₦airaland Forum

AirborneLacer: It's that bad!

when is the game launching sef?

AirborneLacer: What has Class got to do with current form?

Gotze and Costa shits on Rooney at the moment.

Maybe you should explain this ya class theory

rooney is a more marketable asset....
what does it matter though? it's only a game....a meaningless stat made by EA sports. the stats are even editable on the game....all my online friends pump all their players to 100 anyways.

i am ready to drive valencia to roma myself free of charge. selling mata is ludicrous. he is a better number 10 than rooney. rooney won't last long, he would soon start throwing his toys out of the pram when the pressure cranks up. the criticism he's getting for club & country is getting higher.

mata should be retained at all costs!

Katsumoto: That there is the crux of the debate - why was Makelele unable to that when he played for Madrid and Chelsea? Your position, based on what you are stating, is that Makelele didn't do it because he was given instructions. I posit that Makelele didn't do it in the tougher leagues because he was limited. Paul Ince wasn't even a box-to-box DMF but he scored many goals for united; why couldn't Makelele do that? Ditto for Hamann at Newcastle and Liverpool.
And yes, I do have Jesus.

i disagree with you....
makelele didn't do it not because the little man was limited. he wanted to be a destroyer & since the other prima donnas in the galactico never bothered to track back, makelele threw down the gauntlet & became a one man wrecking crew giving the opposition nightmare.

claude makelele
“It’s the ultimate honour to have it (The Makelele Role) named after me, I suppose it shows that I have achieved everything I have worked for, I really learnt how to play that role at Real Madrid where, if we were losing 1-0, we would say ‘Right, lock up shop’. The four at the back and the one in front of them – me – would concentrate only on defence and let the others go and do what they had to up front. They would take the risks, I would take care of the opposition’s attacks.


In every team you need to know what your role is and one of the keys to my role is to keep the balance of the team right. So when Didier [Drogba] goes here, I do this. When Frank [Lampard] goes there, I go there. Same with Michael [Ballack]. When one person moves out of position, then someone else comes in and covers for them.

When you play in my position you have to enjoy it. You can’t be thinking: 'I don’t get any goals’. You just enjoy it, you enjoy playing football, tackling, giving the ball. Just enjoy it. When you are small you have to tackle at the right moment. He might be tall, he might be strong but if you tackle at the right moment you’ll win it. It’s about timing.”
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makelele has the ability to do anything required, he just wanted to be a football assassin at the back & help the team win.

raumdeuter: Assuming Makelele had stayed back in Madrid, Would that have stopped Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo, Raul, carlos Hierro they main components of Madrid from declining

so zidane would have declined in 2004? the same zidane that later went to the world cup in 06 & shat on every team that stood his way?

Madrid declined because their key Galacticos were getting old and injured often
Their captain and leader Hierro retired
Perez pursued a "Zidanes and Pavons" policy which left them weak at the back
They started buying useless players from the English league (Beckham, Owen, Gravesen Woodgate etc)

but mcmanaman that won 2 CL titles for madrid was a german, wasn't he?

raumdeuter: Sousa won in 2 different clubs in consecutive years.

Left the defending champions went to Dortmund and made them Champion. Thats a boss right there. Not a passenger like Claude. No wonder the club president pawned him out like a used Nokia 3310

Did I tell you that you are a cumm bucket?

what did sosa win for portugal? how come he never took portugal to any final? makelele was relevant for club & country.

•final for madrid
•final for chelsea
•final for france

wetin sosa achieve for country? you mean your boss did nothing for his country? nothing at all? you are as useless as sosa was for portugal.

chic2pimp: What proof do you have that Madrid would have more had he stayed? Or isn't this the same Maka that won no CL trophy before or after he left madrid?

he would have carried on winning for them. he was the missing link. madrid already had the attacking platform but none of the galacticos was willing to track back & do the dirty work. makelele was the man for the dirty job & they sold him.

