SG Draft Competition--Group D

[ShiftyPowers]

Please vote for the 2 teams you believe would finish at the top of the Group. 3 will advance, but please just vote for 2. If you only vote for 1 or 3+ your votes will not count. Voting will close in 72ish hours (midnight my time). If you vote in the poll you are also allowed to post a vote for a 3rd team (do not vote for 3 in the poll, put this 3rd team in a post and clearly mark that it is for a tie breaker or 3rd place).

I suppose I need ANOTHER tie breaker just in case. In case the 3rd place tie breaker votes don't break the tie, I will start removing votes (not tie breaking votes) based on lowest post count first. However I will remove non-participating members' votes before removing the vote of anyone who participated in the draft.


Team Rocky (his keeper is Sebastian Frey, BTW)

Subs: Wilson Palacios, Abel Hernandez, Emiliano Viviano, Alessandro Nesta, Fabio Simplicio, Joaquin, Mattia Cassani, Josip Ilicic, Arda Turan, Mikel Arteta, Nicolas Gaitan, Martin Skrtel, Paolo Cannavaro, Christian Maggio

Dirty Seamen

Subs: Maxwell, Jonathan Dos Santos, Gabriel Agbonlahor, Sergio Asenjo, Danny Murphy, Jeremy Toulalan, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Diego Capel, Martin Demechelis, Teemu Pukki, Richard Dunne, Clint Dempsey, Emmanuel Adebayor, Emmanuel Eboue

Team Awesomeness

Subs: Eljero Elia, Michael Ballack, Simao Sabrosa, Park Ji Sung, Ryan Shawcross, Tim Cahill, Oscar Cardozo, Fernando Muslera, William Gallas, Moussa Sow, Vagner Love, Gabriel Heinze, Clemente Rodriguez, Fernando Belluschi

Power FC

Subs: Gonzalo Rodriguez, Rafael da Silva, Arouca, Aaron Lennon, Ryan Giggs, Danny, Jolean Lescott, Iturbe, Sebastian Giovinco, Welliton, Roman Weidenfeller, Tom Cleverley, Federico Balzaretti, Fernando

Skip Texican FC

Subs: Guillermo Ochoa, Glen Johnson, Rafa Marquez, Carlos Marchena, Jorge Torres Nilo, David Zurutuza, Marco Fabian, Francesco Totti, Francisco Rodriguez, Andres Guardado, Michael Carrick, Fernando Llorente, Salomon Kalou, Sven Bender

 

[ShiftyPowers]

I don't care for Team Rocky because I think the formation dooms it from the start. That's essentially a 4-2-4 (Cassano won't do any defensive leg work), and Hernanes is pretty attacking minded too. I think Essien is going to be left on an island an awful lot, and the scary thing is that he hasn't always been the most positionally disciplined player in his career, so I could see him and Hernanes operating a little like Lampard and Gerrard



I think that's a huge liability.

The Dirty Seamen I see as a very strong squad with Nani and Nasri providing the creativity for Dzeko and Lampard to finish off. I also think Lass and Meireles would make a very nice little partnership in defensive midfield. The problem is obviously that defense with Garay and Cahill looking very very exploitable and the Finish keeper (no spelling attempt) probably out of his depth at this level (maybe he could hang 5 years ago).

Team Awesomeness looks... well... awesome. It's hard for me to poke any real holes in the team with the (now routine) defensive complaints. Naldo has been out for like 2 years now and it remains to be seen if he is even good enough to earn a paycheck as a professional anymore much less play at this kind of level. Lucio is... okay, but very undisciplined. Akinfeev is okay, but more of an FM tiger than a real life one. Arbeloa and Fucile I just see as guys. Meh. Take nothing away, but don't really bring anything either.

Power FC looks the strongest team in the group to me. Vidic, for my money, is the best defender in the world. People get too caught up sometimes with the distribution, but as far as keeping the ball out of the net and getting the ball away from attackers, Vidic is the man. I think the attack is good although Lisandro might not be QUITE there to provide the goals that Ganso and Johnson won't. He scores about 1 in 2, which is okay, but I'd like to see a little bit more. Luckily, Fili has the same thing I do in that the winger (Hulk in this case) can pick up a lot of the goal scoring responsibility, which I think he can... but there are also questions about him being able to do it in a better league than Portugal. He also tailed off at the end of last season when asked to assume a bigger role.

