[tpmazembe]

Since last December a couple of BS posters have been mulling around an idea. It follows the premise of some of the recent threads that have popped up.

All these debates about best players - today, best by decade, by position, all time, etc -what if people were actually forced to make real choices in a draft like exercise, would they vote their hearts or heads? Would someone actually use their first pick on Zidane to build a squad around?

We’ve put 5 teams of BS posters together, with the mandate of building a team (starting 11) from the pool of all players who ever existed.

Each week, for 11 weeks -- I know it is ambitious given attention span of BS posters and our busy lives -- a team representative will make their selection public for all to see. First picks of each round on Mondays, second picks on Tuesdays, and final picks on Friday. As with any draft, once a player is picked he is no longer available to other teams.

What would we have after this exercise? We’d have a (stress "a", not the only) BigSoccer definitive all-time greatest squads, from which we could garner:

• The definitive list of 55 greatest players ever (from a complete team stand-point)
• Top 5 greatest players of all time (by default top 5 picks, the players BS experts chose to start their teams with given the universe of all players being available)
• Top10 greatest players of all time (First and Second Round picks; beyond the Second Round the drafting will probably get more tactical as choices are made to fill out an actual team, so this logic would not necessarily hold true into later rounds)
• best players at specific positions, etc.

We could have common basis to do all sorts of analysis, such as:

• % all-time greats by country
• % all-time greats by country by position (eg. Germany placed 42% of all time great midfielders)
• % by decade (eg. Our exercise appoints the 60s as decade that produced the most gifted footballers)
• % by club
• etc.

This could turn out to be a reference thread for future discussions.

To make it work we needed a good cross reference of posters (age, nationality), and tried to assign the selection teams with posters who tend to disagree with each other (this will force them to make picks that are negotiated and debated internally).

Finally, the team members should be posters that actually have a great knowledge of the game beyond the past decade. To keep the process manageable we invite around 40 BS posters to participate – 20 have currently accepted the challenge (5 teams of 4 BS posters).

This thread will host the official daily selections. All BS posters are invited to comment, provide analysis, agree/disagree with picks.

[tpmazembe]

GOAL. Draft the best starting 11 from combined knowledge of the list of players that have ever played: active or retired, dead or alive. Selection teams should keep in mind that their team should be able to win a mini championship against the other four selections.

PROCESS. Each week day a selection team will make its selection for that round. The first week’s selections will be called Round 1…second week’s will be Round 2….and so forth. Thus we will end at the conclusion of Round 11.

Within each round there will be 5 players selected in total. A selection will occur on Monday by one team; a second selection will occur on Tuesday by another team -- through the fifth and final selection for that round (week) on Friday. No weekend selections will be made.

Once a player has been chosen they are not available for further selection.

SELECTION TEAMS. There will be 5 teams of BigSoccer Posters. The minimum number of posters on each team is 4. This ensures that picks are not solely one poster's opinion.

Teams will debate / select privately prior to their selection. Each selection team has a Captain responsible to make sure that the team’s pick in each Round (week) is made by the deadline. In a week that such Captain in unavailable, they are responsible for delegating the posting of their teams selection on to the thread.

Teams will be designated simply as A, B, C, D, E.

Selection sequence will be:

ROUND
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Mon(1) A E A E A E A E A E A
Tue(2) B D B D B D B D B D B
Wed(3) C C C C C C C C C C C
Thu(4) D B D B D B D B D B D
Fri(5) E A E A E A E A E A E

SELECTION CRITERIA. Player selections can be made using any criteria your team chooses. The only requirement is that each team have a four man backline (Right Back, 2 Center Backs, Left Back) for comparison purposes. Other than that, they can use any formation they choose.

[tpmazembe]

TEAM A
Ombak – captain
Argentine soccer fan
Motterman
Skipshady

TEAM B
Clanblue – captain
Bauser
Alex1
Treetaliano

TEAM C
Efernandez9 –captain
Maczebus
Martin Cutler
Tpmazembe

TEAM D
Dark Savante - captain
Spartak
Real Ray
Mobile

TEAM E
Comme – captain
Auriaprottu
Excape Goat
Merengue

Team A will kick-off the draft with the First Round's First Pick on this Monday March 15th.

[Auriaprottu]

It would be nice if we could do the ESPN thing and have these teams play each other on a in a single table PS2 league (in Realvideo for all of BigSoccer to see- controllers set to neutral, CPU plays the games). Every team plays every other team three times.

Then again, I'm a football videogaming addict. Never mind...

[comme]

Team A picks

Geoff Thomas

Position: Midfielder

Clubs: Crystal Palace

Honours: none

Distinction : The worst player England have ever had?

[Ombak]

Team A's real selection will be up shortly - it is going through a formal final approval process in our team thread.

Really just a formality though.

[Ombak]

With the first pick in the draft of drafts Team A (Ombak, Motterman, skipshady, argentine soccer fan) select Pelé.

TEAM A
Ombak, skipshady, Motterman, argentine soccer fan

Round: 1 (Week 1)
Selection: 1
1st overall pick

Player: Pelé (Édson Arantes do Nascimento)

Position: M (THE number 10)

Career Span: late 50’s – early 70’s
Nationality: Brazilian, born in Três Corações, Minas Gerais.
Caps: 52
Club Teams: Santos, New York Cosmos

Profile / Stats:

Played in 4 World Cups (58, 62, 66, 70), won 3, scored 12 goals.
Led Santos to back-to-back World Club titles in 62 and 63 over Milan and Porto.
What more needs to be said? From the age of 15 Pelé was leading all scorers in Brazil consistently, he changed the way the game is played with his combination of vision and athleticism. Could literally play any position (was Santos’ replacement keeper in the days before subs and never gave up a goal when he had to play in goal). A genius in every aspect of the game, from positioning to passing to dribbling (would regular dribble players by knocking the ball off the inside of their leg early in his career) to shooting and heading.

Enough said.

This selection: Uncontested.

[tpmazembe]

Our team, as well as the other 3, did not expect him to fall out of the first two selection.

Tommorrow's pick by team B will start the domino effect.....

[Dark Savante]

Originally posted by tpmazembe
Our team, as well as the other 3, did not expect him to fall out of the first two selection.

Tommorrow's pick by team B will start the domino effect.....

lol and I wonder who they'll pick

[tpmazembe]

Originally posted by Ombak
With the first pick in the draft of drafts Team A (Ombak, Motterman, skipshady, argentine soccer fan) select Pelé.

Led Santos to back-to-back World Club titles in 62 and 63 over Milan and Porto.

Slight error...the 1963 home and away World Club title was against Eusebio's Benfica.

This match-up includes the famous return leg game at a packed Stadium of Light in Portugal in which Santos probably had their greatest display on the European stage, defeating Benfica 5-2; w/ Pele scoring a hat-trick in out-deuling the legendary Eusebio who had two scores of his own.

I've seen a 15 minute "compact" of this game which is pretty impressive. If anyone has the whole game on tape, would love to talk.