Which Engine? Engine that could do more than operate in a 5m area of the pitch not so? Ofcourse they were his ex teammates and in Zizou's case still a team mate for the National team so was bound to say that. Imagine Hierro saying we should disregard stats? What next?

i remember a troglodyte named dayokanu saying the same about busquets in 2010 until busquets destroyed schweinsteiger & khedira in south africa. winning possession & retaining it is the most vital part in football.

How many titles did Maka win as a starter for France?
Paolo Sousa was viewed as the better player till the makalele hype went into overdrive.
Ofcourse that was the reason nah. Nothing to do with English journalist hyping up a player .

so are we comparing france to madrid now? or what's the comparison for?

Specialist in what exactly? Staying in one spot all match long? Abi what exactly did He do that others have not only done but done it much better before? Maybe the Greatest in Chelsea FC history sha.

specialist in tackling. makelele would tackle an aircraft and win the ball cleanly. he's too good! better than all these goats you have around these days......especially those ones in bayern lying to themselves they are DM.

raumdeuter: Makelele played in 2 CL finals, Sousa won 2 consecutive CL finals. spot the difference.

makelele won in madrid....he didn't tell terry to slip like a bïtch & he certainly wasn't responsible for anelka missing his pen.

makelele played in a world cup final for france. did sosa ever play in a world cup final for portugal?

you are a billy-goat!

AirborneLacer: This brings us to a common ground then.
1. If Redondo had given up those great features of his just to babysit the backline, there wouldn't be an argument of how great Claude was.

he would have been useless at it. it requires concentration, the ability to read a game, the discipline to stay put when the urge is there to bomb forward, calmness & composure, etc. it's a tough task.

2. If Claude Makelele had taken to other options like scoring goals, assisting etc, he would have been a total joke - one DM we'd dare not talk about.

that's irrelevant.
what's relevant is - he was the best in the role he chose to play as a professional footballer. he's a specialist - there's a reason we have specialists. it's like saying every soldier should be a sniper or a sniper has limited skill in comparison to the other members of his unit.

hell no - the sniper is a specialist. the other members are generalists. the sniper is specially trained to be disciplined, focused, unwavering, etc.

I love to argue with you for many reasons, one of them is that you know how to logically paint the truth as a lie - You're one of the best here.
Goodnite.

once again - makelele shytes on any name you bring forward in the art of sitting in front of the back 4. no mortal is better than makelele in his role.

raumdeuter: Were you not the one asking us how many finals Sousa got to? And when you were owned you beat a retreat

owned by who? makelele played in 2 CL finals, makelele played in a world cup final. list sosa's achievements concerning the 2 biggest football competitions for club & country.

You still havent proved how Makelele was the reason Madrid wasnt winning CL after his departure.

maybe you are spiritually blind, i have quoted hierro for you. he knows the team more than your ogbomosho logic & he's not an english journalist.

Its called Makelele role by morronic English journalists and queers like you who swallow their cumm.

it's called makelele role cos he was a specialist. you are too daft to differentiate between a generalist & a specialist.

use a fraction of your weekly wage to cop an oxford dictionary.

No be the same English media tell us say only 2 German players would make the English team in 2010, We saw how that panned out on that cold night in Blomfontein

yes, hierro works for the english media.
abeg, you have been beaten bluish blackish in this debate. it's your lack of decorum that is still making you yap your mouth.

claude makelele is the greatest DM that ever played the game & his name was given that role & rightly so. he was a specialist....tackle, win the ball, pass it, rinse & repeat.

tell us any other midfielder that had these tasks as their only assignment.

raumdeuter: How many world cup did Makelele win, How many Euro cup did he win, How many World cup did he win

Sousa won 2 CL tell us how many trophies makelele won as a starter

all that is irrelevant to the discourse.

the role is makelele role, not sosa role.
never ever compare a specialist like makelele to generalists like matthaus, redondo, etc. makelele is their grandfather in the art of babysitting the back four......when it comes to shooting on target, doing 50 bicycle kicks or dribbling 11 players to score, then it's a different issue entirely.

