The Daredevil Draft QF1 | Himannv vs. Gio

With players at their career peak, who would win?

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GodShaveTheQueen

We mean it man, we love our queen!
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-------------------------------- HIMANNV---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GIO-----------------------------------

Himannv's write up:

Tactics

My magic square has a slight tilt to it and it is now a diamond with Platini at the tip in a free role to do what he does best.

Players

Dietmar Danner

Inspired slightly by GSTQ's comment on partnerships, I thought it would be nice to have a complete Gladbach midfield that was at its best in the 70s.

Dietmar Danner was a perfect choice for my setup for a couple of reasons:

1. I feel he was one of the more creative midfielders in that Gladbach side, but also one of those who doesn't have a problem sharing the limelight with other creative players - Netzer being the most regular of those. He comes in for Giresse so I do not want a very large drop in creativity

2. He was also a nice choice because he was quite good playing wider and hence a perfect fit for a midfield 3, or a diamond in this case. He played on the left a 4-3-3 for most of his career.

The following video is an all touches compilation of him so you can judge his skills in a full game.



Note the level of comfort in wider positions and also the creative forward passes. Also note the nice interlink play with the fullbacks, the attacking runs with the ball and the powerful strike.

He'll also be comfortable playing alongside his Gladbach teammates and partnerships between players is a key aspect in my selection. You'll also notice that he can switch sides in midfield and play quite comfortably on the right, which is a nice aspect to have with Bonhof also in the team.

His career was curtailed by a serious injury in 1976, without which he would have no doubt been a more regular fixture in the Germany and Gladbach teams of those times.

Dieter Muller

I came across Muller quite by chance. I was watching a Gladbach match highlights while researching some of their players and caught sight of him playing for the opposition. I initially thought he was Gerd before realizing he never played for Koln and this was a different Muller. It's a pity I can't also squeeze Giresse into this team because Muller played for Bordeaux with him so it's a nice pairing.

Muller was the top scorer in the Bundesliga for two seasons in a row around his peak. Not an easy feat considering his namesake was also around at the time, in fact they shared the award on one occasion. In his best season, he scored 34 goals in 34 games. He also scored 6 goals in a single game in 1977 (vs Werder Bremen. I'm unable to find footage). He scored 43 goals in 93 games in France and 159 goals in 248 games for Koln.

The following is an overall compilation video.



As you can see, he's a fantastic goal poacher and excellent in the air. He doesn't just jump up and let the ball hit his head, ala Peter Crouch, but can generate power with his technique and times them perfectly.

He's great at just getting on the end of passes and finishing, while also being very smart with positioning himself between the CBs. He can also draw them to him and still find space with his touch to score. While he's naturally right footed, he also scores with his left.

Gio's write up:

The Argentinian front three is centred on the creative hub Diego Maradona, flanked by the energetic Mario Kempes and topped off by the no-nonsense markmanship of Gabriel Batistuta.

The best in the business Giacinto Facchetti mans the left flank, supporting Kempes in attack and combining with Paul Breitner inside him in midfield. In defence Oscar Ruggeri sits inside Facchetti while Laurent Blanc oozes class covering both him and Tarcisio Burgnich on the right. Lev Yashin is as good as it gets in installing calm and confidence around him.

Wolfgang Dremmler renews his Europe and world beating partnership with Paul Breitner. Together at Eintracht Braunschweig, Bayern Munich and for West Germany they forged a rock-solid central midfield platform where Dremmler's defensive discipline frequently shut down opposition no10s. His use of the ball was typically productive and positive in shifting it forward early to the teammates who could do the most damage.

Ricardo Giusti is probably the second best Argentinian right wing back of all time. An important cog in the most successful eras of both Independiente, winning the Copa Libertadores and the Intercontinental Cup in 1984, and Argentina, winning the World Cup in 1986 and reaching the final in 1990. Tidy on the ball, decent dribbler and defensively reliable, he was a classic fetcher-and-carrier soldier for Maradona.
 
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Himannv said:
Thanks for setting it up @GodShaveTheQueen Could you do something about the formatting of the player names, they don't stand out as the font size got reduced. Bold maybe?
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Done.

Gio said:
Yes, I'm not sure if Himmanv is too small or I'm too big. Can amend though if need be.
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I think yours is fine.

