No surprise here, but it’s still an impressive club to be apart of.
It’s one thing to be named to “Team of the Year” or “Team of the Tournament”, but All-Decade is a different beast.
The International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) named Luka Modrić as one of the best three midfielders in the world for the past 10 years alongside Real Madrid teammate Toni Kross and Barcelona’s former playmaker Andres Iniesta. It’s odd to me they went with four defenders instead of adding another midfielder or striker. I would easily put Zlatan on this list instead of van Dijk or Marcelo.
At 35 years old, Modrić is actually getting better. It’s scary.
We will see what the second half of this season has in store for Modrić with a Champions League run and uphill battle in La Liga on the horizon. With Mateo Kovačić not hitting his stride at Chelsea and facing lack of playing time (under old management), are we secretly rooting for Kova to be a complete flop so we can watch Modrić play in the checkers until he’s 40?
Could he play another four and a half years? Pirlo played until he was 36 for Juventus before moving to NYCFC for another two seasons. It wouldn’t be the most ridiculous ask. Especially when Real Madrid just signed their Croatian maestro to another full season at the Bernabeu.
Remember when Zlatan single-handedly destroyed England 4-1 when England was at their prime? There has never been and never will be a more dominant performance by anyone ever. If only Zlatan was fully Croatian, how many records would be broken….LOL jk
Yeah. Ibrahimović could take the Toni Kroos spot, and they could play a 4-3-3 just fine 😀
I get why Lewandowski’s in there. He’s a great player! Definitely better than Benzema, if you ask me, and I’m a Real Madrid fan my whole life!
There is probably a pool of 30 players that are all in the same ballpark, and it’s hard to determine which 11 out of this group gets the start.
Any one of Zlatan, Suarez, Cavani, Benzema, etc could be argued as having a better 10-year career than Lewandowski.
But Lewa is no scrub, and is right up there with them. They’re all in that pool. Lewa is benefitting from recency bias, because he just won the golden ball and recently had his best season ever…so he gets the start here.
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For me, Ibra has just been fantastic for MORE than the past ten years, and conquered every single league, AND continues to do (while turning 40 years old this year!). Absolutely unreal.
I question the inclusion of Virgil and Toni Kroos. I think we can all name players we would prefer at those positions over those two. Chiellini is a good call for CB. I might even put Andrea Barzagli over Sergio Ramos. He was a very, very good defender. Ramos is a great athlete but has been part of some of the most embarrassing defensive lapses I’ve ever seen.
Well deserved by Luka. Has pulled the strings in the midfield and led RM fan to 4 CL…and many more trophies.
You can tell by some of the comments that many of you have no clue about la liga and probably know more about the serb league you close cetniks…lol
Or you know more about MLS or baseball…so let the big boys talk about Luka and Real Madrid and la liga…and you can stick to baseball, cricket and whatever other garbage crap you follow.
So it’s unanimous.
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Ibra > Lewa
“Bayern can go eat dicks with how they treated Perisic and Mandzukic.”
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Oh boo hoo.
Yeah I’m not sure why people are ruling out Ante Budimir
Scoring goals in laliga is no mean feat
Jovic can score two goals in the Bundesliga in 20 minutes. In la liga he was useless. Lewy would be a drooling tourist in serie a or la liga.
Bayern can go eat dicks with how they treated Perisic and Mandzukic.
If the Bundesliga is a “weaker league” then the HNL is bush league, a league for washed up foreigners and bums like Bruno Petkovic who couldn’t cut it in Serie A, did that bum even score a goal in Serie A? Lol, I don’t think he did.
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But recently on this site we had a couple of muppets saying that Ante Budimir who plays in a stronger league is not NT material, but bush league Bruno is, Armada87 was one of those muppets, I think Maminjo may have been the other one.
@Anonymous
You can speak for yourself and the Croatian posters but not for me, I enjoy the Bundesliga.
Surprising that none of you care about Perisic winning the UCL with Bayern!
@Croatian Canadian
Someone said, “Ivo Goldstein. There’s a good Croatian name.”
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Would your real name be Canadian? No
But you’re still a Canadian right?
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I always thought what Mandzukic did at Bayern in a “weaker league” with Robben and Ribery wasn’t that impressive.