AirborneLacer: I now expect you to agree with our assertion that Claude Makelele possessed limited skillset.

of course he does possess limited skillset but that limitation is the reason he was able to master his role & be better at it than any player that has ever lived.

if he could do any other thing, a manager would have asked him to play in the wing or play behind a striker. however, makelele can't do more than tackling, excellent vision & making 3-5 yard passes. this enabled him to master only one role like goalkeepers do.

chic2pimp: So are you now saying the reason why Maka did not win another CL trophy was because he did not join a big enough club who would won it anyways regardless of whether claude joined them or not?

no, i am saying madrid would have won more in the 2000s had makelele stayed. he was already familiar with his madrid team-mates with an excellent chemistry. bringing chelsea into the fray is a redundant argument.

So you admit Real would have won it in 02 regardless of makakele's participation? After all this was the same club that won in 98 and 00 with Nando Redondo orchestrating plays from the DM/CM position.

no, they wouldn't have!
they had no engine. zidane described makelele as the engine of the team. hierro said claude was their best player if you disregard the statistics. they know him better than you do, i would rather listen to them than listen to you & dayo.

How can Sousa a member of Portugal's golden gen be a no name? A player that was more famous than Maka before the Maka hype went into overdrive a no name? If not for the injuries that pretty much cut his career short, You would have heard more about him.

how many world cup finals did he reach with portugal? how many european championships did he win? paolo who? once again - you are comparing a general practitioner to a brain surgeon.

I keep hearing about the defensive mid spot being named after Makalele but I am yet to hear anyone apart from Alan Hansen and a couple of english journos call it just that.

that's because the others who would have said so can't speak english - and you wouldn't understand whatever it was they musta said about makelele. the absence of evidence isn't the evidence of absence.

there's a difference between a specialist and a general purpose individual. the specialist is 100% focused on a particular role & he does it to death. the general purpose dude has a general idea over everything but he can never be as good in the role the specialist is trained to do.


this is why claude is the greatest!

SIRcumalot: A strong case could be made that he probably his the reason for why that Madrid team never ruled UCL except for that one time, because it isn't for lack of attack cause this team was loaded in that direction,am not saying he is going to be the most best player on the team just a very important one.
Chelsea where just beginning to find there feet in the UCL after a few dormant period so for them to go from zero to hero because of one player in a few years is unheard of.
Brendan Rogers said Liverpool lost the League not because of Slippery Steve but because of the Red card of Jordan Henderson in the man city match.Jordan isn't the best player in liverpool but he couldn't be replaced.

i can't believe you still have to explain this to them. jeeez - of all the billionaire sugardaddy clubs, how many of them have won the champions league? from PSG to monaco to city to malaga to anzhi.....

these things just don't happen - the european powerhouses still rule the roost. chelsea were still wet behind the ears when makelele was there. that they even played several semis & a final then was a testament to the excellent management of that squad.

even with that, a useless liverpool side took out chelsea twice & won it before chelsea ever did. the CL is about tradition. clubs who have won it several times before have the advantage over the rich kids. this is why it would take man city a while before getting the holy grail even if they sign 12 makeleles.

Katsumoto: This was the same Madrid that won two CL titles in 1998 and 2000 (with Redondo as Anchor 98, 2000 and Captain in 2000) before Makelele joined. Now Makelele is the reason Madrid didn't win for 10 years.

Nevermind that Chelsea didn't win the CL with Makelele.

take it up with hierro that thought so.....abi? even steve mcmanaman felt makelele's departure hurt madrid's chances in europe.