@Himannv , you have an excellent team and write up. The graphic is way too blurry though and I would change it if it was my team. Up to you either ways
 
Nice Gladbach theme going on there @Himannv

In the spirit of these partnerships, a few areas to highlight at our end:
  • Argentina - 1986 front and central with Maradona, Ruggeri and Giusti in their respective roles from that tournament. Spearheaded by the all-Argentina attack pulling in the most enthusiastic energy and most potent finishing the country has seen.
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  • Breitner and Dremmler - partners for Eintracht, Bayern and West Germany. These two played a couple of hundred games together for club and country. What's most remarkable though is the successful tandem they had in the centre of the park, with Dremmler holding and Breitner pushing on (look at the stats below). Now the obvious caveat to that is Breitner started off his career at left-back, playing there for a couple of seasons before getting that central gig. But even then there's still a stark contrast between his record at CM with and without Dremmler (0.1 goals per game from CM at Real Madrid).​
Together 199 games, 89 goals for Breitner. 0.45 goals per game.
Rest of Breitner's career, 285 games, 41 goals. 0.14 goals per game.​
  • Inter - the Facchetti/Burgnich tandem. Not really a partnership as such, but balancing acts for the team as a whole, with Ruggeri and Blanc complementary fits around them.
 
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GABRIEL BATISTUTA - ARGENTINA'S GREATEST NUMBER 9​

Mario Kempes, Diego Maradona, Juan Roman Riquelme, Lionel Messi. The greats of the Argentina attack are usually number 10s. Then there’s Gabriel Batistuta, an archetypal and unashamed No9.

“Batistuta is the best striker I have ever seen,” says Diego Maradona. He would know a thing or two.

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Fiorentina’s all-time leading goalscorer, it would take Lionel Messi 112 Argentina appearances to break the 56-goal record Batigol set in 78 international caps.

A league notorious for its defending, Serie A was at the height of its powers in the 1990s, yet Batistuta netted 184 times there in his 13 seasons. That was done without one or two standout seasons – in nine years at Fiorentina he showed incredible consistency. Despite Batistuta's goals, those nine seasons with La Viola saw just two winners medals. The Coppa Italia and Supercopa, both in 1996.

“To tell you the truth [moving to a bigger club] didn’t interest me so much because, although there were titles, they were easy to win. I said: ‘No, I’m staying with Fiorentina and I’ll try to win something here because one title with Fiorentina is worth ten with Milan or Juventus.”

It was at Fiorentina that Batigol developed one of the great Serie A partnerships with the exquisite Rui Costa:

In a team that was lacking in defence and didn’t fare much better in the middle, Batistuta and Rui Costa were an attacking phenomenon, zigging in a league that chose to zag.
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Fiorentina failed to compete for Serie A and eventually Batigol knew he had to leave if he were to finish his career with a major title. At age 31 Roma signed the forward for £27.5 million. He became the most expensive over-30-year-old – a record he still holds. It was the move that would finally deliver the trophy he sought. The Scudetto. With 20 goals Batigol became a legend in Rome as he fired I Giallorossi to their third, and last, Serie A title.

Once again Batigol demonstrated how well he dovetails with a #10, forming an exceptional partnership with Francesco Totti:

The chemistry between the captain and the striker was nearly telepathic.

Batistuta thrived off of Totti’s creativity, and returned it with slick assists himself from time to time. His primary job, of course, was to notch goals, and he so often finished with aplomb, showing off the kind of ice-cold confidence and power that only the very elite strikers have.
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Batistuta was a very typical number nine. Yet somehow atypical.

He could do anything you would ask of a striker and do all of it well. When you watch his Serie A goals you see quickly he could score in any way: deft finishes, tap-ins, bullet headers, long-range efforts smashed home. It was all in his repertoire.

A player of huge stature, the most obvious strength was the power with which he could strike the ball from any distance. He had good control and was excellent in the air. His presence was intimidating and his attitude tenacious.

Then there are the subtleties to his game; the things big No9s don’t do. The more you watch Batistuta, the more you see the intelligent movement, the sly actions to gain any advantage, the malleability of his game.

As time goes on it becomes increasingly difficult to see where players from bygone eras would fit into the modern game, but not with Batistuta. In our current era without two strikers he would have no trouble leading the line alone, marrying all his attributes to combine the archetypal number nine with the agile and less restricted roles of forwards today. He had the technical ability and speed, the strength and intelligence, to drift wide or deep, to hold the ball up or play merely as a poacher.

One of the greatest strikers we’ve ever seen, Argentina’s greatest ever goalscorer and one of the best players in the history of Italian football, there is only one Gabriel Batistuta.

 
@Gio Great team, only one question (I always have it with Facchetti & Breitner):

Who's going to provide offensive width on the left? From everything I've seen of Facchetti's attacking runs, he's right-footed and likes to cut in towards the box. Kempes very much seems like a centrally oriented player too. I think an ideal partner on the left would be someone who naturally acts as a LW (ideally with a strong left foot) when Facchetti pushes up, stretching the defense and pulling at least one defender away from the zone Facchetti runs into. Or remaining open, if no one follows him.

Wouldn't this constellation limit either the Italian or the Argentinian at times in playing out their main strengths? But to be clear, my picture of both players might just be incomplete.

