Who would you pick?

I decided to choose the perfect starting eleven, for me, in a 4-4-2 tactics. Sometimes, you don’t need the players with the best individual skills, in order to win a trophy, but a combination of players with concrete tasks on the pitch, who lead you to the victory. That’s exactly the way, Ranieri led Leicester City to The Premiership title. Of course, without quality figures you won’t be able to win anything, but the point is that everybody should help his teammates and work as a part of a machine.

So, the goalkeeper I decided to pick is Gianluigi Buffon. I think I don’t have to tell you the arguments… He is maybe the best goalkeeper in the world!

Right fullback – Gary Neville. The Englishman was very good at crossing the ball in the box. He had a great discipline and his tackling was world class. He was also very fast. So, Neville had all the needed qualities for right fullback.

Left fullback – Paolo Maldini. The Italian defender was AC Milan’s leader for over 24 years. He had great positioning on the pitch and had incredible tackling skills. Maldini also had good goal-scoring skills – he has found the net on about 40 occasions in his long career.

Centre backs – Fabio Cannavaro and Lucio. The Brazilian defender has won everything in football. He has recorded over 100 appearances for Brazil and was in the squad when his nation won The World Cup. Cannavaro was really good when getting ‘first balls’. Both were great at tackling and heading. Both could also score lots of goals.

Centre midfielders – Paul Scholes and Roy Keane. I need Keane in my squad, because he is the man, who will have to take the ball from the opponents. His tackling was incredible. Of course, sometimes you need to foul the opponent and Keane knew exactly when to do it. He made football look like a very simple game with his playing style. While Keane is going to take the ball, Scholes will have the task to pass the ball and organize the attacks. To me, he is the best midfielder in the world. Nobody has his accuracy in the long passing. He has also a powerful shoot. Scholes is full of energy and is also good in the air. He has a great vision.

We need two players who are really fast – to put them on both flanks. It will be really trivial if I pick Cristiano Ronaldo, so I won’t. Let’s make it more interesting… I will put Damien Duff on the left. But, the young version of Duff – from the time he was playing at Blackburn Rovers and Chelsea. He was very, very fast, which we can combine with Scholes’ great long passing.

Of course, I am not going to take Neymar in the squad – for the same reason I didn’t pick Ronaldo. The other reason is that we are going to show you old-fashioned football. This time I will make an exception and will take a man, who isn’t that fast, but has a great technique. This man is Luis Figo. He can make great deliveries, he can score goals from long distance. He can score from free-kicks and so on.

Okay then, we need two forwards. I prefer one of them to be fast and the other one being physically strong. So, no doubt my first choice will be Michael Owen and my last trump should be Alan Shearer. I think you all know what these two players are capable of…

This is my dream team and what’s yours?