AirborneLacer: Coogar I'm waiting for my answer.
Who's a DM?

makelele = DM
any other player in this day & age lying to you he's a DM or being described as DM and yet bombs forward to serve other general purposes isn't a DM, he's a CM.

as a DM, you just sit there & babysit your centre-halves. this is why claude is great. asking every player to play outside their comfort zone is what is ruining football these days. you now have non-specialists - jack of all trades, master of none.

jennykadry: @Coogar
Do you think se.x gets better with age or not?

older wine tastes better.
however, there is a caveat to it. both partners need to be physically fit, gym-loving, etc

chic2pimp: If He was the reason why they never reached the high standard they set beforehand then why didn't He win the CL afterwards with chelsea?

because chelsea aren't traditionally a champions league giant. you just don't join a big club spending money & win the champions league. there's a tradition to this & a technical know-how! if he had joined a european powerhouse like ac milan, liverpool, united or bayern, he would have won the CL.

Paulo Sousa as Dayo mentioned earlier has got more of a case than Makalele. Not only did He win the CL the very next season with Dortmund but also Juve are yet to taste CL sucess since he left them

no, he hasn't!
paulo sosa was never a specialist - i dunno why his name is being brought up. we are talking about a specialist & you are bringing up a no-mark name to sway an argument.

so you are a security officer whose job is to open the gate, sweep the surrounding for invaders, watch CCTV, etc

and another man just stays by the gate. nothing concerns him with CCTV or looking for invaders in the premises. his speciality is just the gate. he could tell from the knock on a gate whether it's a man or a woman or a kid. they call this man a gateman or used his name(kasali) to describe his role.


you mean the first security officer = kasali?

raumdeuter: Ok more slack. Pre 1998. Now get to work

you are a glorified simpleton!
has any player had the AM role named after him like makelele or what's the basis of your question.

you have been lying to us all day that matthaus was a defensive midfielder & yet no article after internet became popular have it so. makelele had the role named after him - you are now screaming like a rhesus monkey that matthaus was a defensive midfielder.

matthaus wasn't - he was never a specialist like makelele. very soon, you would say rooney is a defensive midfielder because he tracks back.

AirborneLacer: This should send you to bed:

www.footballsgreatest.weebly.com/defensive-midfielders.html

Excerpt from the article:

''They have the discipline to remain deep, behind the ball, but if an opportunity opens up for them to attack they will take it''.

The writer was defining the role of a DM and not a CM. At the end of the day, it's clear enough that Makelele possessed limited skillset - there was no damn invention as opined by Mr Coogar.

that article was written after 2003. an article that mentioned benitez as liverpool's manager wasn't written pre-2003. it seems there's wool in your ears.

it seems you don't understand why a role was named after makelele. for the others before him, they were for general purposes. tackling, bombing forward, dribbling, passing(long & short ranges) shooting, crossing, man-marking out star-players, etc

with makelele - he was a specialist!
he just does the basics attached to defending. anything outside that echelon isn't his responsibility. makelele's role was to tackle cleanly, win the ball & pass it 3 yards to the next man. that's what he did week in week out and thus got that specialist role named after him.

raumdeuter: Maradona too retired in the late 60's
That's why you can't give us any article pre 1995 that calls Maradona an attacking midfielder

there was no internet pre-95, are you a bush man?

bukatyne: It is called preference.

If God made an older man for me, the first thing He would have done is change who I am to fancy an older man. Asking me to marry an older man with my current mindset is martial sucide

I do not know God's plan for my kid and I am willing to accept in the end. But naturally, hell no!

A 30 yr old that comes to look for my 18yr old wants to be castrated.

I also know that age difference has nothing to do with martial success.

I just like them young

P.S.: If I married at 25 to a 37yr olf man (12yrs) our kid will be 2yrs when he ll be 40. The older the diff, imagine the age of hubby. @50, he will be going to PTA meeting in primary&jnr secondary when his mates are celebrating their children's matric/convocation.