Finally Skip's team looks very good, but Walcott and Marin are just awful awful players, and how many goals does Gomez score from distribution through the middle. A few, yes, but it's mostly Robben/Ribery/Muller creating his goals from out wide. Marin (extremely selfish, not even in the Germany squads anymore) and Walcott (kind of like a poor man's Chicarito relegated to the wing) just aren't going to create. This will probably frustrate Gomez, and then you'll see some really really disinterested play.

Overall I think this is the weakest group, BTW, although still strong of course.

I cast my votes for Power FC and Team Awesomeness.

Tiebreaker goes to Dirty Seamen.

 

[Keegan]

Dirty Seamen & Team Power. Seamen for the offense and the two Bolton players although I think Jussi is past it. Power has decent balance but I'm not a fan of Szczesny.

 

[Back Door Skip]

Well, as I'm obviously voting for myself, I'll state my case as to why.

First, I'm very happy to have Pepe Reina as my main keeper. He was great reflex, good command over his line, good penalty saver, great experience and relatively young for a goalkeeper.

Then the backline, which in my opinion has to be one of the strongest in the competition. Another huge thing, which could possibly be overlooked is that all defenders and the GK speak the same language. It can be a nice little extra attribute to keep in mind.

First, the best defender of the bunch is Pique. He's a leader, he oozes confidence and class, has great touch for a center back, and has seen it all despite his young age. Partnering in the back is Hector Moreno. I admit to being pretty bias due to obvious reasons, but I think he has Rafa Marquez-like qualities. He has good long passes, can help in attack, is good in the air, and is pretty smart when it comes to defending.

The fullbacks I ended up choosing were the ever reliant Eric Abidal. King Abi is a seasoned vet with great experience, class, touch and consistency. He is the type of fullback that you will not catch tracking back, but will also aid offensively if necessary.

Cristian Zapata is a bit of a wildcard, but I think he has the qualities to be a top defender. I decided to put him as a right back, but he can play very well anywhere in the backline. He can help in attack, he has the smarts to push forward or stay back and defend, he's a great tackler, and body control to deal with fast winders.

In the midfield, I have the luxury of having Sergio Busquets, Santi and Thiago. All three have great touch, good ball control and an eye for attack. Busquets is the center piece of it all due to being the holding midfielder. He is the type of player that will not only gain possession, but will actually propel an attack with the gain of possession. Thiago has had the chance to sit behind the best, but also show how dangerous he is by pushing himself in the crowded and extremely talented Barça midfield.

Santi is an ambidextrous attacking mid that can do it all. He has good speed, great touch, a good shot, good vision, a dangerous FK taker and in a free role can terrorize any defense. I see him as my ace to scoring chances. He can individually win games with his abilities, and he was a key player when I looked at midfielders to draft.

In attack, there's a speedy and always dangerous Theo Walcott, who can score goals if needed. There is another speedy winger in Marin, which can drift in and out depending on Gomez's position. And Gomez, which is arguably the best poacher in the game right now. He's the type of player that might not show a lot of skill yet is always around goal ready to finish off chances. I feel very confident with him playing up front.

As far as the bench, there are adequate back ups pretty much at every position. Sven Bender being a huge part of the back ups as well as depth in the midfield. I also feel that with this squad, most popular formations can be played successful, which was my intention when picking back ups.

I will have to go back and vote tomorrow, because this was way longer than I initially expected, but I see this as a very tough group.

 

[fender]

Naldo may be a hit or a miss but there's adequate replacements in Gallas and Shawcross.

 

[Mandieta6]

Sort of a weak group, but I go with Texicano and Semen even though they both have weak players in certain positions.

Also, it seems like the whole 'weak defense' thing is happening so much it's practically the norm. I think I've only seen 2-3 sides with a geniunely good defense. Even Massive, who I praised for having a good one, had the flaw of picking both Verminator and Terry, who don't compliment each other very well, if at all.

Although that's normal, the votes generally seem to work on a player reuputation basis instead of anything tactical (not that I've done differently) and defenders have lower reputations than attackers.

Power FC gets the tiebreaker.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

I think head-to-head will change the calculus of who to vote for and it will be more tactical. Even though we all could analyze all the games head-to-head and the figure out who would win the group, no one has done yet. It sure would take a long time since my posts are usually taking me 5-10 minutes to write and that's just analyzing the teams.

Regarding the weak defenses, it's definitely true and I know that I'll definitely be looking for ways to improve mine if I hold on and advance to the knockout round. The truth is that when you're dealing with such gifted attackers, there just aren't that many individual defenders who can matchup with them. Team defending or more negative tactics could do it, but in an All-Star thing no one really wants to play negative, and it is hard to assume elite level chemistry (beyond "both of these guys are good") with players from different teams.

