okkay, i mulled this over during sleep and came up with a couple of names that may be cheating but not really. here you go.
1. franz beckenbauer. what, you say he wasn't a midfielder? nominally no, but he played box to box, went on the attack, scored, etc. the sucka invented a new style/position. beat that, anyone! if he played today he'd be a midifielder like....? nobody, because he'd be better.
2. lothar matthaus. eeeehhhh? not a model citizen by all means, but watchu say maradona? the best rival you ever had? oh yeah, you said that! another midfielder/sweeper guy who played until he was ancient.
3. this took me a little research cuz he was great during my "fuck television, i'm going mental!" era, but there was matthias sammer, who again was midfielder & sweeper extraordinaire until he was sidelined by injury. he's now sports director for bayern munich. he was as ugly as scholes too and here's teh little video to prove it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbd2yehoD1g
and here is a discussion about the evolving role of the sweeper that includes sammer's time of glory (during which i was probably lost in some swamp or desert-- 1996! wow!):
http://www.zonalmarking.net/2010/04/...to-prominence/
none of them however
is a winemaker. so they lose points on that.
---
ps- am i cheating with the sweepers? maybe. but here's more from the zonal marking article:
So what qualities would this modern sweeper, or modern centre-half, need? They would have to be a good reader of the game, an excellent passer (especially over long distances), a decent tackler and competent in the air, so they were not targeted when up against a tall striker. In other words, exactly the same as the old-style sweeper, and it is no coincidence that many of the more prominent examples of sweepers – Sammer, Lothar Matthuas, Ruud Gullit – were central midfielders earlier in their career.
voilą, monsieur d.!
pps- watch javi martinez in coming years??