L’Equipe Names Prem World XI For 2007

By: chris | December 28th, 2007

By “World XI” they mean “Premiership XI”, because apparently that’s all they watch. Or maybe they just thought England felt left out, because France abuts Italy and Spain while England is looking longingly from afar, so they decided to throw the Brit-based boys a bone.

First of all, once again, this list has zero credibility, same for nearly any other list of this nature, but it’s the end of the year, and lists are always going to be the topic du jour. And I’m assuming they’re talking about January to January here, strictly speaking for 2007.

So, seven, count ‘em, seven, Premiership players out of the full XI. Which pretty much says all you need to know about this XI.

Buffon (Juventus);
D. Alves (Sevilla), Vidic (Manchester Utd), Gallas (Arsenal), Evra (Manchester Utd);
Kakà (Milan), Fabregas (Arsenal), Gerrard (Liverpool), C. Ronaldo (Manchester Utd);
Drogba (Chelsea), Van Nistelrooy (Real Madrid).

Drogba? Really? He’s had 12 goals in the Premiership in the last 12 months, with a smattering in the various Prem competitions and 5 in the Champions League (whoopdedo). You could certainly do better than a goal a month in the league striker for one of the two best players at the position over a year.

So where’s Francesco Totti? Last time I checked he won the European Golden Boot. 9 goals in 10 league games this year and 24 in 28 over the 12 months. Yes, I’m biased, but it goes far beyond rooting interests when you omit the guy who led Europe in scoring and his league in assists. No one in the world can match the productivity of Totti. Pretty asinine.

Rumor has it Lionel Messi and Andrea Pirlo have been doing alright as well. Pirlo, despite my love for him, has a more difficult argument just because it’s nearly impossible to dismiss Cesc and/or Stevie G, who has been making en fuego look like a frosty night in the Arctic over the past two months. As far as Messi goes, they couldn’t have used a 3-4-3 just to get him into the equation? It’s not as though this team would ever see the pitch. Who deserves to be on an all-world team more, Patrice Evra or The Messiah?

Buffon is a tough inclusion because half of this year was spent in Serie B doing penance, but he is clearly the best keeper in the world so…who knows. And that back line? Plenty of options to make an argument for. (Lahm. Ramos. Carvalho. Just a start.)

As always, get 10 people and you’ll have 10 different lists. That’s the nature of subjectivity.

Cech;
Alves, Carvalho, Ramos, Lahm;
Messi, Gerrard, Pirlo, Kaka;
Totti, Ruud.

Who ya got?