I rated also this NT

@Firenze @Mole @RG @Jay @Unique

I follow Italy since 97 e for me the best was Italy 98
The best Italy ever is probably 1970. Beated just from Pelè that led the best Brazil ever

england every world cup.

The Demon of Carthage wrote:1. Brazil 2002
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2. Spain 2010.
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3. Others.

Brazil 2002 was not that special. Great fullbacks, young Ronaldinho, Rivaldo and post-injury Ronaldo, that's it.

@barcalearning. Spain could have been great at scoring they just had a fetish for passing the ball backwards and sideways throughout until villa decides it's time to score. They scored a lot at the euros prior to and the qualifiers. And they definitely had firepower up front. But pass pass pass and pass again was what was on their menu. And pass again

Netherlands 98

futbol_bill wrote:

rincon wrote:Belgium this year ain't nowhere near all time most talented. Not even the most talented squad in the tournament, let alone past squads from top countries.

Italy 94 to 06, Brazil 02-06, France 98-06 & 18, England 02-06, Spain 10-18... Croatia 18

No German team? Seems a little odd, let alone your inclusion of England & Croatia. If you are listing 2018, you have to include Brasil.

The three dots implying there are more including Germany of course. England back then did have a lot of talent. So does Belgium, it's just for banter. Croatia>Belgium though

Croatia actually is a very talented team tbh.

Mandzukic, Modric, Rakitic, Perisic, Lovren, Brozovic, Kovacic, and I'm probably missing a bunch too

I don't think they'll go very far but they deserve a mention.

Croazia 98 was better imo

Disagree. For me this team is more talented than the 98 one, Suker aside. That team (and the jerseys) got me to like Croatia, but the current squad is too deep and too high profile. The only real weakness are the CBs and even then we are talking of Liverpool and Besiktas, solid for Croatia's standards.

Well  that Croatia had also a player called Zvonimir Boban
Stanic and Asanovic were talented too
Basically I think that was a team more complete than this (better defence for example)
You can choose one or the other team though, I understand your opinion

True !!!  I thought him but forgot to write him ( I deserve a -25 % for this tbh) .
he is one of those  reasons why I rated them so highly. Imo their best player in that WC (even if Suker was top scorer)
So I confirm about France 98
p.s. in that WC Brazil was my 2nd NT because of Ronaldo.

sportsczy wrote:France 2002 (the most talented and catastrophic squad of all time)

GK Ulrich Ramé
DF Vincent Candela
DF Bixente Lizarazu
MF Patrick Vieira
DF Philippe Christanval
MF Youri Djorkaeff
MF Claude Makélélé
DF Marcel Desailly (c)
FW Djibril Cissé
MF Zinedine Zidane
FW Sylvain Wiltord
FW Thierry Henry
DF Mikaël Silvestre
MF Alain Boghossian
DF Lilian Thuram
GK Fabien Barthez
MF Emmanuel Petit
DF Frank Leboeuf
DF Willy Sagnol
FW David Trezeguet
FW Christophe Dugarry
MF Johan Micoud
GK Grégory Coupet

Zidane was injured... but even then, believe it or not, this team didn't score single goal in the WC.... this after walking through the confed club a year earlier, being the title holding WC and Euro team AND having lost 1 game in 4 years all comps + friendlies.

It was an epic disaster lol.

Same for Argentina 2002. Probably the best Argentina ever on paper ( many great players in their prime ) but they were knocked out at group lol

Thurman decides he's a goalscorer of all things in the semis in that WC semi against Croatia...  The guy scored 2 goals total from 1996 to 2008 for club in 490 games.  And those were his only 2 goals in 142 caps for France.

it was miraculous tbh.

And btw, that 1995-96 monaco team had Barthez, Di Meco, Christanval, Thuram, Enzo Scifo (one of my favorite players nobody knows about), Emmanuel Petit, Henry, Trezeguet and Sonny Anderson. Jean Tigana was the manager.... and finished 3rd in Ligue 1 lol.

Boban and Prosinecki were great. This year's midfield is still huge though with Modric, Rakitic and Brozovic. That's why I singled out Suker as that's where the current Croatia is missing compared to 98. Mandzukic is great but not a scorer as Suker could be.

The absolute best squad (even greater than Cruyff's Netherlands) that didn't win a WC and should have was Brazil 1982.

God they were beautiful to watch. To this day, that was the best playing team I've ever seen... better than the best Barcelona, Netherlands, France, Milan, etc. Socrates and Zico were out of this world and they combined interplay buildup with directness unlike any other. Italy parked the bus (as they always did back then against the top teams; Catenaccio) and beat them.

In the 80s, West Germany and Italy were, by far, the most awful teams to watch. Prime Mourinho stuff. I got it with West Germany because they were just thugs.... but Italy made no sense. Serie A teams played great football and they had the talent. Yet Italy NT played this shitty "score 1 and then put 10 players behind the ball" tactic. Fouled the crap out of you too. Played with a terrorist that would have been captain of Stoke City named Gentile.

England WC 2018.

Argetina '98, Spain 2010, France '98

@sportsczy, in the 80s the serie a teams played great because of the influx of foreign attackers- the germans at inter, dutch at milan, platini broniek at juve, roma also had falcao (for those too young to see him in 82, he was an under the radar fantastic midfielder). their where only a few standout italian elite attackers in the 80s hence the need to focus on defense....a position where they where definitely stacked

netherlands in 06 i thought had a pretty good team, stacked offensively. well, the dutch until the last few years have always had pretty strong and deep teams especially offensively, a lot of times they fall prey to in-house drama....and i agree that brazil 82 team was something else, they really should make a top notch documentary on that team

guest_07 wrote:argentina 2006

Roberto Abbondanzieri (gk)
Leo Franco (gk)
Óscar Ustari (gk)

Roberto Ayala (df)
Juan Pablo Sorín (df)
Fabricio Coloccini (df)
Gabriel Heinze (df)
Lionel Scaloni (df)
Gabriel Milito (df)
Leandro Cufré (df)
Nicolás Burdisso (df)

Esteban Cambiasso (mf)
Javier Mascherano (mf)
Juan Román Riquelme (mf)
Pablo Aimar (mf)
Maxi Rodríguez (mf)
Lucho González (mf)

Javier Saviola (fw)
Hernán Crespo (fw)
Carlos Tevez (fw)
Rodrigo Palacio (fw)
Lionel Messi (fw)
Julio Cruz (fw)

great squad that should have done far more than they did tbh.

Argentina 2006 is the most clearest example of any i can remember of a managers decisions *bleep* up and costing them the tournament.

They should have beaten Germany, taking off Riquelme to shut up shup cost them the game. Well that and Messi was an unusued sub ( despite the fact he was a kid, his impact was already obvious)

I maintain that if they won that game they would have won the whole tournament and all of it was pretty much down to Pekerman being a pleb.

France '98
/thread

sportsczy wrote:Thurman decides he's a goalscorer of all things in the semis in that WC semi against Croatia...  The guy scored 2 goals total from 1996 to 2008 for club in 490 games.  And those were his only 2 goals in 142 caps for France.

it was miraculous tbh.

One of them was an outside the box shot too. Never seen him attempt that shot ever again in his career.