Pick Your Team Of The Season

Here's mine. I would really like to see the selections of others.

Iniesta is a must IMO. Iniesta for Cavani. 4-3-3

Khaled wrote:Iniesta is a must IMO. Iniesta for Cavani. 4-3-3

Nice that you raised that point because I wanted someone to raise it.

As you all know very well there is hardly anyone out here who would want Iniesta to be in his team more than me.

However I need to be faithful to the beliefs I have held over the years and one of my beliefs is that more than consistency it's the key moments that count. Iniesta had a consistent season but unlike his previous four seasons this one did not have those key stand out moments which make the difference and lead to the big trophies. That's why for the first time in five years I am dropping Iniesta from the best eleven and this could be the case even in the Fifpro and Uefa teams to be revealed at the end of the year. That he did not make the top ten for the Best Player In Europe award I think is significant here.

Some of my selections are very debatable I well understand. The problem is this has been among the most confusing of seasons. If ever there was a season in which choosing the best eleven and choosing the top player was impossible then this was the one. The left back place is really difficult to decide. For striker there are several options - Cavani, Ibrahimovic, Suarez, Lewandowski, van Persie, Falcao, etc. Not one of them is a sure shot pick though. Lewandowski had that one five star performance which has highlighted him everywhere but how many other key moments did he have? Ibra was great domestically but as always what did he do in UCL? So all things considered I gave it to Cavani for having the consistency and the big moments and taking Napoli to their best Serie A finish since the days of Maradona. Only one point goes against him that he didn't play in UCL.

My picks: Caballero - Lahm, Thiago Silva, Dante, Alaba - Schweinsteiger, Javi Martínez - Ronaldo - Messi - Ribéry - Falcao.

messixaviesta wrote:Here's mine. I would really like to see the selections of others.

Post the direct link to how you made that fancy little graphic. I want to make one

matpol wrote:My picks: Caballero - Lahm, Thiago Silva, Dante - Schweinsteiger, Javi Martínez - Ronaldo - Messi - Ribéry - Falcao.

Thanks for sharing a very nice selection but you missed one player - the left back.

windkick, here's the link you asked for.

http://pyt.goal.com/en/pick

Your team looks very spot on JD.

I would only make four changes. Weidenfeller had a splendind CL final, but so did Neuer, who won the treble and was much safer the rest of the season. I remember a couple of blunders from him.

On the CB, I would pick  Boateng over Dante, IMO he was the best defender of the two, but it's close, so both are fine.

Left back: considering Chiellini never played as LB last season, I would go with Alaba.

And surely we could find someone for Cavani, either Iniesta and play a 433 (although the flop of Iniesta in all the big games at the end of the season doesn't help it) or Lewandowski who probably had a better overall season than Cavani when you count his CL heroics.

messixaviesta wrote:

matpol wrote:My picks: Caballero - Lahm, Thiago Silva, Dante - Schweinsteiger, Javi Martínez - Ronaldo - Messi - Ribéry - Falcao.

Thanks for sharing a very nice selection but you missed one player - the left back.

Edited. messixaviesta why did you pick Cavani ofer Falcao? Falcao helped Atletico win UEFA Super Cup and Copa del Rey, he performed strong in big games.

free_cat wrote:Your team looks very spot on JD.

I would only make four changes. Weidenfeller had a splendind CL final, but so did Neuer, who won the treble and was much safer the rest of the season. I remember a couple of blunders from him.

On the CB, I would pick  Boateng over Dante, IMO he was the best defender of the two, but it's close, so both are fine.

Left back: considering Chiellini never played as LB last season, I would go with Alaba.

And surely we could find someone for Cavani, either Iniesta and play a 433 (although the flop of Iniesta in all the big games at the end of the season doesn't help it) or Lewandowski who probably had a better overall season than Cavani when you count his CL heroics.

Thanks cat. Great comments from you. Some quick thoughts.

Neuer over Widenfeller is possible. I was toying between three - these two and Caballero.

For CB Boateng had a great final but over the whole season Dante made the better impression. We could look at Varane as well.

