Past football squads that look excellent in hindsight

LawCharltonBest

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Bolton’s demise got me thinking, at one point in time they had Jay-Jay Okocha, World Cup winner Youri Djorkaeff and Madrid legends Ivan Campo and Hierro.

West Ham will be a contender as they’ve had players such as Lampard, Joe Cole, Carrick, Di Canio and Ferdinand on their books, but can’t remember if they all ever synced.

Middlesbrough have had decent players. I’ll always remember Juninho fondly.

Southampton have always produced so many top talents that their squad would have looked insane, looking back now, at some stage.

I clicked on Shakhtar on FM 2012 and they had Srna, Fernandinho, Douglas Costa, Mkhitaryan, Willian and Tiexeira all at the same time!

Any more?
 

TheReligion

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LawCharltonBest said:
Bolton’s demise got me thinking, at one point in time they had Jay-Jay Okocha, World Cup winner Youri Djorkaeff and Madrid legends Ivan Campo and Hierro.

West Ham will be a contender as they’ve had players such as Lampard, Joe Cole, Carrick, Di Canio and Ferdinand on their books, but can’t remember if they all ever synced.

Middlesbrough have had decent players. I’ll always remember Juninho fondly.

Southampton have always produced so many top talents that their squad would have looked insane, looking back now, at some stage.

I clicked on Shakhtar on FM 2012 and they had Srna, Fernandinho, Douglas Costa, Mkhitaryan, Willian and Tiexeira all at the same time!

Any more?
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Boro had Ravanelli and Emerson too at the same time as Juninho.

Liverpool had Fowler, Owen, Mcmanaman etc but did very little in the 90s

Leeds had Woodgate, Kewell, Viduka, Hasselbaink and got into the CL and ended up relegated

Chelsea had LeBoeuf, Desailly, Zola, Vialli and did nothing of note.
 

Dozer

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Ajax 03-04

Top tier: Zlatan, Van der Vaart, Sneijder

Along with the likes of Pienaar, Vermaelen, Nigel De Jong...
 

giorno

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BlackShark_80 said:
Parma at one point had Cannavaro, Thuram, Buffon, Benarrivo, Sousa, and Crespo
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That side wasn't really excellent in hindsight though, it was considered among the favourites to win serie A, won the Uefa Cup and if anything ended up being overrated
 

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the great West Ham team under Harry;

Lamps, Carrick, Glen Johnson, Rio, Joe Cole, Tevez and Bobby Moore.
 

AndersB

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2003-2004 Manchester United had Djemba-Djemba, Kleberson, Eagles, Fortune, Richardson and Bellion
 

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PSV's 03-04 team had the likes of Robben, van Bommel, Park, Kezman, Rommedahl, Afellay and Bouma. Lee Young-pyo also looked half decent when checking out his wiki-page. Kezman fell through after leaving, but he was absolutely nuts in the Eresdivisie.

I remember quite a few games on CM with that bunch. Lead by CM legend Kevin Hofland that team would dominate Europe after a couple of seasons and a few key signings.
 

Grylte

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Shaktar must have one of the best scouting teams in the game.
 

TheReligion

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duffer said:
Boo to you for saying that. BOOO!

2 FA Cups, a Cup Winners Cup and a League Cup in a 4 year period.

No league title but that was a fantastic period to be a Chelsea fan, especially given the previous decades for us!
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Sounds like the period United have had post Fergie in fairness! Same silverwear
 

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Cant recall the exact year but at some point in the 2000s Valencia has David Villa, David Silva and Juan Mata in their squad among others. Their side that reached the CL final a year after we won The Treble wasn’t too shabby either.
 

SportingCP96

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Porto in 2010/11 had Hulk, Falcao, James, and Joao Moutinho. AVB was the coach.
 

joi_division

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It pains me but Lazio 2000 had one of the best squads assembled I think

Nesta, Mihajlovic, Simeone, Nedved, Veron, Crespo, Salas, Boksic, Couto
 

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River Plate in 2008 had Falcao, Alexis Sanchez and Simeone as manager and got last place in Argentjne league..
 
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BarcaSpurs

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SportingCP96 said:
Porto in 2010/11 had Hulk, Falcao, James, and Joao Moutinho. AVB was the coach.
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Alex Sandro and Danilo joined next season too. Otamendi was there also.

Just realised Alex Sandro and Danilo played together at Santos, Porto, Brazil (?) and now Juventus. Pretty interesting.
 

JPRouve

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PSG around 93-96 with Lama, Ricardo, Valdo, Rai, Ginola and Weah.
 

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Santos 2011 : Alex Sandro, Danilo, Felipe Anderson, Neymar, Elano, Rodrigo Possebon (:lol:)
 

izec

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joi_division said:
It pains me but Lazio 2000 had one of the best squads assembled I think

Nesta, Mihajlovic, Simeone, Nedved, Veron, Crespo, Salas, Boksic, Couto
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fantastic, i loved that team. They also had Claudio Lopez, Stankovic, Poborsky, Ravanelli, Simone Inzaghi and Peruzzi. Compared to today, that team was epic. I loved Italian football back then and that Lazio side was great all over the park and had some good squad players. They werent the biggest names or favourites, thats why i think for neutrals they were a highly interesting side

They looked great back then as well, not just in hindsight.
 

