Goal.com’s Serie A Team of the Decade. Do you agree?

By: Francesco | July 20th, 2009

Let me just start out by saying that I have never liked Goal.com (the English version at least. The Italian version is actually pretty good because it just posts articles from Italian newspapers, so at least you know you’re reading from a source). The English version always seems to have stories without sources that look like they were just thought up at that instant and posted, and I have never liked their opinions on Italian calcio. So today I visited goal.com to switch to the Italian language version, but before I clicked the link I saw an article that said “Serie A Team of the Decade 2000-2010″. Curiosity got the best of me and I clicked it. So after the jump we’ll see this team of the decade and see what I thought.

Here is goal.com’s Serie A Team of the Decade:

Buffon

Thuram – Cannavaro – Nesta – Maldini

Zanetti – Kaka – Pirlo – Nedved

Ibrahimovic – Totti

Basically, I could go on and on about my thoughts about this team but a rant would be way too long and useless, so I’ll just state the names that I think could make a case to be a part of this starting XI.

In goal, nobody can doubt that Gianluigi Buffon was the best goalkeeper in Serie A this decade.

In defense, I would put Cafu at right-back over Thuram and Gianluca Zambrotta at left-back over Maldini (Maldini played center-back for most of the 2000s).

In midfield, I think Gennaro Gattuso could make a shout for an inclusion, but you would have to take out one of Pirlo or Kaka, who both merit a place. You could also throw out the name of Esteban Cambiasso, who although only arriving in Italy in 2004, has long been Inter’s best midfielder, or even Daniele De Rossi, who has quickly become Italy’s most important midfielder.

Then to the strikers, Francesco Totti deserves to be there, as he was Italy’s most talented player of the last decade and is the highest active player on the all-time Serie A goalscoring chart. But Zlatan Ibrahimovic should not be there. Zlatan has only become a force to a be reckoned with in these last two seasons at Inter. There are three players I can think of already that were much more consistent over the last decade than Ibra: Filippo Inzaghi, Alessandro Del Piero, and David Trezeguet.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? POST YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE COMMENTS.