Chiellini of course was a forced selection. It's like since no one took the left back position I took a center back who can play left back just to stick to my chosen 4-2-3-1 formation. I did think of Alaba and I could have chosen him but that site forgot to list him - the only well known name they missed I think.

About Iniesta I have already written in detail.

Lewandowski is of course more than a possibility. The problem for me is that other than his heroics in that one game he was actually found wanting at times as well. Cavani didn't play in UCL but considering the opportunities he was given he came out with flying colours pretty much everywhere. This one's tight. If we do pick a striker then Falcao, van Persie, Suarez, Ibrahimovic, etc. are also in the fray. Else we switch to 4-3-3 and play Messi in his false 9 role.

For some reason Falcao wasnt in the roster, but add him in for Isco. I'm at work and threw that together, I'll give it more thought and make a better one when i get home

Also...

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/417138/Chelsea-and-City-dodge-bullet-as-Monaco-signing-Falcao-claimed-to-be-29-not-27

LOL

matpol wrote:

messixaviesta wrote:

matpol wrote:My picks: Caballero - Lahm, Thiago Silva, Dante - Schweinsteiger, Javi Martínez - Ronaldo - Messi - Ribéry - Falcao.

Thanks for sharing a very nice selection but you missed one player - the left back.

Edited. messixaviesta why did you pick Cavani ofer Falcao? Falcao helped Atletico win UEFA Super Cup and Copa del Rey, he performed strong in big games.

Thanks. Falcao was a big possibility no doubt but like Cavani he didn't play in the UCL. So he doesn't have anything over Cavani there. Now considering other things Atletico's early exit from Uefa Europa League meant Falcao couldn't repeat his final heroics of last year. Uefa Super Cup was his highlight performance of course but it was very early in the season. In Copa Del Rey final he did well but not that great. As for Cavani what really was the highlight for me was taking Napoli to 2nd place in Serie A which hasn't happened since the days of Maradona and doing it as their MVP. Coupled with that in the Confed Cup although he made a slow start he picked up in the later matches and in his last game had a man of the match performance. So I just gave him the edge. It's extremely debatable though and these are not the only two names in the fray.

windkick wrote:

For some reason Falcao wasnt in the roster, but add him in for Isco. I'm at work and threw that together, I'll give it more thought and make a better one when i get home

Also...

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/417138/Chelsea-and-City-dodge-bullet-as-Monaco-signing-Falcao-claimed-to-be-29-not-27

LOL

Nice selection. Thanks for sharing. I think Falcao must be there. We just need to look more carefully. While choosing the substitutes I strictly went for the two players per position and an extra goalkeeper convention. Otherwise I could replace a few of my substitutes with more deserving players I think.

Good point. As mentioned I'm at work and I'm sure with more thought I could of probably made a better list. i will make a new list soon

Truth be told, I almost didn't add Messi

He had a drop off towards the end, wasnt able to perform vs Real madrid and Bayern (which cost us two cups). Hard to blame him as it was a team effort, but wheen making a list of the absolute best players for the given seasson...once must take all these things into account. His 2nd half wasnt strong as first by his god mode standards. In the end with his monster numbers and league title I slotted him in

windkick wrote:
He had a drop off towards the end, wasnt able to perform vs Real madrid and Bayern (which cost us two cups). Hard to blame him as it was a team effort, but wheen making a list of the absolute best players for the given seasson...once must take all these things into account. His 2nd half wasnt strong as first by his god mode standards. In the end with his monster numbers and league title I slotted him in  

I can understand where you are coming from. For years I have made such lists on some guiding principles and one of them is that when a team fails everyone takes the blame although not in equal proportion.

For similar reasons Cristiano was an even bigger question mark for me because he didn't even win any title apart from that Supercopa Espana in the beginning of the season. In the end I slotted him in for his numbers, overall consistency during the season and being MVP of his team.

This brings me to one million dollar question. Who all here think Messi deserves to win the Ballon D'or once again this year and who all think he doesn't?

