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Introduction
Did you ever wonder if Paolo Maldini could withstand Garrincha? Could
Batistuta have scored against Lev Yashin? Would Zidane and Platini have
fitted into one team? Nobody will ever know since these were stars from
different eras. But there is good news! Now Planet World Cup brings you The
All Time World Cup. A tournament that brings the 32 best countries in the
history of the World Cup together. Each team can select their best players
in history and bring them together into one squad. This all gives you the
opportunity to experience the whirlpool of 64 matches at the highest level
ever imaginable.
How it developed
Making All Time teams is fun. Take for instance Holland. Never World
Champions, but if you put together Cruijff with Van Basten, Van Hanegem with
Rijkaard and Wilkes with Koeman, you would consider yourself sure to have a
World Champion in hand. But then again, look at other countries. Almost each
of them can compile a team that would at least be a serious contender in a
normal World Cup. Creating such a World Cup, with all these teams containing
big stars, looked like a very interesting project. This would be special.
Banks may have been a fantastic goalie, but what about Zamora? Austria had
Pezzey, but Argentina had Ruggeri. Hagi was equalled by Deyna, Zamorano by
Stoichkov and Matthäus by Neeskens. All big names in football history packed
together in one World Cup. With each other and against each other.
Brilliant!
The format
We chose to take the format that we are used to today: 32 teams, playing in
8 groups of 4 teams. The numers 1 and 2 of each group progressing to a
second round, and from then on: knock out, on to the final!
But which teams would participate? There were a few nuts to crack. Although
selecting the 32 countries was not very difficult. We just took the first 32
on the all-time list of the World Cup since 1930. But what to do with
Yugoslavia? Take the whole unified country, or take just Croatia, so
succesfull in 1998? And what about the former Sovietunion? And Germany? They
were champions as West-Germany, but their eastern semi-countrymen also did
well in 1974. Another problem occured with Czechoslovakia, in the 90’s also
separated in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Now we decided to simply take all unified countries. That would open the
door for as many players as possible. Had we taken Croatia, we would have
axed great players like Dragan Dzajic and Vladimir Petrovic. As far as the
Sovietunion was concerned, none of the separated countries ever made it to
the finals apart from Russia in 1994. So the obvious choice here was to go
for the USSR. The same applied to Czechoslovakia. The Czech Republic alone
nor Slovakia ever reached the final stages. And Czechoslovakia were runners
up twice, so we simply could not deny them. We took Germany as a unified
country, though the western part had so many great players that no former
East Germany player made the squad. By the way, taking Yugoslavia (with
Croatia also among the first 32 countries on the All Time list) made that we
could add Northern Ireland as participant number 32.
It has to be a team
So, we soon discovered that almost any country participating in this All
Time World Cup could field a fantastic team. However, the question as usual
would be: what kind of players make the best team? How many times do you see
a close follower of football naming his favourite midfield as: Garrincha,
Cruijff, Platini and Maradona. We thought this wouldn’t be the right thing
to do, because it wouldn’t work against strong teams. Midfields like that
would be overrun. And, as stated, in this tournament there would only be
strong teams. So we decided to make “real” teams, built up from players with
different qualities. No team has ever been succesfull without ballwinners,
good defenders and players willing to do the dirty work. So in this All Time
World Cup no showteams, no Harlem Globetrotters. A Brazil with Pelé and
Ronaldo, but also with Dunga. And France with Zidane and Platini, but not
without Deschamps. We tried to let the teams play in a system they are used
to. No players on positions where they never play or played. On the other
hand, we decided that it wouldn’t be necessary that a player had ever taken
part in a real World Cup. So in this All Time World Cup there would be place
for Alfredo Di Stefano and George Best.
For which country are they eligible?
The rules have not always been the same. Now we don’t know any better that
when a player has played for one country, he can never play again for
another country. But this wasn’t always the case. Many players were capped
for more than one country, and between them big names: Luis Monti, Alfredo
Di Stefano, Ferenc Puskas and Ladislao Kubala, just to name a few. For which
country would they be eligible during this All Time World Cup? Simple, for
the country in which they were born. So Puskas not a Spaniard but a
Hungarian. Di Stefano for Argentina and Kubala like Puskas for Hungary.
Monti would play for Argentina although he won the World Cup with Italy.
Just like Orsi.
Where is The All Time World Cup being held?
Time and distance would be eliminated for this event. So it seemed to be a
nice idea to have this tournament played in all the stadiums where a World
Cup final had been played. Okay, there had been 17 finals, not the ideal
number of stadiums. But we were lucky, the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City had
staged 2 of them (1970 and 1986) so we had exactly what we needed: 16 great
stadiums.
Referees
We thought it would add much of reality if we would add referees. No
football game without someone who would keep the matadors apart. Just like
the way we selected the stadiums, we selected the referees who were in
charge during a World Cup final. Here however no referee who led 2 finals,
so 17 referees available. One more than we needed. We axed Edgardo Codesal
Mendes from the list. The Mexican didn’t prove to be on the right level
during “his” final in 1990. It had seemed to be final for himself alone. He
made headlines with a couple of curious yellow and red cards and, more
important, an undeserved penalty-kick. So Mr. Codesal was considered to be
the weakest link. That left us with 16 referees. All of them would lead 3
matches in the first round and 1 match in the knock-out phase.
So, here you have the introduction to The All Time World Cup. Each week, two
games will be played. One on Tuesday, one on Friday. A matchreport will
include line-ups, goalscorers, yellow and red cards as well as an extended
overview of the game. It’s all on Planet World Cup, so visit The All Time
World Cup twice a week. With 32 teams, 64 matches and the final on July 22
the biggest tournament ever!
Ruud Doevendans
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