All time 23

April 25th, 2006 | by: Luis Paulo | Comments(13)

Now that we finished capped the 23 men that should be in Germany with Scolari, let’s cap our 23 all time favorite team. There is only one rule: you can only choose players which you watched playing. Forget about nationality or the time line. Who would be capped for your dream team?

Goalkeepers

I would start my team with Michel Preud’Homme, the best goalie I ever saw. As I said before, he was more than a keeper, he was an acrobat. His replacements would be Danish Peter Schmeichel who was almost a wall in the Denmark’s goal and Thomas N’Kono, the legendary goalkeeper from Cameroon, who was responsible for a couple of the toughest defenses I ever saw.

Defenders

There are two things that I know for sure in my life: sooner or later we all are going to die and Italy makes the World’s best defenders. Therefore, both Paolo Maldini and Franco Baresi would be on my defense. Baresi played the World Cup final in 94, only 14 days after a knee surgery and yet, he prevented Brazil from scoring for the first time on that World Cup. Along with him I would like to see the underestimated Paraguayan Carlos Gamarra and the Dutch Frank de Boer, one of the most intelligent players I’ve seen.

Replacements: Alessandro Nesta(ITA), Roberto Carlos(BRA), Fernando Hierro(SPA), Andreas Brehme(GER)

Midfielders

Frank Rijkaard or Roberto Donadoni: who was the best defensive midfielder? I don’t know. Therefore I would give each one half of the game. So, there would be 3 spots to fill in my midfield. Lottar Mathäus, who played for German on 5 World Cups would be there, once he can either be a remarkable playmaker and a tough defender. Diego Maradona would be the star in a full of stars team and Ronaldinho has done enough to deserve his place here too. So, that leaves me only 3 replacements left to choose.

Replacements: Roberto Baggio(ITA), Zinedine Zidane(FRA), Michael Laudrup(DEN)

Forwards

There was no player in the world that could score like Romário. The former Brazilian striker Tostão who played in the Brazilian all-time best team in 1970 once said: “If Romário was a player in the 70’s I would be sitting on the bench during that World Cup”. His career ratio is close to 0,90 goals/game and he already scored more than 900 goals in his career. To play with him, I would choose the German coach Jürgen Klinsmann, who scored 11 goals in his World Cup history. He was a perfect striker for all kind of game style.

Replacements: Marco Van Basten(NED), Ronaldo(BRA).

At the end, I chose 5 Italians, 4 Brazilians, 3 Dutch, 3 Germans, 2 Danish, 1 Spanish, 1 Paraguayan, 1 Belgium, 1 Cameroonese, 1 Argentinean and 1 French. The funny thing about this is that neither Italy nor Netherlands won a World Cup while I was alive.

As you can see, I had a strongly influenced by the 90’s. Not less than 6 players, played on the unbeatable AC Milan’s team from the beginning of the 90’s. You can also find players from the 92 Danish European Champions. You can notice that only 7 among my 23 player are still playing (Nesta, Carlos Gamarra, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Zidane and Romário) and at least two of them(Zidane and Romário) are very close to their a career ending.