If a man is to marry young and maintain such difference, them we are talking pedo.

this mindset is extremely myopic.
so what if a woman married that young man & the baby does not show up after 10 years...she should get a divorce because her hubby would look 50 when the kid is 2?

raumdeuter: Find one proof from the internet dated pre 1995 that described Maradona as an attacking midfielder, if you can't that means the others named as such are more talented

dayo, you are hurting your credibility with this argument. now is the time to quit.

this was the standard formation until the late 60s when pele was active. pele retired in 71.

[img]http://footballspeak.com/image.axd?picture=2012%2F4%2F235-football-formation.jpg[/img]

raumdeuter: Coogar find one article on the internet dated before 1995 that described Maradona Pele Cryuff Eusebio as attacking midfielders

but they weren't - the traditional formation was used in those days: 2-3-5 was the formation then. pele was an inside left

matthaus played in the modern era. 4-4-2 & his variants were already popular then so if he was a defensive midfielder like you claim, an article should be out there describing them as one.

if you cannot find proof, then you are clueless!

Dhellake: There is no Redondo in that article link dayokanu posted and there is a Makalele, so i am surprised that the pro Redondo's are banking on that article

that's not even the point - ask dayo to find one article on the internet where redondo, matthaus, ardilles, rijkaard, cocu, etc were described as defensive midfielders before 2003.

they claim there have been other players doing the makelele role before makelele - they should provide evidence where these other players were described as defensive midfielders. any article written before 2003 would be a good evidence.

in the absence of none, they just gotta admit they are clueless about football.

this is what makelele's teammates in madrid said about his departure.

zidane:
Why put another layer of gold paint on the Bentley when you are losing the entire engine?

fernando hierro:
I think Claude has this kind of gift – he's been the best player in the team for years but people just don't notice him, don't notice what he does. But you ask anyone at Real Madrid during the years we were talking about and they will tell you he was the best player at Real. We all knew, the players all knew he was the most important. The loss of Makélelé was the beginning of the end for Los Galacticos… You can see that it was also the beginning of a new dawn for Chelsea. He was the base, the key and I think he is the same to Chelsea now.

but let's blame the english media according to dayokanu. english journalists put those words in hierro's mouth.

chic2pimp: Was actually going to say let's stop all this rubbish about Makalele's departure being the reason for Madrid's failure to win the big ears.

his own teammates said makelele's departure was the reason they failed to reach the high standard they had set before he left.

Dayo did not have to dig deep sef before He found an article

please don't follow dayo's lunacy. i said find an article that described the midfielders of them old days as defensive midfielders before makelele's popularity.

i mean articles between 1995 & 2002.

raumdeuter: So before Makelele was a professional no one had the talent of Makelele.

Its only the English press that romanticize him, He was as useless as Fletcher in Man Utd

Mathaus won a WPOTY and Ballon D or. Makelele could barely make the French team at his prime.

Madrid won 1 CL in 3 seasons of Makelele yet he was the one who made then NOT win since 2002.

LOGIC FAIL

I guess Igor Biscan or Didi Hamman was the reason Liverpool failed to win the CL since 2005

you are talking nonsense.
makelele is a sitting midfielder - he's not the type to score goals, make assists or dribble 6 players in one spot. his type is an unsung hero, the type lunatics like yourself quickly forget because he didn't register 300 goals in one season.

makelele had limited skills which are exceptional vision, decision-making and tackling, and that made him the best player in the world at one specific role - the sitting midfielder - which was named after him. no one is arguing the amount of WPOTYs matthaus won with you.

in that special role of a sitting midfielder - makelele is the best in the world. he invented it & it was named after him.

raumdeuter: Makelele spend 3 seasons in Madrid and they won only 1 CL title in that time, Yet he was the reason Madrid wasnt winning CL every season after he left.