Chipper

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TheReligion said:
Boro had Ravanelli and Emerson too at the same time as Juninho.
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Plus Phil Stamp, Curtiis Fleming, Robbie Mustoe, Alan Moore, Steve Vickers, Nigel Pearson, Neil Cox, Gary Walsh and Clayton Blackmore. I think that was the problem.

Still, they're the best team to be relegated. 2 cup finals plus they wouldn't have gone down if it wasn't for the points deduction.
 
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TheReligion

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Chipper said:
Plus Phil Stamp, Curtiis Fleming, Robbie Mustoe, Alan Moore, Steve Vickers, Nigel Pearson, Neil Cox, Gary Walsh and Clayton Blackmore. I think that was the problem.

Still, they're the best team to be relegated. 2 cup finals plus they wouldn't have gone down if it wasn't for the points deduction.
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Branco and Gianluca Festa too!
 

giorno

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izec said:
fantastic, i loved that team. They also had Claudio Lopez, Stankovic, Poborsky, Ravanelli, Simone Inzaghi and Peruzzi. Compared to today, that team was epic. I loved Italian football back then and that Lazio side was great all over the park and had some good squad players. They werent the biggest names or favourites, thats why i think for neutrals they were a highly interesting side

They looked great back then as well, not just in hindsight.
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uh? They absolutely were
 

izec

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giorno said:
uh? They absolutely were
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For a short period yes. Well in my subjective mind Lazio were a smaller club than the likes of Juve and Milan, so for me i always had them as favourites. I made the first steps around that time in international football. They obviously won the title in 1999/2000, but they never could retain the success for longer. I was young at the time and was happy to see someone else win it
 

tenpoless

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"The fantastic four" Barcelona of 07/08 comes to mind - Messi, Ronaldinho, Eto'o, Henry.
And on top of that, They also still had Xavi, Iniesta, Deco, Yaya Toure, Puyol, Thuram and Zambrotta.

You would think They were going to dominate and toy around with teams in Europe, let alone La Liga. But the reality was far from that.. the fantastic four didn't play much together and Rijkaard had problems with rotation. They finished 3rd beyond Villareal, 18 points behind the Champions Real Madrid. Got eliminated by ManUnited in the CL semi as well. Disastrous by their standard and the quality of the squad.

Would have been something else if those four managed to get luckier with the injuries or if Henry came one or two years earlier.
 
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giorno

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izec said:
For a short period yes. Well in my subjective mind Lazio were a smaller club than the likes of Juve and Milan, so for me i always had them as favourites. I made the first steps around that time in international football. They obviously won the title in 1999/2000, but they never could retain the success for longer. I was young at the time and was happy to see someone else win it
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for the short period in which they had tbose players you mentioned. Yeah, they couldn'tkeep it up because their owner wasn't rich enough and ended up bankurpting his company(cirio), went to jail, and lazio needed the government to step in to save it from bankruptcy

Still, the year they won the title theh were favourites to win the title. Not an excellent team in hindsight when they were exactly as good as people though they were at the time...
 

Ramos

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That Parma squad in 1998 though ... They were strong back then, but in hindsight it's like some kind of fan made World Cup All-star team from the 90's and 00's. That's 4 WC winners, 5 WC runner-ups, a WC third place and about 130 WC apps right there.

 

SportingCP96

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Chipper said:
Squad was stacked, looking at it now they also had James Rodriguez, Otamendi, Fernando and Cristian Rodriguez.
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Ya that was probably the best team I can remember in Portugal (I am 23) they cleaned the league and had it basically won by January. They also swept the cup final 6-2 and won the Europa League as well as the Portuguese Super Cup. Following season they added more quality but then lost Falcao. Had they kept him they could have gone far in the CL IMO.
 

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Emery’s Valencia had Villa, David Silva, Mata, Baraja, Albelda, Albiol, Marchena, Joaquín, Vicente, Pablo Hernández and Banega all at the same time.

Benfica’s 2009-10 squad with Di María, David Luiz, Coentrão, Ramires, Aimar, Maxi Pereira, Luisão, Nuno Gomes and Saviola looks pretty tidy too.

The Fiorentina relegated side of 1992-93 featured Batistuta, Dunga, Effenberg and Brian Laudrup! Their 1999-2000 squad had Batistuta, Rui Costa, Toldo, Di Livio, Mijatović, Chiesa, Balbo, Torricelli, Heinrich, Amor too.
 

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England in the late 90s. Shearer, Owen, Sheringham, Fowler, Cole, Wright, Ferdinand, Collymore ect all vying for 2 places. Some firepower.
 

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Spurs early 80s had some terrific players yet never truly challenged: Hoddle, Villa, Ardiles, Crooks, Archibald, Clemence, Hazard, etc
 

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Inter 1993-1994 squad was a decent squad. They had Zenga, Bergomi, Jonk, Berti, Sosa, Bergkamp, Pancev and Schillaci in it but still ended 13th place. That's how ridiculously good the Serie A was at the time.
 
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