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I like Danner, Müller & Dremmler as role player choices a lot, and I can see them adding good things to their teams. Giusti is a complete unknown for me, but Gio's short profile reads as if he fits in well.
 
Synco said:
@Gio Great team, only one question (I always have it with Facchetti & Breitner):

Who's going to provide offensive width on the left? From everything I've seen of Facchetti's attacking runs, he's right-footed and likes to cut in towards the box. Kempes very much seems like a centrally oriented player too. I think an ideal partner on the left would be someone who naturally acts as a LW (ideally with a strong left foot) when Facchetti pushes up, stretching the defense and pulling at least one defender away from the zone Facchetti runs into. Or remaining open, if no one follows him.

Wouldn't this constellation limit either the Italian or the Argentinian at times in playing out their main strengths? But to be clear, my picture of both players might just be incomplete.

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I like Danner, Müller & Dremmler as role player choices a lot, and I can see them adding good things to their teams. Giusti is a complete unknown for me, but Gio's short profile reads as if he fits in well.
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That's a good question and I usually ask the same when there's an in-cutting full-back responsible for the width.

But a 3-5-2 doesn't fit an orthodox winger hugging the touchline. Yet it's still a historically and recently successful system. So how do you provide width in a 3-5-2? Well firstly through the wing-back and nobody better really than Facchetti in that regard at dominating the flank and providing a box-to-box threat. He was right-footed but he wasn't the type of hybrid central midfielder like Breitner or Junior who wanted to cut inside to get on the ball and playmake from central areas. Now while he can cut in and score goals, his main job has always been about dominating that outside-left channel. His left foot was very good which enabled him to go down the outside of his full-back as in the examples below.

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Being able to use both feet makes such a massive difference in opening up the park and making the best use of space available to you. Part of the reason modern teams need overlapping full-backs to keep the pitch big is because many inverted wingers are so hopeless on their weaker feet and can only threaten on their stronger foot. Facchetti never had that problem because he was good with both feet. He was also very effective at using his strength and pace to take the ball past defenders on their outside which, similarly, stretched the game in his team's favour.

The other feature of a 3-5-2 is you want a certain level of mobility and fluidity in your attackers to work the pitch. Maradona was pretty much perfect in that respect in floating across the park and attacking the defence from all angles.

He's probably enough but Kempes too, while predominantly a central player, could also work the left hand side with his mobility and energy. Both his goals in the 2-0 Copa del Rey final win over Real Madrid at 1.32 and 3.36 below are good examples of him going from a central area to out wide and coming back inside again. The sort of movement and fluidity that would complement the likes of Diego, Facchetti, Breitner and Batistuta going forward here.
 
Perhaps worth considering if deliberating over splitting the teams - respective goal threats.

We have Batistuta (25-30 goals a season), Kempes (30-40), Breitner (15-20), Blanc (15) plus Maradona - all offering some serious goal threat. Multiple options there in case any one is shut out.
 
In addition to comparing those goal-threats we also feel there's an edge at the other end of the park. In the late 1990s Blanc was the definitive sweeper in Europe, going toe-to-toe with Desailly as the most important cog in one of the games greatest national defences which went on to win back to back international tournaments (Blanc later voted the 4th greatest French player of all time by France Football behind Platini, Zidane and Kopa). Complimenting the coolness of Blanc, on either side Ruggeri and Burgnich are prototype defensive stoppers, with the Argentine winning World Cup '86 in the same role whilst Burgnich remains the gold-standard as a tucked in stopper next to a sweeper as he did Picchi.

Finally in a close game it's often the goalkeeper that makes the difference - as outlined by and unashamedly stolen from @harms the credentials of Yashin are unrivalled:
  • Only goalkeeper to win the Ballon d'Or
  • conceded just six goals in 27 Russian league games
  • kept 22 clean sheets in the league
  • provided a historical performance for the Rest of the World vs England game at Wembley
  • scared Sandro Mazzola shitless before saving his penalty
 
Would have left Law Himan. Platini, Law and Boniek could have got you this game imo.

Edit: although Muller was a damn fine choice, I just think Boniek - Law is almost flawless parntersip for Platini.
 
Jim Beam said:
Would have left Law Himan. Platini, Law and Boniek could have got you this game imo.

Edit: although Muller was a damn fine choice, I just think Boniek - Law is almost flawless parntersip for Platini.
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Agreed.
 
Had a lengthy post on Boniek and didn't get time to post it. Pressed send just now but it was too late so deleted it.

Disagree about Muller. I think he's a fantastic striker and it's a mystery to me why he didn't feature more for Germany.
 
Some team @Himannv - compelling partnerships and the perfect Platini set up. Nice sheep choices too, always thought the other Muller was a hidden gem.
 
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