Were they winning every season while he was there?

you are talking nonsense, dayo
comparing matthaus to makelele is enough for me to say you are a football illiterate. matthaus was a terrier, gattuso was a terrier. they are man to man markers. the type that would be told to man-mark xavi out in a game & would follow xavi anywhere he goes.

makelele isn't that type - he's a patient snake. he waits in his position for the threat and he snuffs out the threat with a clean tackle, get the ball & play a straight pass to the runners that would launch a counter-attack. spot the difference. if matthaus had 1% of makelele's talent - the role would have been named after him.

Katsumoto: So Italian fans must not have been impressed with Tardelli's goal in the 82 WC because they weren't obsessed with stats and only wanted their MF Anchor to sit in front of the defense.

they would have been but it was a big risk. modern strikers would have rendered fools like tardelli useless in this era. besides, back then he would get away with it. strikers had no protection.....tackling from the back was legal, no new offside rule & a referee had to see blood to blow his whistle for infringement.

the new football rules have changed the entire scene. if a midfielder drifts from his position & the opposing team scores, that may end his career. modern strikers are protected & they even give them the benefit of the doubt in a 50-50 touch & go offside situation.

Madrid winning the Champions league 10 years after the last one had nothing to do with Makelele. Did Madrid not win without Makalele? Or did Chelsea win the CL with Makelele?

his teammates in madrid disagree with you. they blamed their failure on makelele's departure to chelsea. i can lift quotes if you want me to - it's not far-fetched!

Makelele did what he was meant to do but others did as he did and did more. He was exceptionally limited.

he did what no one else had ever done. he baby-sat his defence. the closest to makelele in the modern era is busquets....but instead of smart tackling, his own art is interception. busquets positioning is the best in the world - he's everywhere.

raumdeuter: Makelele invented defensive midfield role?

What kind of nonsense wont one hear on this internet sef

Before Makelele learnt how to kick football Matthaus was already bossing the defensive midfield role, IMO Lothar Matthaus—the greatest defensive midfielder of all time!

not forgetting Dunga, Deschamps, Diego Simeone etc

lothar matthaus? a defensive midfield role? dayo, you are an idïot! matthaus was a rabid dog. the type that would be told to do man-to-man marking of a star player. if his marked target goes to the wing, lothar will follow him there.....

that's not a defensive midfielder - makelele never had to chase anyone to jericho. he simply followed the ball & not the man carrying it about. matthaus' stüpidity caused germany's defeat in 86. the maradona he was supposed to mark out of the game was dishing out key passes like a vatican santa claus giving out gifts.

AirborneLacer: At the end of the day, what matters is providing the defence line with the much needed protection - It doesn't matter if it's a sitting role Idea or not,

I love to see players who are willing to give more than is required of them - more like a bonus.

If Redondo et al could travel upfield, grab assists and goals whilst maintaining their primary role which is to serve as the team's defensive aegis, then that makes them special - It goes to show the talent they are.

Ivanovic's primary role as a Right-back is to defend but on several occasions you'd see him surging upfield to deliver crosses into the opposition's box, scoring goals and grabbing assists. He's defiling limitations.

Makelele was a genius no doubt but sticking to the primary role of his position and failing to present his team with some ''additional services'' still goes to highlight his limitations.

that's the problem of today's football fans - nearly everyone now is an addict of statistics. if a player isn't scoring x goals & making y assists then he's not good enough.

think about it - it took real madrid close to a billion pounds to win the champions league again after that mumu florentino perez said makelele had no special talents & sold him to chelsea.

your so-called "players willing go give more than what's required" were tried & tested for a period of 12 years. none of them was disciplined enough to babysit the defence like makelele did without getting carried away to add x goals & y assists.

if mikel had been playing in an era when accurate passes, positional discipline, tackling, crazy football skills had more weight than mere statistics, he would be one of the top 5 players in the world. however, with fans like you - rooney can play 1,000 poor passes and still win a MOTM as long as he scores 2 goals in the game.

modern football fans are idiöts!

