The Fantastic Four

Last night I was in the pub and someone asked me what I did. I said I was a student in journalism and that my main focus was sports. In particular football (I say it once more for the Americans, that means soccer). Before I knew it I had to answer all kind of questions about great teams and players in history of the game. I love these kind of things, not to show but to think back about the greatness of the sport.

One of my favourite topics is the French team of the 80's lead by Michel Platini. They had one of the best midfields ever to play the game with Jean Tigana, Alain Giresse, Luis Fernandez and of course Michel Platini. Tigana and Fernandez could run up and down the field all day, Giresse's left foot and then there were the freekicks, headers, outside shot and brilliant passes of Platini. If you combine that with a strong backline including the enormous Marius Tresor, pacey back Manuel Amoros and a butcher like Maxime Bossis and decent goallies Jean-Luc Ettori and Joel Bats, you know it's hard to beat a team like this. The French strikers of that time were not the greatest in the world, but they had pace which made them extremely dangerous. All four of the midfielders had amazing through passes, so those pacey strikers could be used to the maximum of their abilities. The two strikers with the curly hair, Dominque Rocheteau and Didier Six, were a real threat to the opposition. They had to chose whether they would move into the midfield to close the Fantastic Four down and leave a huge space open behind the defense or keep the that gap to a minimum which led to more free space in midfield. It proved to be a lose-lose situation for most teams facing this faboulus French team.

That were my thoughts and memories of an amazing team. Up next are Holland and Brazil.