Maradona37
Well-known member
It's like how Maradona is a football legend, but was average relatively speaking by his own standards at Barca. His name was made at Argentinos Juniors, Boca, Napoli and Argentina.
Equally, guys like Beckham and Ferdinand were top players, but never really did it for England (I know some say Beckham was good for England but he never showed up in tournaments and has a big hand in them being eliminated in about 4 of the 5 he played).
Is it about the best players, or how the players played for the team in question? Michael Carrick (good player) and Darren Fletcher (okay player) were much better for Man United than Bastian Schweinsteiger, but obviously the German is a bigger football legend with a much bigger reputation.
I looked at that graphic above and it is very modern coded. Whoever created that knows very little about English football pre Premier League.
If I was picking an an all-time England XI I'd go with something like the following. I have no idea who would ever pick Pickford over Gordon Banks. Banks is likely a top 5 goalkeeper ever. Shilton should be above Pickford too I think. Pickford though does seem to raise his game for England compared to Everton.
Some of these players (Finney, Matthews) are very old football, so I have only seen footage, but you can use that and talk from peers to fill in blanks. I have tried to balance between quality overall and how they played for England. I am going old school 4-4-2 or 4-2-4 just because England loves that formation and also because they have had good strikers.
-------------------------------------------------------------Banks----------------
RB is hard but George Cohen won the world cup---Moore-------------Butcher-------Ashley Cole
----------Matthews-----------------------------Gazza (for Italia 90)--------B Charlton---------Finney
----------------------------------------Shearer-------------------Greaves---------------------------------
I feel it is too early to put in guys like Saka, even though he's clearly been very good and helped them to two finals. I felt bad leaving out lads like Lineker and Kane - those two alongside the two I have selected and guys like Rooney and Owen, Martin Peters, Roger Hunt, Keegan, Hurst scoring a hat-trick in World Cup Final - England have had some excellent centre forwards.
have left out some excellent footballers, who were either excellent for either one of their club career or England, or both. I could name some of the modern names mentioned above. I could also name other players from the past (wanted to pick Barnes at left wing but went with Finney due to historical record). Also, while I think he's become more of a myth now due to early death, Duncan Edwards might have captained England in 1966 had he lived. Colin Bell is another player who doesn't get his due recognition outside of his club support.
In my style for this particular teams needs I want two flying, dribbling, chalk on the boots wingers - not from the graphic Beckham (who should be on right with Charlton in middle, just move Saka to the left) who is more of a crosser and passer and a slower winger.
I think if that team above had every player in their peak, it would be formidable. However, it depends on the era - playing Charlton and Gazza in CM obviously gets destroyed in modern football with no real holding player.
There's lots of other top players - some mavericks would include Chris Waddle, Peter Beardsley, Glenn Hoddle etc.
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