The Team Of All The Talents

Cracking entertainment, wasn t it? All the high scoring a body could desire, bags of skill and enterprise on show, end-to-end attacking, and the usual helping of controversy to boot. But enough about the Leinster football semi-final . . . it s high time I wrote about Euro 2000.

In selecting this admittedly whimsical team of the tournament, it speaks volumes that Foul Play was forced to leave out players as good as Rui Costa, Boudewijn Zenden and Michel Salgado. If the quality of a tournament can be gauged by the performances of its leading lights, then Euro 2000 deserves to be remembered as the finest competition since Spain 82. Incidentally, the only England player who got remotely near this XI was David Beckham, as much for the errors he didn t make as for the things he got right.
In goal, Foul Play has opted for Italy s FRANCESCO TOLDO, as much for his air of general authoritativeness and command of his area as for all those penalties he saved in the semi-final.
In order to accommodate each of the three outstanding defenders in the tournament, I have gone for a 3-5-1-1 formation. So, in front of Toldo would be a virtually impregnable back line consisting of ALESSANDRO NESTA, FABIO CANNAVARO and JAAP STAM.
The lack of aesthetic appeal in Italy s bloody-minded approach to the game has been well catalogued during these finals, but the way they raised murderously disciplined defending to the status of high art cannot be gainsaid. Cannavaro, in particular, gave the individual performance of the tournament against Holland, putting in challenge after challenge until it seemed he would drop from exhaustion.
Although Jaap Stam was fairly underworked in Holland s games against Denmark and Yugoslavia, his other performances did everything to confirm the belief that he is the best centre-back in the world. His superb positional sense, his reading of the game and his strength in the tackle were a joy to watch throughout, with everything he did reeking of class.
At left wing-back, we have Romania s CRISTIAN CHIVU, whose freakish goal against England should not obscure the memory of his consistently enterprising play down the left flank. Only 20, and still learning his trade at Ajax, Chivu looks set for a very long international career.
Foul Play s choice as right wing-back is ERIC DEFLANDRE of Belgium. I remember this fellow playing his socks off against Holland in the last World Cup, when he was an early substitute for a team-mate who d been getting run ragged by Marc Overmars, and he was just as impressive in Belgium s three games in these finals.
Into midfield, then, and the obvious choice for what most pundits like to call the holding role is EDGAR DAVIDS. Never the most likeable character in world football, Davids spent far too much of this tournament mouthing off at referees for my liking. If it wasn t for his sheer prodigious workrate, hustling and harrying like a man with a flame burning under his arse, his behaviour would be unpalatable.
Embodying the antithesis of all this belligerence was ZINEDINE ZIDANE, whose peerless passing ability and characteristic fancy footwork merely served to reaffirm his credentials as the finest creative midfielder on the planet (as distinct from the finest overall midfielder on the planet, Roy Keane).
PAVEL NEDVED of the Czech Republic completes the central midfield triumvirate. The Lazio man s superbly industrious play between the middle of the park and the left side was the highlight of his country s campaign, which really should have lasted longer than three games. It says much about the Czechs that, despite getting eliminated in the first round, they had two or three more strong candidates for this team.
Further forward, we have the irrepressible LUIS FIGO in a free role, capriciously drifting hither and thither as the mood takes him. Figo may or may not have been the outstanding player of Euro 2000, but he was undoubtedly the most watchable, with his effortless humiliation of Paul Ince in Eindhoven providing one of the tournament s most enduring images.
And it simply must be PATRICK KLUIVERT as the striking spearhead, holding off stiff competition from Zlatko Zahovic and Savo Milosevic.
It s true that Kluivert benefited from playing ahead of perhaps the most creative midfield in the world, dining out on the kind of service that other strikers would give their eye teeth for, but the confidence and deftness of his finishing was undeniable.
And while I m at it, how about a donkeys eleven consisting of Filip De Wilde (Bel), Michael Schjxnberg (Den), Frank Leboeuf (Fra), Thomas Linke (Ger), Phil Neville (Eng), Johan Mjdllby (Swe), Paul Ince (Eng), Tugay Kerimoglu (Trk), Emile Heskey (Eng), Carsten Jancker (Ger) and Dietmar Hamann (Ger).
Didn t they do well? Not really, no.