Ronaldo Lampard Iniesta

Torres Villa

Subs: van der Sar, Carvalho, Lahm, Senna, Gerrard, Ribery, Messi

[liverbird]

Fat Frank never sees the pitch for me

[Grinners89]

Fat Frank never sees the pitch for me

Who else would you have ahead of him? Ballack? Arshavin?

Fabregas certainly doesnt deserve it and neither does Modric. The former only had a good patch at the start of the 07/08 season, before the new year and the latter stood out in the Euros but wasnt that dominant for Zagreb.

Unless you mean "Fat Frank never sees the pitch, due the veranda overhanging the toolshed" ;)

[liverbird]

Who else would you have ahead of him? Ballack? Arshavin?

Fabregas certainly doesnt deserve it and neither does Modric. The former only had a good patch at the start of the 07/08 season, before the new year and the latter stood out in the Euros but wasnt that dominant for Zagreb.

Unless you mean "Fat Frank never sees the pitch, due the veranda overhanging the toolshed" ;)

Yes, Ballack off last years actual performance.

[FC ME]

I'd take Lahm over Evra, and Messi over Iniesta.

[LiverMorgh]

Gerrard should have been there for Central Midfield, and would have been a show in to get an equal record 4th time in a row in the team. I think he was the top scoring midfielder apart from Ronaldo.

[el-capitano]

What a joke- why wasn't Dirk Kuyt in the list as right sided midfielder? :D

[CCSC_STRIKER20]

Don't put too much merit into these teams. It's nice when our players get selected, but otherwise, the selectors of these teams can feck off.

[Grinners89]

I'd take Lahm over Evra, and Messi over Iniesta.

This isnt who you would prefer, its who were the best players over 2008. Lahm didnt have as good a season as Evra.

Messi and Iniesta arent in the same category. If they were, Iniesta definitely deserves selection as Messi only started half the games over the year, hardly enough to warrant his selection over Iniesta, who performed to an equal level for twice the amount of games.

Only Ribery could be selected over Iniesta. In fact, id probably change that now. I saw more games Barcelona games compared with Bayern games so thats where my bias probably comes from.

[billyireland]

I couldn't find the old comedy thread, so I thought I'd just slap it in here. :p

------------------Casillas------------------
Ramos----Carragher---Terry----Lahm
Gerrard---Senna--Arshavin---Iniesta
---------------Torres--Messi-------------

Z_FaT71cjWA

[billyireland]

Gerrard was not very convincing at CM last year, and I can think of a half-dozen players that were better than him in that position. Behind Torres later in the year (iirc) however, he was stellar. He didn't play his best as a midfielder last year, and Ronaldo for my money is not a midfielder at all.

What a joke- why wasn't Dirk Kuyt in the list as right sided midfielder? Ian Rush doesn't have enough sway in the proceedings since Platini took over? ;)

[CCSC_STRIKER20]

Gerrard was not very convincing at CM last year, and I can think of a half-dozen players that were better than him in that position. Behind Torres later in the year (iirc) however, he was stellar. He didn't play his best as a midfielder last year, and Ronaldo for my money is not a midfielder at all.

Thank you for admitting something that the many in the rest of the world of football have a problem with.

[billyireland]

Thank you for admitting something that the many in the rest of the world of football have a problem with.
TBH, I think most just slap him there in those 'team of the year' awards because his position for us is basically a right wing-forward with freedom to roam, interchange with his opposite flank and instructions* to stay up the pitch as he is our primary outlet on counter-attacks. That's a bit of cnut to fit into a standard formation... much like Messi is getting slapped up front a lot now, to fit him in there somewhere.

*I say instruction because I believe Ferguson/Queiroz found a way to legitimately fit it into a part of our game-plan. If it were not his instructions though, the lazy git would still only come back fully when the clock struck thirteen.

