[Tennie]

(IMG:http://i34.tinypic.com/2la4fg8.jpg)

Picture of starting lineup of the European Cup final
from left, top row: Paolo Maldini, Marco Van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Carlo Ancelotti, Frank Rijkaard, Giovanni Galli
bottom row: Franco Baresi, Roberto Donadoni, Billy Costacurta, Angelo Colombo, Mauro Tassotti
This is the Milan club voted best club team of all time by World Soccer Magazine.

Here's the citation:

Arrigo Sacchi's Milan side of the late 1980s and early 1990s revolutionised Italian football with their attack-minded, pressing game.

Sacchi was making a name for himself with Parma in the mid-1980s when he was hired by Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi. At the time, Italian league rules allowed three foreigners in each team. Englishmen Ray Wilkins and Mark Hateley were shown the door and in their place Milan hired Dutchmen Ruud Gullit and Marco Van Basten. They were joined a year later by compatriot Frank Rijkaard.

The trio provided the flair, the Italian players provided the steel, Sacchi provided the tactical discipline. Together they changed the face of Italian and also European football.

A tight defence, marshalled by Franco Baresi and featuring youngsters Paolo Maldini and Alessandro Costacurta, provided a platform for a midfield that included Carlo Ancelotti and Roberto Donadoni alongside Rijkaard. They in turn provided the bullets for Gullit and Van Basten, who each scored twice as Milan destroyed Steaua Bucharest in the 1989 European Cup final, having beaten Real Madrid 6-1 on aggregate in the semi-final.

Sacchi's men retained the trophy in 1990 – the last team to do so – with a narrow victory over Sven Goran Eriksson's Benfica. They also enjoyed back-to-back World Club Cup success, against Atletico National of Colombia and Olimpia of Paraguay.

I'm probably one of the few boardmembers old enough to remember watching this team play. They were magnificent. Though they didn't become the Invincibles until a couple of years later, they were already very, very special.

Today's Milan is a good side - not perfect, but good. Even so, I wonder who, if any, of them would make Sacchi's starting XI and whose place they would take.

[acid911]

A couple of points: Because you had two Italian teams taking it out at each other with tight and closed-spaced football, players had to be on their toes. There were only 16 teams in Serie A, less room for error. Today, we know if we drop two points, the contenders might too as there are eight extra matches to play for.

Thirdly, the Italian league was number one at that time, full houses, aggressive football was must. I've seen enough videos and full matches to witness how aggressive the crowd and overall gameplay was. Sure intensity has different meaning, and I didn't mean it in the physical sense of things, per se. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Sure there might have been some lull or lucky matches, but overall the football standard was higher than this. This, as in our last five or six matches. We have only 1 player in the top 15 goalscorers up till now. Our second best scores more goals via penalty than in open play.

I guess the easy way to put it is this: I want to watch a tension-free match seeing us play at our full potential, rather than a last-minute-goal thriller against low-mid table team. Still, for me, it's too early to decide. We've got a very small sample size of 5-6 matches, key players are missing, and we have lots of new faces that have to gel together. If this continues till after the winter break and we starting losing more unnecessary points (we've already lost 8 up till now) then I'll start getting worried. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) I have it in me to watch some more of these sorts of games.