My creation of a PERFECT team for All-star SOCCER match
February is not such an ugly and grey month when it comes to sport. There are at least two reasons for that: Champions League starts with its round of 16, leagues are heating up and the fight for the Championship becomes more serious. And of course, All-star competition in NBA happens in February!
As I am the part of one of the best sport recruitment network my thoughts are constantly flying above my head in shape of vivid ideas about engaging players for crazy sport encounters. You could see that playing around in my previous texts such as the one with the soccer movie cast and the one with the soccer Super bowl.
I can’t help but think and imagine how good it could be if we (in Europe) had Soccer competition similar to NBA’s All Star. Imagine Europe turn to the stars and fans, as opposed to hooligans, and entertaining money making events in football stadiums. All-star football match! What would it look like and who will be the competitors and side represents? Hmm… A lot of thought and imagination….
As we all know, NBA is also famous as some kind of flying circus. There play some of the biggest basketball stars and the whole establishment makes enormous efforts to bring the best entertaining show to all of the basketball fans. In NBA there is a serious act of awarding the true champs of the year, but we can’t ignore the fun and enjoyment part for all the participants (including the public). What does this competition consist of? They have competitions in dunks, 3 point shots, skill challenges and a big match of all NBA stars. And yes, we have also matches played by rising stars and various performances by celebrities, but this part will be skipped in the continuous pipe dreaming.
Now let’s see who competed this year in NBA and how can we make some kind of counterpart to this competition but in football. 3 point shots are similar to taking long distances free kicks in football, something which demands a sharp eye and synchronization of the entire body.
In this year’s 3 point shots rally participated the following players: Klay Tompson, Wesley Matthews, C.J McCollum, Kyle Lowry, Kyrie Irving, Kemba Walker, Nick Young and Eric Gordon. No doubt all of them are the masters of their crafts. However, there can only be one winner and owner of that prestigious award. And as you probably saw this weekend, it was exciting and fun.
Now I am thinking of how to make a counterpart of the above but for football. It could be a special competition in performing free kicks. Also, I think that in the past some similar event has been organized. It was named something like Free Kick Master Competition or something like that. Players like Romario, Ronaldinho, Ugur Yildirim etc. were participants but unfortunately this was never part of some bigger competition with a serious number of football stars.
For our experimental manifestation five competitors would be enough, each from the best Europe’s league — France, Germany, Italy, England and Spain.
- League 1 competitor could be a great wizard of the free kicks, refugee from London Dimitri Payet — player form Olympique de Marseille.
- Representative of the Serie A would be Balkan star Miralem Pjanic — adored Juve’s child.
- Bundes representative… I am thinking about great Chalhanoglu but he is currently under the disciplinary process and I will disqualify him, thus instead of him I am recruiting Xabi Alonso!
- Primera is reserved for whom else other than Cristiano Ronaldo. Should I make further explanation for this choice?
- English Premier League’s pride would be Aleksandar Kolarov — bomb on the pitch and in private life too. He is the only one defensive player from the list.
However, if we really want a show we can’t afford to exclude referees! And who can the referee be in this kind of extraordinary event with big football legends with cannons instead their legs? Ladies and gentleman, pay attention to our Misters referees:
- We have Juninho Pernambucano legend of Lyon and the doctor of free kicks!
- Cartoon of the worldwide football and the prettiest smile of them all — Ronaldinho!
- Gheorghe Hagi — the man who looked like a half God in the boxer’s body on the pitch (or you can say a Carpathian Maradona).
- Roberto Baggio or the HIT earring and hairstyle holder of 90s era, genius with the ball — the man is the true definition of 90s Italian football.
- Also we have Louis Figo, legendary captain of Portugal and the number 7 before Ronaldo.
- And last but not the least — Sinisa Mihajlovic. Bad guy and big face, the guy whose name is the biggest when it comes to breaks in football.
Now let’s move to our next contestants in skills challenge made for football players (but with impediments like those in NBA). We should consider who has the best ball control and they are: Lionel Messi, Eden Hazard, Juan Mata, Mesut Ozil and Arjen Robben. They all play like the ball is super glued for their football boots, and live the philosophy of the sky is the limit.
We come to the main point of this text: all-star football match! In NBA there is West vs. East but in our directed show we can use Europe vs. Rest of the World.
