With the next decade winking suggestively on the horizon, The Spoiler has made a mission of celebrating some of the great teams that lined up on football pitches all over the world at the dawn of the 21st Century.
Today, it’s the turn of Man United no less.
Here’s how they lined up on 6th January 2000, to play Necaxa in the Fifa Club World Championships. Fact fans might be interested to note that the game ended 1-1, Beckham got his marching orders, and Dwight Yorke scored one and missed a penalty…
Goalkeeper, Mark Bosnich
Bosnich was supposed to be the natural successor to United’s great Dane, Peter Schmeichel, but it didn’t quite work out so well. United bought Barthez, Bosnich moved to Chelsea. He then went on to have regular intercourse with a supermodel, whilst out of his mind on cocaine. Something that was rather frowned upon at the time.
Right Back, Gary Neville
Neville has been United’s preferred right back since around 1994, and that’s still pretty much the case, injuries aside. Quite probably a Man United icon, the rest of the nation is split right down the middle. Great player? Or just another moaning Christian Bale in The Machinist-alike?
Centre Back, Mikael Silvestre
Silvestre never quite nailed down a spot in the United defence, where he was forever covering for Irwin, or Ferdinand, or Blanc. Then, latterly, Evra or Vidic. Finally, after nine years and 249 appearances, he decided that enough was enough, and headed off to Arsenal… to occasionally cover for their first-choice defence.
As compiled teams go, the above one was almost impossible to settle on, and will surely ruffle about a million feathers. But, even so, it’s The Spoiler’s team of the decade.
In goal, Given has had a brilliant ten years, run close by the likes of Friedel, van der Sar, and pre-headwear Petr Cech.
Whilst the back four was keenly debated, with excellent defenders like Stam, Hyypia, Evra, Terry and Vidic all eventually missing out. Campbell trumped most of those for his superior athleticism, leaving the other three to pretty much pick themselves.
The midfield proved shockingly hard to select, especially when the formation turned into a 4-3-3. Keane and Makelele just managed to get the nod over Vieira, with an attacking Steven Gerrard muscling out Lampard and Scholes.
There was brief discussion about putting Stevie G at right back to accomodate the others, but this was silently dismissed with a sigh and a wave.
And so to the main attackers, where Giggs, Torres, Rooney, Van Nistelrooy, and even Shearer came close to selection. But in the end Henry and Ronaldo couldn’t be overlooked, with the brilliant Dennis Bergkamp free to drop back and feed them killer balls, or play up front.
Let us know your thoughts with a comment. We await them with extremely bated breath.
Ruud van Nistelrooy, Jaap Stam and Roy Keane all have the same two things in common. All three were indispensable Man Utd players who were very much dispensed of the moment they crossed Sir Alex Ferguson.
The Spoiler can only assume Utd winger Nani, who is currently about as indispensable as a used, porous condom, was blissfully unaware of these events ever having happened, since he’s made the extremely stupid move of criticising Fergie in the tabloid press.
“It is clear the 23-year-old has reached the end of his tether,” crows The Sun, while rubbing their hands at the carnage about to unfold. “In a no-holds barred interview, Nani reveals how:”
He has felt the withering force of Fergie’s infamous hairdryer rage.
He is frustrated at being omitted from big-game starting line-ups.
He believes promises have not been kept.
Three grievances, all of which can be answered with one simple explanation: “It’s because you’re s**t.”
Italian is the richest manager in British football
In his most recent book, Richard Branson reveals that rich lists are seldom accurate, based as they are on estimations and public domain information. Nevertheless, the good folks at Four Four Two have this week released the British Football Rich List, and there are few surprises at the top. David Beckham tops the players’ list with a supposed £125m fortune, and the wealthiest person in British football is still the QPR owner who isn’t about to be kicked out of the game, Lakshmi Mittal. The Indian steel magnate is said to be sitting on £18.4bn, nearly £1.5bn more than second-placed Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
In the richest manager top ten, noted money fan Harry Redknapp places at number seven with £10m, while second place is held by under-fire Ipswich coach Roy Keane, who apparently amassed the majority of his £27m fortune in his playing days.
The richest gaffer in Britain is also the one who has to take charge of the least amount of games - England manager Fabio Capello is worth £30m due to his utter refusal to pay tax hugely successful career.
[See the richest player list here, the manager list here and the full top 100 list here]
Keen to create a divide between Cristiano Ronaldo and his current employer, Spanish paper Marca are stirring things up extracting some insinuations from an interview with teammate Ryan Giggs.
The Welshman was asked to pick his Manchester Utd dream team, and he proceeded to wax lyrical about the likes of Paul Scholes, Gary Neville and Wayne Rooney. As you can see from his selection below, however, there is a distinct absence of any lothario Portuguese wingers:
The Giggs Manchester Utd dream team
Schmeichel or Van der Sar (he doesn’t distinguish between them as both are super brill) Gary Neville
Jaap Stam
Rio Ferdinand
Dennis Irwin
David Beckham
Paul Scholes
Roy Keane
Ryan Giggs
Eric Cantona
Wayne Rooney
The Spoiler is concerned that the old guard has shown an apparent lack of appreciation for Ronaldo, but perhaps a little more concerned that Giggsy chose to pick himself in his own dream team…
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