Messi shouldnt get it. Hell I wouldnt even throw a fit if he didnt get top 3.

not sure who deserves it though tbh. Allot depends on the rest of the year. Also, who did FIFA/UEFA nominate as the final 3 for the UEFA award that will be announced next month? The one that Iniesta won last year over Messi/Cristi?

windkick wrote:Messi shouldnt get it. Hell I wouldnt even throw a fit if he didnt get top 3.

not sure who deserves it though tbh. Allot depends on the rest of the year. Also, who did FIFA/UEFA nominate as the final 3 for the UEFA award that will be announced next month? The one that Iniesta won last year over Messi/Cristi?

It's called the Uefa best player in Europe award. The top three will be revealed towards the beginning of August. The original nomination is Uefa's but the top ten and the top three are chosen by media voting. The top ten has already been announced and it is given below.

Messi
Cristiano
Ribery
Schweinsteiger
Robben
Muller
Lewandowski
van Persie
Ibrahimovic
Bale

I couldn't agree more this year it's extremely difficult to decide the top player. Bayern's triumph was such a complete team effort that identifying an MVP is not easy. Some say Ribery because of his wonderful Bundesliga season and impact in the UCL final but others say Schweinsteiger instead. Actually Robben had the most key moments in the business end of their season but having not even made the first team for most of the year we can't call him the MVP. Muller was going great but didn't have a great UCL final. This one's really tough to decide. Ribery though has told the media that he deserves it.

So messi shouldn't get in because he was injured during the most important part of the season? Sounds logical...

it's not even that

My point is that if a player dips due to whatever reason, and thus not performing for whatever reason....should he get a slide? And if he was on the pitch, then he was on the pitch. He did play those games, so he was healthy enough to put up with it and play. It was more of a team collapse that did us in, and Messi still had the numbers. But if you got players who won more than us and performed then why shouldn't they be considred to be ahead of him for THE season. obviously messi is still the player, but a dip is a dip regardless and other players might of stepped when he couldnt because of injuries.

Also, i don't believe Ribery would get the Ballon D'Or, unless he went bat shit crazy for the remaining part of the year

Did he look healthy to you? He barely ran, he didn't play the full 2nd game, he constantly came in at half time throughout most of the last 2 months to save our ass... I'm willing to let those performances slide because it was obvious to anyone watching that was not even a 50% capacity Messi. Small wonder he got injured again shortly after that.

hey guys. love these dream team threads. i think most of us have a good consensus of who the world beaters were last season. if you rank players by overall team performance/achievement/consistency/etc, the lists are more or less the same. i wanna offer something a little different. here is a select group who had a breakthrough on one level or another, had magic in their strides and made me fall off my chair. and yes, im biased.



Bench:
Iniesta
Juan Quintero
Mario Gotze
Hummels
Martinez
Song
Bale

windkick wrote:Messi shouldnt get it. Hell I wouldnt even throw a fit if he didnt get top 3.

not sure who deserves it though tbh. Allot depends on the rest of the year. Also, who did FIFA/UEFA nominate as the final 3 for the UEFA award that will be announced next month? The one that Iniesta won last year over Messi/Cristi?

If Messi shouldn't get it, who should ? Who was better individually than Messi? :-)
He didn't perform against Bayern because he was INJURED! But, we all saw that he made the difference in LA LIGA, against Milan and PSG!

I know, I know lol

Messi is the clear best player on the planet, no argueing that. But this season Bayern won the treble and could possible get the sixtuple by the end of it just like we did once. So, thats something that should be recognized.

Absolutely. And that's why players like Alaba, Schweiny, Neuer and Lahm should be recognized for. But yoire going to have a hard time selling that Mandz was better than Messi.

windkick wrote:I know, I know lol

Messi is the clear best player on the planet, no argueing that. But this season Bayern won the treble and could possible get the sixtuple by the end of it just like we did once. So, thats something that should be recognized.

Bayern played like a team, there was no superstar carrying them.
Messi on the other hand was practically getting smashed under the planet of Barca's reliance.