This is a slightly altered translation of these two posts which were written in German: Part 1 & Part 2
Manager: Pep Guardiola
Bench: Buffon, Cech, Casillas; Zanetti, Abidal, A. Cole; Hummels, Vidic, Puyol, Chiellini, Nesta, Pique; S. Ramos, Maicon, Srna; Schweinsteiger, Cambiasso, X. Alonso; Pirlo, Lampard, Scholes; Kaka, Fabregas, Modric; Ribéry, D. Villa, Di Maria; Ibrahimovic, Rooney, Drogba; Agüero, T. Müller, Eto’o
Best player: Lionel Messi
Best team: FC Barcelona 2008-12
Best club: FC Barcelona
Best match: FC Barcelona – Real Madrid 5-0, 29.11.2010
A preliminary remark: when people compile Teams of the Decade, they most often restrict the meaning of the term ‘decade’ to something like the 80s or the 90s. I don’t. When I say ‘decade’, I simply mean a time span of 10 years. This post will be the first in a series of articles in which I compile Teams of the Decade. I will work my way back in time in 5 year steps. After this post, the next one will be about the 2000-2010 Team of the Decade, which in turn will be followed by the 1995-2005 Team of the Decade and so forth back until the 1950-1960 Team of the Decade. I will stop there because the lack of footage for players before 1950 makes it impossible for me to form an opinion about them that is truly my own. I chose to go back in steps of 5 years, because that seems to be a good compromise. Going back in steps of 10 years is unfair towards those players who have performed the best around the turn of a decade (take Xavi, for example). Smaller steps would mean a lot of repetition; a 2004-2014 Team of the Decade won’t be that different from a 2005-2015 Team of the Decade.
Inclusion in this team is based solely on quantity and quality of performance during the respective period of time. It’s not about whether a player has won a lot of trophies, or fits some artistic ideal, even whether a player was ahead of his time in itself isn’t a criterion. It’s about performance and performance alone. You don’t necessarily have to get top marks for both quantity and quality of performance to be included. If the quality of your performances was outstanding, you have a chance to be included even if, for example, you only performed on that level for, say, 5 of the 10 years. But the lack of quantity of performance will speak against you. Also, the chances of any given player to be included, of course, heavily depend on the quality and quantity of performance of other players who played in the same position during the same period of time. This is all still a bit vague, but since fantasy football teams are far from being exact science to begin with, I think that’s okay. The main point that I want to emphasize simply is, that both quantity and quality of performance matter. I define the 2005-2015 decade as starting with the final whistle of the 2005 Champions League final and ending with the final whistle of the 2015 Champions League final.
Manuel Neuer
Germany has a long tradition of fine shot stoppers. The likes of Oliver Kahn, Sepp Maier and Toni Schumacher were among the best keepers of their time. Manuel Neuer is the next in line and has a real chance to outshine even the best of his predecessors. In fact, he already comes close. It’s possible that he hasn’t reached the half way point of his career, but his performances during the last couple of years warrant such praise. Especially his 2014 World Cup ranks among the best tournament performances by a goalkeeper ever. Take the game against Algeria: , with any other goalkeeper Germany would have lost that match, as Rene Maric correctly observed. Something like that is hard to find. Maybe Maradona against England in ’86 is another example. That’s the kind of performance level we’re talking about – albeit without the cheating. Read More »
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