Athletico Alliteration!
I was trying to come up with a new idea for a footballing XI today and finally came up with the idea of Athletico Alliteration.
This is my team made up of players who share the same letter for their first name and surname (hence Alliteration!).
Goalkeeper – Recber Rustu
Turkish international Recber Rustu takes up his place between the stick, narrowly beating Kasey Keller to the number one jersey!
Defender – Colin Calderwood
Calderwood made over 150 appearances for Tottenham Hotspur and won 36 caps for Scotland. A strong defender who will be perfect in the centre back role. He is currently the manager of Cambridge United.
Defender – Basile Boli
As you are all well aware, the picture above is not that of Basile Boli but is in fact, Stuart Pearce. This is because Boli had the nerve to headbutt Pearce in the France vs England group stage match in Euro ’92. The photo is of the damage done to Psycho. Athletico Alliteration needs brave players and headbutting Stuart Pearce takes a lot of bravery!
Defender – Hermann Hreidarsson
Another tough-tackling defender, this Icelander can play at left back or centre back. We need him for his versatility but will play him at left-back.
Defender – Mario Melchiot
Melchiot played for Chelsea and Birmingham City and as a right-back by trade, will get straight into the starting XI in his preferred role!
Midfield – Kevin Kilbane
Kilbane is currently making the gossip column headlines as he is appearing on Dancing on Ice. I’m sure that he will gladly take the call and come to play for Athletico Alliteration to escape the news!
Midfield – Zinedine Zidane
The World-Class player that Athletico’s team are built around. Ex-Juventus and Real Madrid superstar Zidane sits in the midfield and will orchestrate the play/
Midfield – Jermaine Jenas
One of the better modern-day pundits in my opinion, but I need his footballing ability to do the talking in midfield.
Midfield – Andrei Arshavin
Anyone who can score four in a single game at Anfield whilst playing for Arsenal is alright by me! Andrei takes up the last place in midfield.
Striker – Dion Dublin
Dublin now hosts a daytime television show apparently. I’m sure that he will jump at the chance to play football again and put the daytime TV presenting career to one side for a while!
Dublin gets the nod ahead of Julian Joachim due to his greater aerial threat!
Striker – Claudio Caniggia
Insert cliche here about South American flair! Argentine Caniggia makes the team and adds pace to the forward line to go alongside Dublin’s height as his strike partner.
Athletico Alliteration’s home stadium will be the San Siro and have two mascots in Basil Brush and Roland Rat.
And as for the manager of this great team, I was going to go for former England manager Walter Winterbottom but then I discovered that Kevin Keegan (also a former England manager) was the face of a Super Nintendo game called Kevin Keegan Player Manager. This last-minute piece of evidence proved to me that Keegan must be up for the job as he has endorsed a computer game!!