I wasn’t impressed with what he did at Juve either because they were the top team in Italy.
We saw in Spain when he wasn’t at a top two team that he had to start taking penalties to pad his stats. Remember how he sucked at Euro ’16 for your nt also.
Let’s see what he does at AC Milan?
Lewandowski? He’s useless against decent teams and defenders. He’s like the special olympics striker.
Mandzukic on the other hand has a proven track record of scoring against the best defence and when a 1 goal differece win is required.
Lewandowski is bitching about a deserving a balon dior. Nobody cares about bayern or the Bundesliga or Lewandowski.
I somehow agree with Lewandowski being replaced. He only steps up for club, always surrounded by good players and the German league isn’t that competitive. For replacing him I would put Aubameyang, Aguero, or even Benzema for defenders perhaps Hummels. For goalkeepers you could say Buffon or Oblak.
Ive always liked Cavani too.
From 2011-2020 he buried a shit ton of goals for Napoli and PSG.
Crazy,
Suarez 63 goals in 113 games for Uruguay.
Lewandowski 63 goals in 116 games for Poland.
Zlatan 62 goals in 116 games for Sweden.
Suarez’s and Zlatan’s club scoring look better than Lewas to me though.
Lewandowski’s out for me cuz hes doing it in Germany for the 2 biggest clubs in a weaker league.
Hell of a player but Id put Zlatan and Suarez over Lewa.
@Crnkovic
You understand that this team isn’t going to play anyone?
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Messi into Modric’s spot and Suarez up top is what should of happened.
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Van Dijk out, Pique for me, but I wouldn’t complain if it was Silva or Chiellini.
exactly anon
run the game? harder to tap in a shot?no no
don’t joke
no. modric 100%
I don’t think Van Dijk should be in that team he’s been good for about 3 years. I would also take out Kroos for Xavi but I respect Kroos a lot as a footballer so I don’t really have a problem with him in the team. Lewa can be replaced by Suarez too.
You could put Messi into Modric’s position and include Suarez up top.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic should be the striker up top.
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It’s hard to choose between guys like Lewandowski, Ibrahimovic, Suarez, Cavani, etc.
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Lewandowski is definitely in that pool…but the reason why I like Ibrahimovic more is that it didn’t matter where he played. He would score at an insane rate, no matter what team and no matter what age.
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This is extremely rare. Many elite strikers drop off in production when they switch teams…and all of them drop off when they get older.
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Zlatan does neither. Very few strikers can do this.
Cavani has already dropped off now at ManU. We don’t know if Lewandowski would have dropped off (since he’s been at Bayern so long), but I can’t see him going to teams in Serie A, La Liga, EPL, and matching his production at Bayern. Not a knock on him. I just don’t think he can do it.
It’s absolutely bogus cos LOVREN isnt in it
Chiellini or even Pique over Van Dijk. Juve been dominant the last decade.
Suarez or Zlatan over Lewandowski.
Suarez’s season at Liverpool was better than Lewandowski’s last year.
Maybe Alaba over Marcelo too
Thiago Silva over pique chellini and van dijk
Lol armada
Lovren over all of them!!
Pique instead of Van Dijk. Can’t argue with any other pique.
Luka deserves it.
Where is the great ZLATAN
I’m guessing he goes with a “hazardous” choice
So who would you slot in for Luka anonymous…your choice should be interesting…pique had great hair and a hot wife I’ll give him that, but I’ll take chellini if I’m looking to lock down a forward in a cup final and not screw up like pique was prone to do on occasion.
You gotta have Marcelo in the team. I wouldn’t have Modric, yeah he’s been good at his simple role at Madrid but he’s not a goalscorer, he doesn’t get assists, there’s better midfielders than Modric that I’d have in the team.
Pique for Van Dijk also, the rest of the team you can’t complain about.
Van Dijk and Modric are the only ones you can complain about.
a part of, not apart of. lol.
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praise the grammar police, set me up . . .
Van dijk has had a great 5 years but what did he do the first 5…for the decade I would slot in Juve’s chellini.
No Ivan Strinic at LB?
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#fakenews
Does anyone agree with this lineup
I don’t