La Liga team of the decade

Since we are approach­ing the end of a decade, and since it’s summer,I thought I would offer up my La Liga Team of the decade. I set my team based on the best actual sea­son had by a player in each posi­tion. It is not an aggrega­tive list. It is not based on con­tri­bu­tions over the course of a few sea­sons or a career. The play­ers who had the best year of any player in the decade in their respec­tive posi­tion are what make up this list.  Enjoy.…..

For­ma­tion: 3–5-2

Goalie-Santiago Canizares (2003/2004)

Lead Valen­cia to a league and UEFA Cup dou­ble as well as win­ning the Zamora tro­phy for him­self. Was the cus­to­dian for a team who man­aged to com­bine rock solid defense with a flair for attack. Regarded as one of the pre­mier keep­ers in world foot­ball at the time, this was his best sea­son in a Valen­cia shirt.

Defender: Dani Alves (2006/2007)

Has been the best right back in La Liga con­sis­tently since break­ing into the first team at Sevilla 2004. Was a huge threat on the right flank as Sevilla fin­ished in 3rd place, only 5 points off cham­pi­ons Real Madrid. Won the Copa del Rey,as well as a sec­ond suc­ces­sive UEFA Cup that year. This was the sea­son that estab­lished him as the pre­mier attack­ing full back any­where in the world.

Defender: Roberto Ayala (2001/2002)

One of the best defend­ers of his gen­er­a­tion, Ayala showed A.C Milan what they could have enjoyed had they showed some faith in his incred­i­ble tim­ing and read­ing of the game. A tough cus­tomer in defense, Ayala demon­strated class and lead­er­ship by lead­ing Valen­cia to their first Liga title in 31 years. Also named Cham­pi­ons League defender of the year as Los Che lost in the final to Bay­ern Munich.

Defender: Car­les Puyol (2005/2006)

Not the pret­ti­est man in the list, nor the most tech­ni­cally gifted, but no one exem­pli­fies heart more than Car­les Puyol. Cata­lan through and through, Puyol showed why he was the deserved cap­tain of the club as he bal­anced the potent Barcelona attack­ing power with his sound defen­sive abil­i­ties. Always one to jump into a tackle, Puyol makes up for his some­times ques­tion­able deci­sion mak­ing with his unique abil­ity to hus­tle a ball out of dan­ger on pure desire alone. Cap­tained Barcelona to a sec­ond suc­ces­sive Liga title that year as well as a Cham­pi­ons League title, in which he was named UEFA best defender. No player rep­re­sents what their club is more than this man.

Defen­sive Mid­field: Xabi Alonso (2002/2003)

Came within two points of emu­lat­ing his father by win­ning a Liga title with Real Sociedad, this was the year Xabi Alonso broke out. Xabi was the com­plete cen­tral mid­fielder, exhibit­ing uncanny posi­tional sense, an abil­ity to win the ball in tack­les, as well as a knack for great ball dis­tri­b­u­tion and a can­non for a right foot. He helped put Sociedad back on the foot­ball map(albeit briefly), and went on to claim the best Span­ish player award cour­tesy of Don Balon. Real Madrid may have won the league this year, but all the suc­cess Xabi later enjoyed with Liv­er­pool and with Spain was born here.

Defen­sive Mid­field: Claude Makelele (2002/2003)

For­get about galac­ti­cos, this was the guy who lifted Madrid to the heights they enjoyed in the first part of the decade.  His depar­ture to Chelsea in the sum­mer of 2003 was seen as the scourge that caused the dra­matic down­fall of the first galac­tico area, a sen­ti­ment shared by for­mer team­mates Zidane, McMana­man and Hierro. Makelele was a rock, man­ag­ing the defen­sive load all the way to a Liga title against a pesky Real Sociedad team. Fresh off a Cham­pi­ons League title the year before, Makelele had to deal with increas­ing pres­sure as Madrid’s unbal­anced side was top heavy with attack­ers. But he danced the dance ever so well, and wasn’t truly appre­ci­ated by Madrid, nor most Liga fans until he had departed for Chelsea. Solid, solid, solid.

Attack­ing Mid­field: Juan Roman Riquelme (2004/2005)

One of the most enig­matic fig­ures in Span­ish foot­ball ever, when he was on his game no one in the world was bet­ter. Con­sis­tency has been the main hin­drance his entire career, but for two mag­i­cal years in the then unknown Vil­lareal, he brought a tiny club to the brink of Euro­pean glory. After a dread­ful first Euro­pean sea­son at Barcelona, coach Manuel Pel­le­grini had enough faith in the pre­cise pass­ing abil­ity of this tem­par­men­tal Argen­tine, and built an entire squad around his abil­i­ties.  A 15 goal haul, cou­pled with a 3rd place fin­ish made this Riquelme’s crown­ing achieve­ment in Spain. Not too many play­ers can place the title of artist in front of their name, but surely he is one who can.

