Rank 6, WorldCupStory Club Index: 37, 622
AC Milan World Cup XI Dream Team
| AC Milan | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Players | Country | WCups | Games | Mins | Goals | Capt | |
| GK | Dida | Brazil | 1 | 5 | 442 | 0 | 1 |
| RB | Alessandro Costacurta | Italy | 2 | 11 | 1050 | 0 | 0 |
| CB | Franco Baresi | Italy | 3 | 10 | 919 | 0 | 3 |
| CB | Marcel Desailly | France | 1 | 7 | 661 | 0 | 1 |
| LB | Paolo Maldini | Italy | 4 | 23 | 2217 | 0 | 13 |
| MF | Umit Davala | Turkey | 1 | 7 | 548 | 2 | 0 |
| MF | Demetrio Albertini | Italy | 2 | 10 | 937 | 0 | 0 |
| MF | Nils Liedholm | Sweden | 1 | 5 | 450 | 2 | 5 |
| MF | Gianni Rivera | Italy | 4 | 9 | 597 | 3 | 0 |
| ST | Florin Raducioiu | Romania | 1 | 4 | 383 | 4 | 0 |
| ST | Andriy Shevchenko | Ukraine | 1 | 5 | 474 | 2 | 5 |
| 21 | 96 | 8678 | 13 | 28 |
Surely of the club world cup dream teams this is the most eclectic? It is certainly short on goals, but the pot pourri of nations, including Brazil, Turkey, Sweden, Romania and Ukraine, is a true representation of the modern World Cup.
Perhaps goalkeeper is not the classic position to have your Brazilian star, but Dida wins selection ahead of Giovanni Galli. At the back, Marcel Desailly gate crashes the famous AC Milan defence of Alessandro Costacurta, Franco Baresi, and Paolo Maldini. Costacurta has to move to right back, where he did sometimes play, to accommodate Desailly. Maldini’s 2,217 minutes, representing every second of all 23 Italy matches over 4 world cups, including 5 extra time games, is a world cup record. He is the iron man of the world cup, and it seems unjust that he was never a world cup winner.
In midfield, Umit Davala provides width and his goals helped Turkey reach the 2002 semi-final. Demetrio Albertini plays the holding role; Nils Leidholm, skipper of the 1958 Sweden team and Gianni Rivera will push forward and provide much needed goals from midfield. The need for goals saw Gennaro Gattuso, Roberto Donadoni, Andrea Pirlo and Kaka overlooked.
In attack, Milan’s top World Cup goalscorer, Florin Raducioiu is joined by Andriy Shevchenko to the exclusion of Patrick Kluivert, Joe Jordan and Mark Hateley. The famous Dutch trio of Franck Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten, never really hit their straps at the 1990 world cup and have only one goal between them in 12 matches.
This team has a fabulous defence, which is just as well with Dida between the posts. Further forward the team does not inspire confidence and would be likely to struggle against the other European club dream teams.