 

[fender]

Team Skip gets my 3rd vote

 

[Filipower]

Voted for Dirty Seamen because after my team, I reckon they're the most balanced and I love that attack.

Team Rocky has a solid defense but I don't think that tactic with Cassano, Mario and Vucinic would work; Team Awesomeness is probably the weakest defense, and upfront I don't like that Forlan is so to the right and Sneijder is the only one that really stands out in the team. Texican FC have got a nice striker, but his work rate isn't so good as to compensate Walcott's more one-dimensional game. Nice defense, though not as good as Team Rocky's, so my tie-breaker goes to the latter.

I'll kind of let you guys take your own conclusions concerning my team, but a couple of points would be that I also think that my bench is the best of the group, not only in the quality of the players but in the flexibility of tactics they allow; and concerning what Shifty said about goals, Lisandro dropping his goal rate has more to do with him moving more to the left in Lyon, and his couple of injuries. He is also probably top 3 in work rate of all the Draft. Plus there's Hulk; Ganso provides assists like crazy, and even Marchisio is seemingly bagging in some this season. Otamendí and Vidic provide them easily in set pieces. Johnson is proving to be quality amongst the great squad at City, as well, although he'd provide a more balancing role with both Carlos and Claudio there.

 

[fender]

Sure Naldo is questionable but the rest?

Lucio and Akinfeev key players for both club and country fullbacks nothing fancy but they get the job done with consistency.

Dirty Seaman has Jussi and Cahill whose team has leaked goals recently and are largely not that effective or renowned on the international stage.

 

[Filipower]

Fucile can go haywire at any second, Arbeloa isn't as good at left-back as he is in the middle or the right, and I don't really fancy Lucio (Naldo is actually my favourite between them two and second after Jorge in the back four). But I agree Igor is class

 

[Back Door Skip]

Ended up with team Power FC. I really like the team except for Otamendi... I see him as a huge drop off, but then again a defense led by Vidic would always be solid in my opinion.

In the midfield, Wilshere, Marchisio couple really well because both are high energy players, which lets Ganso, Johnson, Hulk and Lisandro focus on attack. Probably the best thing would be that all players except Ganso are known to track back and defend, which puts him at an advantage.

The tiebreaker goes to team Seamen. Really the only reason I didn't vote for them is because of Garay. I really think he's not a good choice at the back at all... but it could be nullified with a great ballwinner in Lass and a solid distributor in Mireles. Great combo. The attack is probably the best in the group, but I think having to attack-minded fullbacks and a suspect CB in Garay makes it a liability at the back.

 

[Filipower]

Ended up with team Power FC. I really like the team except for Otamendi... I see him as a huge drop off

Why man, Otamendi's amazing!

 

[Back Door Skip]

I'll admit to not seen him play this year except for a few highlights, but my last memory of him was him getting scorched by Germany in the WC. I think he would be a great fullback, but he might be too offensive for a CB in my opinion.

 

[Filipower]

Exactly the opposite, if I'm honest. He's that kind of defender that actually takes the ball off you, you know? I don't mean intercept passes or close down, which he does pretty good too, I mean actually taking the ball of a player who's controlling it.

 

[4ndr3i]

I don't think this is a weak group, I'm having a really hard time deciding what team to vote.

Team Rocky is a good team actually. The defense is solid and the attack works for me. Villa is great, Balotelli (although a dickhead) is pretty talented and even if I'm not a fan of Vucinic I think he could do well in that formation. But Rocky kinda ruins it for me when he goes with Cassano behind them. I think Hernanes is better for that role, plus his team could use another central midfielder.

Dirty Seamen is a really really solid team. Nasri and Dzeko proved against Tottenham that they could work together with great results. Nani is one of the best wingers around so he can provide a ton of assists and the combination of Lampard, Diarra and Meireles looks good on paper. The downsides I guess are (like everyone said) his center backs and Jussi as GK.

Team Awesomeness is solid as well but somehow it just doesn't strike a chord with me. It does everything well but I'm just not crazy about it's players. Really the only two players I like from that squad are Cavani and Forlan who oddly is used as a winger.

Unlike team Awesomeness, Power FC is the team I love most from this group and especially that combination of Marchisio with Wilshere. Hulk is a beast... LITERALLY, Lisandro is the tipe of striker I want Juventus to get, and Ganso is tipped to be the next Kaka. I'm not a fan of Johnson and have huge doubts about Szczesny but he does have Vidic there, and having the best center-back in the world helps a lot.