Attack­ing mid­fielder: Ronaldinho(2004/2005)

This was the year Ronald­inho estab­lished him­self as the best player on the planet. I would call you a liar if you said you weren’t put under his spell, even if it was for a short period of time. He did it all. He brought the Liga title back to Catalunya that year, which helped him earn his sec­ond con­sec­u­tive FIFA Player of the year award as well as his first Bal­lon D’or. His recent fall from grace and form is made more sad when you con­sider the heights he reached only a scant few years back. His style and flair were breath­tak­ing, his tech­nique and trick­ery were out of this world, and his smile and enjoy­ment of the game was unmatched any­where. Ronald­inho was one of a kind, and this sea­son is what pushed him into the stratos­phere of foot­balling tran­scen­dence, a feat only achieved by a select few before him.

Attack­ing Mid­fielder: Zine­dine Zidane(2001/2002)

The great­est player of his gen­er­a­tion, Zidane finally com­pleted the holy trin­ity of  foot­ball prizes by tak­ing Madrid to a record 9th Cham­pi­ons League title with one of the great­est goals ever scored in a major final. After arriv­ing in Madrid as the most expen­sive player ever, Zidane didn’t dis­ap­point in this, his first year in Spain. Although Madrid were dis­ap­pointed to fin­ish third, their con­cen­tra­tion on win­ning the Cham­pi­ons League in their cen­te­nary year was no doubt a fac­tor. Zidane jus­ti­fied every one of the 76 mil­lion euros spent on him. Although he didn’t enjoy the amount of domes­tic suc­cess he did later on in his Madrid career, the fact that he deliv­ered such a beau­ti­ful prod­uct on the field in his first year in Spain makes me rank this as his best Liga sea­son. The most ele­gant man ever to caress a foot­ball with his feet.

For­ward: Nihat Kahveci (2002/2003)

I real­ize La Liga has played host to some glam­orous for­wards who have had solid sea­sons and won tro­phies with their respec­tive clubs this past decade. How­ever, no one has had the same impact as a rel­a­tive unknown in their debut full sea­son in Spain as Nihat did. After arriv­ing from Besik­tas dur­ing the win­ter trans­fer break the year before, Nihat only man­aged to net 1 goal in 11 appear­ances for Real Socieadad. This made it all the more unex­pected when he scored 23 goals the fol­low­ing year as Sociedad came within a whisker of win­ning the most improb­a­ble of La Liga titles of recent mem­ory. Fin­ish­ing tied for sec­ond in the Pichichi that year, his goals sky­rock­eted Real Sociedad to heights it hadn’t seen in a long time. While def­i­nitely not a flash in the pan, the rest of his stay in Spain was marred by injury and he never quite rang the bell like he did in 02/03.  Bril­liant strik­ers came before and have come since, but no one goal scorer has had more of an impact on his teams suc­cess than Nihat did in that mag­i­cal year where the title almost returned to the Anoeta.

For­ward: Lionel Messi (2008/2009)

The world at his fin­ger­tips, Leo Messi did it all this past sea­son lead­ing Barcelona to one of the great­est sea­sons in the his­tory of club foot­ball, period. After mak­ing his Barca debut in 2004/2005, it was evi­dent Leo was des­tined for great­ness. There were flashes of bril­liance, too many to list, but he was always in the shadow of Ronald­inho, as well as being prone to injury. This past year was when the full brunt of the weight of expec­ta­tion fell on his slight shoul­ders, and did he ever deliver. 23 goals, the tre­ble, and all around mind blow­ing play from a leg­end in the mak­ing. Messi han­dled the pres­sure of being the big dog at the Camp Nou ami­ca­bly, and looks set to fol­low a hal­lowed path to great­ness trav­eled only by a select few.

Subs bench:

Goalie: Iker Casil­las (2004/2005)

Defender: Amedeo Car­boni (2003/2004)

Mid­fielder: Xavi (2008/2009)

Mid­fielder: Luis Figo (2000/2001)

For­ward: Roy Makaay(2002/2003)

For­ward: Raul (2000/2001)

For­ward: Samuel Eto’o (2005/2006)

La Liga team of the decade, 5.0 out of 5 based on 3 rat­ings

Tagged as: Carles Puyol, Claude Makelele, Dani Alves, Juan Roman Riquelme, La Liga, lionel messi, Nihat Kahveci, Roberto Ayala, ronaldinho, Santiago Canizares, Team of the decade, Xabi Alonso, Zinedine Zidane