I'll still give the drafts a go, depending if I still go on BS and I do feel good for drafting those two Italians. Aside from Zoff, Gentile, Scirea and Tardelli, I feel that the Italy's players from the 1982 squad are overlooked on BS. Another way of looking at it is that F Baresi and Massaro couldn't even get a game in that team. In cr7torossi's team, the number of Italians was appealing. IMO, I felt that his attack and defence were equal in terms of quality. If there was a weak point, it would be McGrain but I don't know too much about him. I believe that with those defenders, his team can win the ball better than the others and this team would be great in keeping possession. Other posters would look at the fact that Baggio and Ronaldinho are luxury players but they need to take another look at the back line and goalie. Your team lacked balance and would struggle defensively but I liked a lot of the players in your team and what may surprise you is that Nesta is not in my Top 3. He would actually be in the bottom 3 in that lot! As talented as Nesta is, I was more of a Cannavaro fan when they were in their prime and there have been some shocking Nesta fanboys during my time on this site, especially one called Spartak. Nesta is still a great in the Italian game though, just like Platini and with Finney, Dalglish and Greaves, you have some of English football's greats too. Ardiles was also a star of the English game and a World Cup winner and Carlos Alberto captained the greatest national team ever. Sammer was the star for Germany at Euro 96 and Savicevic was the star for Milan when they won the 1994 CL title. Even though this team wouldn't be at its best in terms of defensive structure, it would be great to watch in possession and Platini would be decisive thanks to his free-kicks. I probably won't give reasons for why I placed teams in certain positions. I've done it before in the past but I lack the motivation this time. It was hard to separate teams and there are fine margins. For instance, I ranked lanman 11th but he has the two stars from the current Barca side and the wingers he drafted are arguably the best to have come from Eastern Europe. He was also replicating Guardiola's system too.
Thanks for your thoughts including on my team. Yeah I too felt the cohesion in lanman's side should be good and that the combination of good passers and quick forwards was promising but actually I did place the side ahead of teams with players probably better IMO than Messi so I was giving the setup and combination of players some credit as well as assuming Messi ought to be able to play close to his best in that setup. You actually put him 12th just in case anyone wonders why I didn't list him with any 11th places but I completely agree about the closeness of the decisions - for me surely the tightest yet for a draft.
On Cannavaro, I remember thinking that he seemed to be the reason that Shearer wasn't getting any chances while I watched the England v Italy World Cup Qualifier at Wembley for the '98 World Cup - the one where Zola scored the winning goal. Cannavaro was a top defender for a while before he became really famous I would say but ironically declined seemingly straight after he had done. y.o.n.k.o's centre-back partnership certainly struck me as pretty effective.
I should have been more specific. It was in the first Sheep Draft and I'm not sure about all of the players but I think you had Schiaffino as a left-winger.
Just my 2 cents: 1. dor02 criticizing schwuppe's high ranking because she chose brazilian "flair" players is untrue, as she builded her team on the base of the great 82 Brazil while also covering the defensive and striker shortcomings. She also used the best or 2nd best prototype of Zico 2. I was frankly surprised with yonko's very low ranking and I think some drafters are punishing him for Iniesta only. 3. I was also surprised with man_in_the_middle's high ranking, I really ranked him low (sorry MITM) since I thought he grouped the offense around similar players. Totti and Laudrup are almost overlapping in their qualities both being no 10s etc. Add to that the aforementioned players have a major flaw, Totti was as great in CL or the azzuri as with Roma, Laudrup was criticized for not performing as excellent in trainings while CR didnt do well in his national team career. 4. Also for Frasermc team. I didnt like the idea of using Pele as a pure striker, while using an inferior forward (Francescoli) ahead of him, Rivelino and Kopa as the team's enganche
We might need to check the FC Kryvbas Kryvyi Rih season ticket too . The avatar is Herbert Prohaska if that hasn't been confirmed yet (after earlier discussion re:Messi etc).
LOL.... sorry schwuppe, I confused you with another poster who was angry for being called a he before and I was too lazy to check your profile even. Sorry for the brainfart.
There is still that emphasis on Brazilian players, regardless of the fact that the team is essentially Brazil 82 + improvements. As I stated in my post, my formation is similar to that of Brazil 58. I didn't select players from that team but at least the ideas were there. I still believe that I was marked down for the Italy 82 guys that I drafted and that BS posters still don't give them enough credit, respect and recognition. yonko drafted a very good side but he used a 4-3-1-2 formation and in one draft, I got criticised for it and got very few votes because of a lack of wingers and reliance on the full-backs to give width.
Gregoriak suggested in the Soccer History group (before it disappeared into the ether) a League Legends draft, using players with great domestic records but limited international exposure - players like Matt Le Tissier and Dejan Petkovic.
Sounds interesting but I get the feeling that it will end up as an exercise in drafting obscure players whose careers were shortened because of the wars.
I'll participate in Gregoriak's draft if it goes ahead. I guess given that he's busy with his English football results threads he might appreciate others running the draft after he's clarified the rules? I guess two or three of us could do that if he wished, and I wouldn't mind being one of them. The other idea I had that could possibly be tried sometime was to run a fantasy-league style auction to each assemble an all-time squad which could then be used to select sides for fixtures that would be voted on in a league or tournament format. There would be no overall vote and the squad size would have to be at least 18 players. I was thinking of incorporating random injuries using lottery numbers relating to squad numbers. The budget would be 500 million for each drafter with a minimum bid amount of 1 million and increments of 0.1 million. Maybe it's best to leave this until after the next Sheep Draft if that is run in the spring again, and in the meantime we can do Gregoriak's League Legends Draft. I'm just mentioning it so that people can show interest - I wouldn't think we'd do another all-time draft like we just did again next year so it would be something different. Also, I know lanman had thought of doing a current players Sheep Draft. Not sure if this is still going ahead, but I could be persuaded to join in (having thought I might not) if it was dependent on getting enough participants. If people thought a straight Auction Draft as run last year by Cevno was preferable to my fantasy-draft idea that'd be fine and I'd either take part or if Cevno or others didn't want to run it I could even do that instead. I guess DelroyFacey might take part (more likely maybe if I am doing also so he can have fun drafting Notts County players into my team). Maybe this was best as a one-off though as unlike the Sheep Draft the criteria doesn't change? ....that's all my thoughts for now but I'm ready to participate/orgainise (maybe both for fantasy-style draft if I could PM my bids to somebody neutral) whenever something gets started.