Italy: Totti, Nesta, Zambrotta, Buffon, Gattuso, Pirlo, Del Piero, De Rossi, Cannavaro, Vieri

France: Henry, Viera, Trezeguet, Zidane, Cisse, Saha, Anelka, Makelele, Ribery

Germany: Klose, Podolski, Lahm, Schweinsteiger, Lehmann

Portugal: CR7, Deco, Figo

England: Lampard, Rooney, Gerard, Ferdinand, Beckham, Terry, Owen,

Brazil: Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Adriano, Emerson, Kaka, R.Carlos, Cafu

Spain: Casillas, Torres, Raul, Puyol, Xavi, Alonso, Villa, Iniesta, Fabregas, Ramos

Argentina: Riquelme, Tevez, Crespo, Mascherano, Messi

Netherlands: V. Nistelrooy, Robben, Sneijder, V.d.Vaart



Sick line-ups, have there ever been 9 better teams at a WC?

If Lampard or Gerrard would have had any balls, England would had won it easily imho...

i dont know, but i will always remember this legendary game





hoping for a similar one this year

Funny you'd say that because I actually bet on England winning it back in the day. Silly me

That Spain wasn't that good though. Raúl was already going down hill (he wasn't even a starter, and many people were complaining that he was even called). Ramos and Fábregas were still basically kids. Torres was still another kid, and he was very inconsistent and far from being the player he later was at Liverpool. Iniesta too was still developing... he didn't even start in that year's CL final for Barça. The other guys you mentioned were quality though. But the team, as a whole,... eh, it was still in the works. Let's not forget they had a hard time qualifying, requiring playoffs.

1998 was another WC with really sick squads. The winning team France was obviously insane. Brazil with prime Ronaldo and all those star players was mind blowing. Netherlands had a sick-ass team. Croatia and Yugoslavia (Serbia&Montenegro) had crazy talent too, with the developed versions of several of the players that won the 1987 U-20 WC back under the old SFR Yugoslavia team. Italy was sick and stacked with the players that were dominating club football at the time. Germany was about to enter downhill, but they were obviously still a very experienced and competitive team. Argentina had lots of talent and word class players too. There were some other talented teams like Denmark, Colombia, England and Nigeria, although they were probably not as good as the other teams I mentioned... it was an amazing WC for sure.

This post was edited by zarkadon on Jun 12 2018 03:44pm

I honestly think this is the best squad Brazil has ever had. Such a tragedy that they could not do more with what they had.

1 GK Dida
2 DF Cafu
3 DF Lúcio
4 DF Juan
5 MF Emerson
6 DF Roberto Carlos
7 FW Adriano
8 MF Kaká
9 FW Ronaldo
10 MF Ronaldinho
11 MF Zé Roberto
12 GK Rogério Ceni
13 DF Cicinho
14 DF Luisão
15 DF Cris
16 DF Gilberto
17 MF Gilberto Silva
18 MF Mineiro
19 MF Juninho
20 MF Ricardinho
21 FW Fred
22 GK Júlio César
23 FW Robinho

Every dude in here was a bonafide star!

70 and 02 >>>

Player for player? no........

Who cares if 12th+ man may be slightly better

This post was edited by ZxFamily-GuyxZ on Jun 12 2018 04:56pm

Well that was my argument so I care.

just wow comparing some of those lineups vs this wc (or whoever would make if qualified)

back when england had a proper squad. lacked midfield cohesion/balance as we all know, and Rooney had his usual injury during a WC year.

How sick was (the real) Ronaldo though. Probably 3rd or 4th best player of all time, and could have been better if he didn't have those injuries at Milan. He wasn't the same player at RM, even though he was still a world class goalscorer.

England have usually had really good teams on paper, most notably: Mexico 1986, Italia 90, Euro 96, Japan/Korea 2002 and Germany 2006. We actually got to the quarters and semis a few times but now with an inferior squad and less pressure we're in a brilliant position to win it.

This post was edited by dro94 on Jun 12 2018 05:24pm