FIFA Team of the Year 2019

It's generally rare that FIFA get anything right. In truth, whether it was Sepp Blatter and his dodgy dealings or not, the organisation is so corrupt, insidious and woeful that I am genuinely surprise that anybody would trust them to organise Boris Johnson's hair, let alone a World Cup or two.

This week, FIFA announced their best player and team of the year and all that malarkey and of course, we are told that football is a game of opinions. Only, I am baffled by some of them.

I'm not going to go into manager of the year, suffice to say that Jurgen Klopp won, Mauricio Pochettino was second and Pep Guardiola was third. As much as I love Klopp, Guardiola should have won and as for Pochettino beating Guardiola, well that makes about as much sense as Cantona's recent speech.

Player of the year, Ok, Messi got it and I understand he had a great year so I'll go with that. Van Dijk I feel was unlucky as for me, he had the biggest impact, but he's a defender, so they rarely win anything of note in this type of contest anyway.

It's the team of the year I have an issue with, or namely a couple of positions.

Here's what FIFA in its infinite wisdom picked.

Gk - Alisson
Dr - Matthias De Ligt (but I thought he was a centre back?)
Dl - Marcelo (the fat guy from Real Madrid who played about 15 minutes last season)
Dc - Sergio Ramos (cheating twat from Real Madrid, who has more red cards than fucking Hallmark)
Dc - Virgil van Dijk (who Real Madrid & Barcelona want)
Mc - Modric (weirdly, shit season, but plays for Real Madrid. How'd that happen?)
Mc - De Jong (signed for Barcelona)
Mc - Hazard (Not a midfielder - but hey, he now plays for Real Madrid, so he has to be in, right?)
Ac - Ronaldo (used to play for Real Madrid)
Ac - Mbappe (Probably will play for Real Madrid shortly)
Ac - Messi  (plays for Barcelona)

Notice that despite having an utterly fucking useless season, winning absolutely sod all, Real Madrid managed to land three places in the team, four if you count Hazard and if you count Ronaldo as a former player, that's five.

Weird that isn't it? Like when Modric was named player of the year last year for, you know, being second best at the World Cup. But he played for Real Madrid, so that's fine.

Honestly, FIFA are so far up the two Spanish giants backside it is embarrassing.  There are 20 left backs who deserved to be in this team ahead of Marcelo. The same number should be there ahead of Ramos, the same with Modric. Similarly, you can't name a team if you put players out of position. De Ligt is not a right back, Hazard is not a midfielder. That isn't a team. That is just FIFA kissing the arses of their favourites.

So what should the team have been? Well I think something along these lines:

Gk - Alisson
Dr - Alexander-Arnold
Dl - Robertson
Dc - De Ligt
Dc - Van Dijk
Mc - De Jong
Mc - Bernardo Silva
Mc - Van de Beek
Ac - Ronaldo
Ac - Messi
Ac - Sterling/Mane

Oh Liverpool bias! Oh the irony! Could be true, but I'd have a few more players close to that team, the front three of course being the obvious choices. But I'd also have a few more Man City players in the reckoning too, Sane, Laporte, Ederson, Stones (just kidding, he'd not scrape into the Under 6s team). I'd have James Norwood in the team ahead of bloody Modric, Marcelo and Ramos.

I think FIFA should rename this annual anointment of Spanish football's big two by renaming it from the FIFA Team of the Year to the Barcelona/Real Madrid Wank Fest. So they can really enjoy themselves.




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