chic2pimp: How exactly did Makalele reinvent the defensive midfield position? You mean by moving a haul of no more than 5yards either way from the position He started the match from He somehow reinvented that position?

he didn't reinvent it - he invented it.

until makelele, find one article on the internet that ever described rijkaard, ardilles, redondo, vieira, keane, scholes, petit as a defensive midfielder.

they were all central midfielders - they never had the specialist role of sitting in one role like a tank. that's the difference. redondo was räping united defenders by the touchline & putting a beautiful cross into the box for raul to score - na defensive midfielder be that?

supposing united intercepted that cross & countered, where would redondo be? did you ever see makelele jogging back to after being caught out? the ball was never behind makelele. he was always in front of the ball!

abeg, there's no one like claude!

chic2pimp: Just because others went forward because they were very capable of doing so or because some of them gave defense splitting passes because they had the ability to do so and Makalele did not should not take away from the fact that they were excellent defensive midfielders. Me belittle one of the greats of the game? Yh right!

Well if your definition of sitting midfielder is "sitting in one spot not moving more than 2meters" then sure. But as a DM no chance mate

Katsumoto: That Makelele was limited in skillset is an issue for Makelele; it shouldn't remove from others who can actually join attack from time to time. It is like saying that a Tahoe is better than a Mercedes GL because it can go from point A to B and is not bothered by all the expensive gizmos in the GL. Makelele was very good at breaking up play but he was very limited.

that's exactly the point - until makelele, the role others played was simply central midfielder. makelele's sitting role invented the defensive midfielder.

likewise, the maestros who started operating between the lines invented the attacking midfielder role. before then, they were just midfielders or central midfielders. they went backward & forward at will..........they weren't specialists like makelele.

chic2pimp: Im pretty sure it was Alan Hansen that first used that term on MOTD. Think He was trying to say Claude redefined that position. How he did that however, i'd never know. As you said i don't see exactly what He did that hadn't been done by his predecessors tbh.

others were central midfielders - they went forward & backward as they deemed fit. others were often caught out by the opposition for taking stüpid risks - makelele never crossed the halfway line. his reading of the game was excellent - he could tackle an elephant cos he knew the exact time to apply his foot & knock the ball away from the stride of his opponent.

stop belittling makelele....he was the best ever to play that role - a sitting midfielder.

chic2pimp: Wasn't the term the "Makalele Role" coined by the english press?

because that was their first time of seeing anything like that. until then, the default formation was 4-4-2. nobody protected the hole. it's also one of the reasons players like bergkamp, zola, cantona, etc blossomed in the english league - having a withdrawn forward operating in the hole instead of side-by-side with a strike partner was alien to british pundits.

Katsumoto: There were others who were much better than Makelele and these actually won the WC or Euros - Ardiles, Tardelli, Rijkaard, Mauro Silva, Deschamps

they did so in spurts - just like having drogba drift wide in a game to make a cross. makelele made a career out of sitting in one position like an electric pole.

his role looks so easy yet so difficult cos it's very easy to get carried away, cede position & join in the attack. tardelli scored a goal in a world cup final in 82. makelele would never ever wander that far from his position.

makelele would win a tackle(he's one of the best at this trade - his timing was pretty excellent) and play a simple pass to the midfielders in front of him that would quickly launch a counter-attack. when others ran, makelele was stationary.

he was the best at it!

Katsumoto: So a report written by another is the basis for your position? Makelele role my left bum cheek. There were solid anchor men b4 Makelele and there have been solid ones after him. Makelele is not even the best anchor ever.

he had that role named after him cos he was brilliant at it & he was slightly different from his predecessors that used to anchor. makelele was a sitting midfielder - he never ceded position. his role is to sit in that space between the opponents midfield & attack lines and snuff out any threats between those lines.

with keane, vieira & co - they were box to box. they could attack at will when the game dictates & they could defend at will as well and that made them often vulnerable when they get caught out - thus the red cards & caution from the referee.