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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
oh, guardiola at bayern could be awesome! heynckes is purportedly retiring at the end of this season so that would be great. how well could he adapt to language/culture is another story, but if he can--- awesome. and if a german team won the champions-- that would be such vindication of their league.
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It makes sense. Bayern can afford him and I think Germany's less hysterical media (at least compared to England's) would appeal to him. He's not someone who seems to like the media spotlight so if he thought it was tough in Spain I can't see him liking it here. Plus, with the likelihood of Mourinho returning, I wonder if he'd be up for another prolonged dose of the kind of mind-games that contributed to his taking a sabbatical in the first place.
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re: the ranks, i think the results from the euros play a big part on these choices. it's like "pirlo-- awesome. but he didn't win the euro!" so that plays a big part-- was watching some spaniard comment on it on tv yesterday and not sure why he was an authority on the subject but he kept bringing up the euros vs. say the champions.
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Chelsea made the CL impossible to base anything on this year - as happened to the Euros when Greece won it. The problem with Pirlo isn't with Pirlo, or Italy but the fact that he's likely competing with Xavi (not Xabi-Alonso, as some have claimed), surely one of the greatest central midfielders ever. I do think Marcello and Alves are there because of the teams they play for but in terms of midfield and forwards, and goalkeeper, I think the FIFA XI pretty much writes itself. A second XI would've almost been more interesting, with players like Zlatan, Ozil, Bale, Pirlo, Ribery, Yaya Toure, Van Persie, Aguero, etc all challenging in a much closer contest.
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so you think it's more than simply an environmental/change of tactics/offside rule and it's just a matter of individual talent?
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No, I've no reason to believe Ramos is less talented than some of the legendary defenders of the past, just that the way the game has gone means his purely defensive talents are no longer as strongly developed as they would've been in previous more defence-minded eras. Defenders now seem to be judged on different things, much of which aren't strictly defending. So it can be no coincidence that most of my very favourite defenders were products of the catenaccio system and that the current defenders I tend to like are those who still evoke that system to some degree, say Vidic or Chiellini. But that's just taste and I'd certainly say a player like Lahm far better reflects what's now expected of a defender and is certainly greater than either of those in the context of his (and their) time.
Edit: Sorry for the stupidly long reply. I'm doing all I can to avoid things I should be doing for work right now.
SYG, fuelling procrastination since 2006.