I'm not going to draw up a full XI of players who have sucked, but I think it deserves a thread. I suppose we should restrict it to players who've actually had some meaningful action (not just 10 mins as a sub)

I'd put Lehmann in goal (not that he's been the worst keeper in the tournament overall, but his comedy football-pie-on-his-shirt performance against Turkey was especially eyecatching), and obviously Luca Toni up front. But beyond that...

Gomez

Abidal

Chivu

Manager: Domenech, obviously.

Matter of fact, you could pretty much field the French first XI.

I reckon there ought to be a place for Volkan ahead of Lehmann. He did well, but that moment of utter stupidity may have cost Turkey a place in the final.

You mean Rustu, right?

No, Volkan. Rustu wouldn't have been playing had Volkan not decided to shove Koller over at the end of the last group game

Oh I see what you mean.

You couldn't field the French First XI, Ribery was absolutely wick-wocks.

Metzelder and Marcell Jansen.

Jimmy Bignutz wrote:


Yeah, fair enough.

That bloke that Real Madrid are interested in. His name escapes me at the moment.

The 2008 cover-your-eyes XI:

GK Nikopolidis (Greece)

RB Clerc (France)
CB Bak (Poland)
CB Abidal (France)
LB Magnin (Switzerland)

RM Govou (France)
CM Svensson (Sweden)
CM Aufhauser (Austria)
LM Malouda (France)

F Gomez (Germany)
F Toni (Italy)

Subs: Ricardo (Portugal), Jansen (Germany), Pogatetz (Austria), Kranjcar (Croatia), Makelele (France), Smolarek (Poland), Linz (Austria)

Manager: Domenech (France)

Malouda's got to be a contender for a World Football All-Time Anti XI.

There has to be a place for at least Daniel Niculae or Cocis from Romania. Not even on the bench?

Niculae was awful, but I don't think he can beat Gomez, Linz or Toni for incompetence, or Smolarek for laziness. We had a bumper crop of useless strikers this time out.

Similarly, there was a long queue of crap central defenders: as well as the three I've listed, I gave plenty of consideration to Mertesacker, Kyrgiakos, Jop, Senderos and Materazzi.

Cocis is a midfielder.

I know, I was just saying that striker wasn't the only position in which we had a plethora of donkeys.

Cocis could maybe take Kranjcar's place on the bench, but there's no way he was as bad as my starters. Rene Aufhauser must have set a new world record for misplaced passes.