so please bow down an accept the expert views of those ITK

4-4-2 magazine conducted a poll amongst British managers of who was the greatest side ever....

1. Brazil 1970 2. United Treble 99 - best club side EVER 3. Madrid 50's....

7. Liverpool Double side

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

Answers

Spot on again LR.

You do talk a lot of tosh and your opinions are worth zilch.

:-)))

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

From now on I'll only post quotes from 4-4-2...THAY know what they are talking about :-)

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

I thought our side in 1996 was much better than our 99 side, we didn't win anything either unless you mean our treble defeat at Wembley

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

I'm not sure about this.

The Brazil side in 70 has a very specific set of 6 games they are remembered for. The conditions were against their three European group opponents, so everything was just perfect for them.

The 99 treble side won the three things they went for. That should be enough, but my feeling of why they won the two cups on a greater will, or self belief, rather than skill. I want my great sides to have supreme skill. (I'm not saying Man U weren't skillful, clearly they were, just that the win in Barca is remember for them dominating injury time).

Real Madrid won all those trophies when Europe was new, team always looks perfect, and the Hampden game has to be the perfect performance.

I guess it is in their somewhere but my view would be the AC Milan side that won the European Cup 4-0 in 1989. They had Maldini, Baresi, Gullit, Van Basten et al. To be four goals better than the opposition sets you apart. Milan also beat Barca 4-0 in a final in about 94, that is pretty special too.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

I wonder where our team of '89 were in the list? Post Waddlar, Pedro, Gazza team pre returning KK team. You all think things are bad now.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

erm 89? just back from lunch. Hic!

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

Mac....firstly let me say that I posted that to stimulate debate.....and it's not my own opinion. However, seeing as you've jumped into the debate may I attempt to take apart some of your arguments?

"clearly they were, just that the win in Barca is remember for them dominating injury time)"....correct...but the game is a lot more than just dominance without scoring. MUFC held Bayern to one goal and then had the MENTAL tenacity to strike when the Germans thought they had sealed it. However, we did play then twice prior to Barca and the away leg in particular we dominated them for the full 90 mins...but we couldn't kill them off.....and then one fuck-up of monumental proportions in th elast min by one of th ebest keepers at the time resulted in us just taking the draw. Had we held on then none of us would have been talking about our LAST MINUTE in Barca against BM.....they would have been out.

Those other great sides you mention are indeed great, but accept the difficulty of winning the world's premier domestic cup competition, one of the world's best and hardest domestic leage and the CL all in the same year, while putting Liverpool, Juve, Bayern and Inter to the sword...(the Italians and Spanish don't take their cup too seriously)

...and to think that this list does not include the likes of either Barcelona game, the 8-1 away at Forest, the 6-2 away at Leicester, either of the thrashings of Brondby, the Championship decider against Spurs, even the likes of the 4-1 against West Ham or Chelsea away in the Cup (which would probably have made most other season's top 5) is testament to what an incredible season it's been.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

and excuse any typos....Friday ale:-)

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

good side LR but not 2nd best ever. ac milan, bayern munich, liverpool, real madrid etc, were all a bit better weren't they? to argue against it would be follyful

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

If they hadn't won in Barca would they have been the best domestic side there ever was ? I don't think so. The team only finished 4 points ahead of the third place side, so it was tight.

Last year's championship winning side was better .... more points, more goals, 22 points clear of third.

If winning trophies is what counts then it has to be the Lisbon Lions. All domestic trophies, all local trophies, and European Champions scoring two against a side that hadn't conceded two in Europe in nearly two seasons. Scotland wasn't a waste land of football talent it is now. Rangers played in the Cup Winners Cup final that year, Kilmarnock reached the Fairs Cup semi, Dundee United beat Barcelona and won a leg against Juventus before going out.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

I wouldn't like to argue it Swifty, but some British managers would :)

All valid points Mac...it would be nice if a snap-shot in time could be taken for ALL the great teams and they had a mini world cup...I reckon at one of our 90's team could to the biz. We could even throw in Keegan's Geordie team as a wild card to spice up the GD tally :-)

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001

I believe that a team winning three championships in a row in the 30s is directly comparable to winning three in a row in the 90s. You can only beat what is around you.

The Brazil side is probably the only international side which gets a mention as it is so difficult to pick a particular year or competition to grade them on. I think France over the last two years have been exceptional.

I really wouldn't like to choose between Leeds of 72ish, Liverpool of 78ish and Man U of late 90s. Some old pedantic pals of mine form Nottingham may even claim Cloughies Forest side of 78-79 which won European Cup, and had 42 unbeaten games in the league.

You takes yer choice

It's easy for us to choose our own Newcastle side as we've only been in the top two twice in 70 years, and I taake the second version of them.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001