[CCSC_STRIKER20]

*I say instruction because I believe Ferguons/Queiroz found a way to legitimately fit it into a part of our gameplan. If it were not his instructions though, the lazy git would still only come back fully when the clock struck thirteen.

The fact that you called your best player a lazy git is awesome! :)

I would call our captain selfish, but he has said that he has changed.

[Grinners89]

I couldn't find the old comedy thread, so I thought I'd just slap it in here. :p

------------------Casillas------------------
Ramos----Carragher---Terry----Lahm
Gerrard---Senna--Arshavin---Iniesta
---------------Torres--Messi-------------


Ive bolded the only selections in his team that warrant consideration for selection.

IMO i dont think Rushy is quite up to date in his knowledge of modern day football beyond what the papers say.

Carragher and Terry dont deserve selection and Arshavin?? I think he's just put him in to go along with the hype he has received over his possible Tottenham transfer.

The team really should be voted on in this formation to accomodate the best players of the season.

Casillas
Ramos Ferdinand Chiellini Evra
Xavi Tymoshchuk
Ronaldo Gerrard Ribery
Torres

[Grinners89]

Thank you for admitting something that the many in the rest of the world of football have a problem with.

Its quite funny that some people still think Ronaldo is a direct replacement for Beckham as a right-sided midfielder.

For a lot of the 07/08 season Ronaldo was playing further up the pitch than Tevez and Rooney.

[billyireland]

The fact that you called your best player a lazy git is awesome! :)

I would call our captain selfish, but he has said that he has changed.
Well to be honest, I have always thought our best player is actually a twat. Mind you, he's a darker-skinned, closer-to-home, more defensive, Walkers-Quaver- (http://letterstoadyingdream.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/jar-jar-binks-poster-card-c10227315.jpeg)for-an-upper lip twat. Best defender on the planet though - unlike Ronaldo (who Messi is an equal player to easily), this guy has no peers:
http://letterstoadyingdream.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/jar-jar-binks-poster-card-c10227315.jpeg

[billyireland]

Honestly though, this whole mindset of

"player X plays for my team, so he is flawless and never puts a foot wrong, and a hero, and loyal, and stops a rape every time he makes a tackle, while saving a life with every touch of the ball"vs.

"Player Y plays for my team's rivals and therefore I must hate him and everything about him. I must deride his every bad touch*, convince those who don't know that he is everything they hate, and even if I secretly do see his skill/ability, I must not - repeat, MUST NOT!!! - let anybody know of my private shame"tribal mentality is going to kill this site off by the end of the decade (or at least any remaining quality therein) and is a big reason why 26 & I tried to make those inter-forum threads a few months back. I was unpleasantly, unsurprisingly let know which forum had the main issues on that one... :-/

*OK OK, so I sent so many picture/video messages to my mates of Gerrard's whiffed volley attempt-into-a-'theatrical'-fall from a few days ago that I needed to top up the mobile straight after. Then I continued...

[billyireland]

Great shout on Tymo - he is phenomenal. If Arsenal had signed him this summer along with a competent (and tall/physical, e.g. Terry, Vidic, Hyypia) centreback, I think they would still be right in the thick of the title hunt. They'd probably buckle once the pressure got on, but there you go...

also, if Spurs had spent the Berbatov money on Tymo and a 2-way player similar to say Hamsik, that they would be in the hunt for a CL (or at least UEFA) spot right now. That said, it would also have required Levy to not be such a complete twat and idiot as to sign the second of their two best players (the other being Keane) minutes before the end of the transfer window.

---

Mods feel free to merge this with the other UEFA Team of the Year thread. I went rushing in here and didn't spot that first. :o

[usscouse]

I saw Rushie doing this on Telly.

Jezus Grinners, you don't like Carra or Arshavin...!

Carra would be great on any team and I would love to see Arshavin playing with Torres over Keane at Anfield. Those two with Gerrard in the hole would be league winners.

a little help from 8 others could be benefitial...:)