Alan Shearer selects all-time best World Cup team – Not too sure about this | OneFootball

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The Mag

·7 December 2022

Alan Shearer selects all-time best World Cup team – Not too sure about this

Article image:Alan Shearer selects all-time best World Cup team – Not too sure about this

Alan Shearer has picked his greatest ever World Cup eleven.

The only rule being that he couldn’t pick more than one player from each nation.


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The challenge for Alan Shearer set by The Athletic, who also asked a host of other football people and journalists to do the same.

This is that Alan Shearer best ever eleven, I must admit I’m not too sure about some of his selections…

Also asked by The Athletic was Dan Burn, the Newcastle United defender picking the following…

Dan Burn saying this about making his choices:

“This is actually harder than it looks… I tried to pick a balanced team full of players who didn’t just play at World Cups but excelled at them.

My only regret was not putting the Brazilian Ronaldo in —I just couldn’t get the balance right with him in it.”

I started putting together my own World Cup eleven and I have to admit it isn’t as easy I thought it might be.

Anyway, this is what I ended up with:

Shay Given (Republic of Ireland)

Lilian Thuram (France)

Franz Beckenbauer (West Germany)

Paolo Maldini (Italy)

Andres Inestia (Spain)

Michael Laudrup (Denmark)

Paul Gascoigne (England)

Johan Cruyff (Holland)

Ferenc Puskas (Hungary)

Lionel Messi (Argentina)

Pele (Brazil)

Could have gone for Nobby Solano and Philippe Albert but thought I might be accused of Newcastle United bias…

Never in a million years could I ever select Diego Maradona for anything, an absolute cheat, the worst ever.

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