July 14th XI

After reading an article on the guardian website asking what birth date would produce the best football team I decided to try my own. I was born on the 14^th July and, according to Wikipedia , so were ten other humans possessing the label of “footballer” in their brief descriptive summary.

With a talent pool of only 10 players I'm fairly sure this will not be a normal looking team. In fact on further inspection the "innovative" formation being used is the 2 - 1 - 5 - 3. Watch out Johnathan Wilson!  

Goalkeepers :

1982– Achille Coser, Italian footballer (goalkeeper)

1983- 1984 – Samir Handanović, Slovenian footballer (goalkeeper)

Yes there’s two of them, ideally one of them will be suited to charging off his line while the other will be more adept at flinging himself around on the goal-line. Or, if one is right handed and the other left handed, they could just use one hand each and split the goal (and the pair of gloves) between them. They could even hold hands and swing each other around to gain extra momentum to invest into their dives. Of course having two goalkeepers means the offside trap (or the offside rule in general) is pretty much redundant for opposing players. 

Defender :

1981 Me, blagger (defender)  

To be honest I am more of an attacking player but allegedly no defenders were born on the 14^th of July and the team should have at least one defender so I’m valiantly taking one for the common good. Vanity notice : If there were more than 10 players on Wikipedia I wouldn’t have chosen myself at all - unless it was instead of Titus Bramble or Chris Smalling. I also looked to see whether any non-footballers born on the 14^th had transferable skills from their chosen profession. They didn’t.

Midfielders :

 

1987 – Adam Johnson, English footballer (winger)

1986 – Alexander Gerndt, Swedish footballer (right wing)

1967 – Marios Constantinou, Cypriot footballer and manager (Attacking Midfielder)

1984 – Mounir El Hamdaoui, Moroccan footballer (forward / winger)

1985 – Billy Celeski, Australian footballer (Central midfield)

Rather unorthodox I know but the team plays with three wingers. Gerndt and Johnson are standard line hogging wide players (Right and Left respectively) while El Hamdoui runs an imaginary “wing” 90⁰ to the direction of play but behind the ball. Meanwhile Celeski and Constantinou operate within this wing U-shape, the later slightly advanced to the former.

Forwards :

1966 – Owen Coyle, Scottish-Irish footballer and manager (striker)

1984 – Nilmar, Brazilian footballer (forward)

1988 – James Vaughan, English footballer (forward)

Coyle will play in a slightly deeper role coming back to help the midfield five when needed. Nilmar and Vaughn will hassle the opposing back line interchanging with the wingers if and when they cut inside.

So, by way of a very confusing diagram, here's the team's tactics : 

Ref :

1971 – Howard Webb, English footballer and referee

Some people have stated that Howard Webb officiates some teams’ games (namely Manchester United’s) as if he is their 12^thplayer. Seeing as though he was born on the 14^th July, and it looks like the team could do with some help, we shall be making use of this skill set won’t we Howard? Wink wink.

Other :

The team photo, club emblem and general branding would be painted / designed by

1862 – Gustav Klimt, Austrian painter and graphic artist (d. 1918)

The behind the scenes feature film (shot in broody / arty black and white) would be made by

1918 – Ingmar Bergman, Swedish director, producer, and screenwriter (d. 2007)

The Children’s cartoon series (a bit like “The Hurricanes”  ) would be animated and produced by

1910 – William Hanna, American animator, director, producer, and actor, co-founded Hanna-Barbera (d. 2001)

Probably the most famous thing that ever happened on July 14^th (other than my birth) was the storming of the Bastille. Therefore the team name would be called “Bastille Storm”.