Where does KCM rank in the greatest midfield list?

5 CLs for each. 4 all together. 3 La Ligas together. One ballon dor among them. Numerous other accolades.

Where does this trio rank? Are they the greatest midfield ever? Let's discuss

PS. I'm waiting for Myestats and BarcaL to come at me and tell me XBI are untouchable

I don't know about all time, but KCM + Isco was one of the most complete midfields I've seen in my lifetime.

An unfair comparison really, KCM was always protected by DMzema

I just cant, not when Real have come 3rd in the league countless times in that time XD

Yes, best midfield of all time. It's crazy, ALL 3 complemented eachother, what a catch that was. And to think Casemiro was written off in Brazil before we took a gamble on him. Will never forget his CL debut. Man those days having crazy guys like Pepe, Ramos, Casemiro

Very great midfield... but nowhere near one of the best.  Better ones:

Barca with Xavi - Iniesta - Busquets/Toure
AC Milan with Gullit, Rijkaard, Dessailly, Albertini, etc. in that era
Ajax before they all went to AC Milan together lol
Juventus with Gentile, Tardelli, Platini

In terms of NT:
Brazil team with Zico, Socrates, Cerezo
France team with Zidane, Vieira, Makelele
The midfield during Pele era of Brazil was insane

Again great... but can't be considered the best for one main reason:  Not enough offense in terms of assists and chance creation.

Pogba-Marchisio-Pirlo >>>>

and what Sports said

/thread

yup definitely up there with Xavi-Busquets-Iniesta and Pogba-Marchisio-Pirlo as a top 3 midfield in recent history

BarrileteCosmico wrote:An unfair comparison really, KCM was always protected by DMzema

This would never get old for me. Never.

Also, the 5 CL titles makes the argument a bit tough for me to place the midfield combinations Sports mentioned above KCM.

I obviously don't mind it but 5 CL titles is stuff of legends. Mythical stuff and we all lived to see it.

Of course, people ignored the excellent duo of Paul Scholes and Roy Keane but whatever.

Casemiro has won the CL 5 times in his 8 years with us. That's crazy and just shows how important he was in our successful CL era

Doc wrote:Also, the 5 CL titles makes the argument a bit tough for me to place the midfield combinations Sports mentioned above KCM.

I obviously don't mind it but 5 CL titles is stuff of legends. Mythical stuff and we all lived to see it.

Of course, people ignored the excellent duo of Paul Scholes and Roy Keane but whatever.

Roy Keane was overrated imo

You're overrated.

@Doc... reason i don't rate our midfield at the level of the others I mentioned is this: Other than our last CL win and a couple of years before, our midfield was our third best line on the pitch.

Carvajal - Pepe/Varane - Ramos - Marcelo and CR - Benzema - Bale/Isco were the top 2 lines for 4 of our 5 CL wins.

The other midfields I mentioned constituted the dominant line on those teams, or at the very least the second best line.

Not sayin KCM wasn't great... they were. But they served a role as opposed to being the emphasis.

Disagree. Midfield was our strongest. Without them we were nothing

Defence was good but our midifled allowed them to express themselves

Our attack was always meh

I'm not sure about those archaic NT midfields listed above. Not only some of them haven't won anything as a unit, but a slow double pivot + an unathletic non-defending 10 is not something you could field in the modern game.

farfan wrote:I'm not sure about those archaic NT midfields listed above. Not only some of them haven't won anything as a unit, but a slow double pivot + an unathletic non-defending 10 is not something you could field in the modern game.

Which one didn't win anything? The Zico/Socrates one? That's the only one and, imo, the greatest midfield out of all of them. They just had really terrible defense and goalkeeping behind them unfortunately.

As to the rest, I'm curious.

How many midfields can u really legitimately compare with? @sports most of midfields are old school midfields and aren't 4 3 3 formations so can't really count. You would have to compare them with actual 4 3 3 combinations, not 4 4 2 nor 4 3 2 1. Like how many teams are even in contention? There have to be like maybe 5 great teams that used that to really spark a debate.

Ok so let's limit to 433. Every Holland and Ajax team played a 433. That's the basis of their "total football" system invented by Michels and then Cruyff as a manager.

Brazil played a 433 technically with Zico (everyone attacked lol)... so Zico, Socrates, Cerezo

Busquets - Xavi - Iniesta

Zidane - Vieira - Makelele for sure. They dominated the 2006 Brazil team that was incredible.

Scholes - Keane - Giggs

Bayern had some really good ones too there with Schweinsteiger.

And we're not talking "most decorated" but which midfield trio was the best. Not the same thing. I consider the 70s Holland team the best and they never won anything.

You’re ignoring Xabi Alonso with Spanish NT. It wasn’t a 4-3-3, it was a 4 man midfield with all four of them critical to the success.

So once again, what is a valid comparison!

And conveniently you have left off the trio that started this discussion, as if they don’t even enter into the discussion!

I'm not saying the trio Kroos-Casemiro-Modric aren't great Bill.

But you have to admit that there are some other midfields that were just better... they weren't on better teams of course... but the midfield was better.

Xabi Alonso of course.  

You've seen more than a few midfields Bill.  So have I.  You gotta admit that there were more impressive ones, on less successful teams.

There is always is a questionable debate when trying to compare players from different generations. You and I being older than most here, lean towards the past, but I don’t believe it is a valid comparison.

If you keep it to a club level and a three man mid, i’m hard pressed to think of anyone else besides

Xavi - Busquets - Iniesta
and
Modric - Casemiro - Kroos

I also disagree with your exclusion of accomplishments. That should be one of the prime considerations in any comparison.

You can have the talent, but it is irrelevant if the results aren’t there.

It’s the same as saying Barca were better than Inter or City/ Pool were better than RMad last season!

The reason I exclude accomplishments here is that, other than the Barca of Busquets - Xavi - Iniesta, no midfield had that kind of talent on the other lines.

CR - Benzema - Bale/Isco were the star line... and Carvajal - Varane/Pepe - Ramos - Marcelo was considered our second best line.  Then came the midfield and finally the keeper.  Only in the last CL run was our midfield the top line.

With Barca, other than the year of Messi - Suarez - Neymar, the midfield was the top line for the team.  Defense of Alves - Pique - Abidal - Alba was fantastic...  but besides those 4, the rest have been super suspect.  

It's unfair to include accomplishments given that you had galactico teams around these 2 midfields, where many pieces were bought.  In the other ones, you're dealing with organic imperfections either because of NT or the era didn't allow for uncontrolled purchasing outside of one's country or they weren't a club that could outspend everyone.

I don’t agree at all. It’s almost as if you are looking for reasons to exclude them. It is a team sports after all! And to win you need all lines contributing.

Real Madrid wouldn’t have won 5 Cls and 2 ligas without KCM and similarly Barca wouldn’t have won countless ligas and 1 CL without XBI.

If it was a question of talent I would agree with you, esp. with Casemiro and perhaps Athleticism of Kroos, but I argue to be considered best or amongst the best, you have to have accomplishments! I don’t think there is anyone else on the list except the two trios.

Ok well my criteria won't include variables that give an unfair advantage to one midfield over another... the difference in talent surrounding some of the other midfields is just too large.

Much easier to play as a midfielder when you have an absolute world class defense and attack surrounding you and you're actually considered the weak point of the team, which our midfield was on many of our teams.

Nobody made gameplans to overcome our midfield until the last 2-3 years.