Skip Texican FC is another team I like. It has a solid defense and although I hate hate hate Busquets I must admit that as a football player he's pretty ******* awesome. Not only that but Skip has Thiago too who will probably be a future superstar if Barca just gives the kid a chance. Gomez is the ultimate poacher and I even like Marin.

I guess I'll give Power FC the first vote but for the second this is going to be hard. In the end I think I'm gonna give Dirty Seamen the second vote with Skip Texican getting my tiebreaker.

 

[MaSsiVe]

I'll admit to not seen him play this year except for a few highlights, but my last memory of him was him getting scorched by Germany in the WC. I think he would be a great fullback, but he might be too offensive for a CB in my opinion.

In that game he was the RB actually, hence perhaps why he didn't do well. Playing CB is where he excels, since he has great antecipation and a very impressive jumping capacity considering his height.


I'm going to analyze and decide on this and group A tomorrow, don't really have time to do it properly meanwhile.

 

[MaSsiVe]

In my eyes, Team Rocky is unfortunately unbalanced.
Defensive line and keeper are actually quite a nice combo, although I don't really like Ramos.
Essien is the holding midfielder I would dream to have in my team, but he surely can't handle every defensive expense in that midfield. I love Hernanes (he was the player I wished for Porto the most two summers ago), but he too offensive-minded to be asked to play a deeper role. Not to mention Cassano...
Up front I like the bet on Mario's unpredictability, and Villa is surely an elite striker in his best day, but I see Vucinic as a strange element on that trident.

Dirty Seamen's defense is far from pleasing me, as I consider Cahill and Garay to be average at most. Adriano is no top player but can do a good job in either flank...Alves is as good as an RB can get really, dispite lacking a bit when it comes to awareness.
The choices for midfield are interesting, Lass is a pitbull and counts on Meireles' help to control the the centre of the field, Lampard is always trusted to make the ball reach the forwards in good conditions.
The attack is by far the strongest sector of the team.
Dzeko and Nani in form are both godly in their respective roles, Nasri wandering around the wing and now and then cutting inside to feed and/or finish is an appealling perspective...

Team Awesomeness and Power FC strike my heart a bit harder considering their Porto connection

fender picked a defensive line that is no more than reasonable IMHO. Lucio is past his best, Naldo never stroke me as a great CB and Arbeloa is average playing on either flank...also, I'm not really a fan of playing right-footed sidebacks in the left and vice-versa. I know Vargas is supposed to give him a hand carrying the game forward, but still. Fucile is mistake-prone as ****, but on a good day he can face any winger in the world and deliver a good job. Also, his versatility is a plus.
Cambiasso + Defour is an interesting midfield, Steven is still unproven at Porto but he already showed that he can become something special in the future.
I'm not gonna waste my time on Sneijder since everyone agrees that he is an absolutely magnificent asset for any team.
Cavani in a good day is unstoppable, Forlan's form is unpredictable...I personally like his game a lot but when he decides that he isn't gonna shine, his performances can be appalling.

Power FC has The Incredible Hulk, and that alone is enough for it to be considered a fierceful force.
Lisandro is another personal favourite, he keeps playing on a high level at Lyon and he is the kind of striker that not being a scoring machine, always leaves his skin and blood on the field. Johnson in the other flank is a good option too, great ball control and crossing from him, and he also likes to try his long range and usually does it with purpose.
Wilshere and Marchisio (both very good) playing a deeper role to allow Ganso to roam freely around the attack seems like a great idea on paper too.
The only real downside of this team for me are the side-backs, I'll be honest and say I haven't watched Schmelzer a lot of times but when I did I wasn't really impressed.
Same with Rafinha, I remember him at Schalke and I never thought he was top team material. He somehow found his way to Bayern though...
Vidic and Ota make up for a great duo in central defense, both are absolute beasts in their own way.

Skip Texican is surely the weakest team on this group...the attack is extremely short on quality, Gomez may be a good poacher but he needs quality wingers feeding him and that is certainly not the case with Walcott, and Marin to an extent since he isn't really a winger.
The midfield though, has to be considered mouthwatering. The Barça duo + Cazorla is a combo I would pay to watch altough it could fall short in defensive terms against a crowded, high-pressuring midfield.
In defense Piqué is great but I don't really know well Zapata and Moreno. Abidal is ok.



Going with Dirty Seamen and Power FC in this one, Team Awesomeness gets my tiebreaking vote.
It was really close for me between Jabol and fender's team but in the end I decided to vote for the most balanced.

 

[ShiftyPowers]

Closed

1. Power FC 14
2. Dirty Seamen 11
3. Team Awesomeness 7
4. Skip Texican 6
5. Team Rocky 4