Public would vote for contestants, and for example the first team should resemble NBA All-star players. Who is football’s James, Carmelo, Durrent, Westbrook and the other buddies?
The formation of the European team should be organized in 3–2–3–2.
The goalkeeper would be undisputed Gianluigi Buffon — the best goalkeeper of all time and the honorary captain of this imagined team of commandoes. He deserves this place as he have deserved all the trophies on his shelves (the only one trophy which he misses is Champions League one, but let’s all hope that he’ll earn it as a crown for his retirement).
Central back position: Mats Hummels — defensive pillar of the current world champions Germany and central defender of FC Bayern Munich. Sergio Ramos, the greatest defender of Real Madrid in the last 20 years, he scored the most important goals for Real and Spain. Gerard Pique is with Ramos one of two the most common CBs in Spanish team which ruled more than 8 years in world football. He is key player in defense, without him Barcelona couldn’t make it this far.
We should have two defensive midfielders because we are arranging it in Europe way!
Paul Pogba — fearless player of our time should represent the bond between the head and the body of this team. He can manage it with his long legs, strong shots and precise passes. Toni Kroos — German Beethoven with the ball, successful midfielder.
Central midfielder could be Andreas Iniesta — the quietest on the pitch but surely the most intelligent player, his passes and vision should be crucial for Europe’s attack.
The right winger Arjen Robben — do I have to say more for the player who is actually a synonym for the wing? In spite of the injuries and failing in the finals, he somehow managed to rise up and achieve fantastic goals. He is the foxy one in this team.
The left winger could be the great speedy Gareth Bale, you can read a number of texts about his speed but the truth is that the man has solved many difficult matches.
The attack could be led by two of Europe’s greatest players today: golden Zlatan Ibrahimovic — the man who dances football without watching video materials and exploring opponent’s flaws, the owner of the most beautiful goals in the football history, one shot miracle, man of class, currently the main player of Man Utd (I bet that he’d have the most votes from the public). And come on, who doesn’t love Zlatan! The other fellow is represented by Cristiano Ronaldo — the shining star of this team and champion of Europe both with Real Madrid and his underdog Portugal national team.
Now, let’s go to the team Rest of the World or South America + Yaya and Nagatomo (because Australia, North America and to some extent Asia don’t have well developed football mafia or simply conscious that they could have great players on the big scene).
They would play in forward formation 3–2–2–3. The goalkeeper position is reserved for Keilor Navas — the wall in the Real Madrid goal and the part of always exciting Costa Rica team.
Defence should be composed of the captain of Atletico Madrid Diego Godin and unruly David Luiz — the man who apparently in the last few years hasn’t peace but he has the scores. And one more guy should join those two boys: Yuto Nagatomo — he would definitely be a result of Asia voting (this will prove the nebula of Japanese and Chinese voting, something similar to Yao Ming in NBA).
Center of the field would be occupied by hot blooded Chilean Guerriero Arturo Vidal and Yaya Toure as the main opponent to Pogba in this imagined match.
Attacking midfielder position would be held by: Alexis Sanchez — this player dominates in Premier League for few years, and maybe fourth best player in this team with main task to score. Di Maria — He will be alongside Sanchez in the attacking midfield. Messi — the man who made Barcelona and the man who is cursed on world competitions. Comparison with Maradona always a joke. Where is his World championship?
Neymar as the most attractive player of this team, dribbler and jongleur, the second head of the three-headed Cerberus from Camp Nou. And Luis Suarez — the paid killer from Uruguay, the bomb from Barcelona, the main head of this football monster called MSN.
What do you think of this recruitment? What do you think, who would win this game? Team game from Europe or Furiosity from the Rest of the World? What score should we expect? Who would be MVP? Zlatan, Messi or Ronaldo?
Maybe we can write some kind of petition and ask football managers to organize this kind of event at least in summer when there is no World or Europe competitions so we could get answers to our curiosity and imagination. And in the meantime, feel free to send me your imaginary teams and recruitment plans, I’ll am so excited to see it!
I would love to hear your opinions! Feel free to comment!
P.S. I left one gap in the text, just to woke your attention and to make you rebel. If you find out what it is about I promise I’ll personally send you a nice gift from Playerhunter as a reward and a souvenir for being mentally active as when we were kids :)
