First of all, I need to make it clear: I don't intend to change anything with this topic. The main point is to make clear how the National Teams are made on this forum. IF you guys decide to change anything, then that's up to you.

I always felt like the selection of players for the NT stars in this forum is kinda weird compared to the rest of the internet. I know most of them weren't updated already, but the statement is true even for the most updated ones. From what I understand, the player's impact on the NT is the big criteria for him to be on the team, but it seems this criteria is not THAT important sometimes, but HUGE other times. I think the best way to see that is with Argentina and Brazil. Messi is widely regarded as one of the best players of all time, if not the best. He is at least a top 5 in almost anyone minds. But he wasn't on the first XI until he won the WC, meaning nothing of this really matter unless he could make a huge impact on the NT. Ok, but then why is a player like Edinho on the Brazilian squad when Lúcio and Aldair were WAY bigger for the NT? Why is Zico on the starting XI if he never won a WC, while Ronaldo is not despite playing in 4 WCs, winning two, and scoring twice in one of the finals. I know they're in different positions, but shouldn't we change the formation to have Ronaldo on the team then? Either way, making a Brazilian NT all-stars without Zico or Ronaldo on the starting XI is very weird. Those are no brainer players for anyone making their own version of the team. Zico and Ronaldo will be starters 99% of the time, but here is different. Can someone explain me how exactly things work here? And, whatever the answer is, why is it has to be like that?

The are many key factors for all star teams, not just national teams but clubs as well. Also, it depends on the team. When it comes to big national teams like Brazil or Argentina, there are many players who are worthy of a spot in the first team. Ultimately, some all-time greats end up being left out. The criteria are a mix of achievements, skills, recognition, maybe even overall career.




Messi wasn't included in the best XI because despite all his records, he always came up short at the World Cup. A World Cup win is basically what he needed. Also, take Luis Monti for example. He won a World Cup with Italy but he's been included in Argentina All Stars. After all, he switched to Italy NT only because he transferred to Juventus, otherwise he would've played many more games for Argentina.




I wouldn't mind Aldair in the first team since he capped more than Edinho and won a World Cup. However, there are enough players who meet the "World Cup winner" requirement, and Edinho was definitely an overall better player than Aldair. Also, I wouldn't be against Ronaldo in the best XI, but Romário as well won a World Cup as protagonist in 1994, scoring in every game except the final. Furthermore, if we consider Romário and Ronaldo's overall careers, Romário's longevity makes him a must. Of course, Ronaldo had numerous injuries that influenced his career, but that's no one's fault.
Anyways, it's never easy to make an all stars team because there will always be someone who disagrees with certain choices. It's possible that if Ronaldo was included in the best XI, someone would've said "why Ronaldo instead or Romário?" or something like that. Also, if we consider only World Cup winners, then the team would be like "Brazil World Cup Winners All Stars".

See, your answer just made it even more confusing to me. Why sometimes being a WC winner matter so much and other times it doesn't? I agree the overall quality of the player should be the main criteria, and that's why Edinho is ahead of Aldair and Lúcio. But then Messi needs to win a WC despite being better than everyone else except maybe Maradona? That despite the fact he already played 3 WCs before that and was named the player of the tournament in one of them (which I disagree, but still points out he played well in that tourney).

Romário's career longevity was fantastic, but that was outside the NT. He was extremely important in 1994, to the point I think Brazil would had absolutely no chance of winning without him, but that's literally the only WC he played. He has less caps and less goals than Ronaldo for the NT. Ronaldo also scored in all but one game in 2002 WC. Of course, the 2002 team had more quality players than the 1994 one, but still Ronaldo's legacy for the NT is bigger than Romário's. And both players have a bigger impact on the NT than Zico.

I only picked Brazil and Argentina as examples. I see that pattern repeating on other NTs. It feels to me that sometimes a player is only there (or not there) because some mod or someone with a big influence in the forum really likes (or dislikes) that player, even if it goes against the opinion of the majority of people. Kinda like a guilty pleasure of sorts.

Winning a major tournament like the World Cup is important but not the only main factor. As I said in my previous post, it's a mix of several different criteria. Also, it's not like Messi wasn't in the team at all. He simply wasn't in the best XI, yet.




And Romário has a 0.79 scoring rate while Ronaldo has a 0.63, if we want to add one more statistic. And I'm saying this despite my bias towards Ronaldo who is my favourite ever player.




The current updates are made by several mods. So it's normal that there are different opinions and those involved try to find a common ground.

My point is that for some players, the impact on the NT is more relevant, but for other players, the overall quality is more important. I've seen many time someone suggesting player X to the team over player Y because he was clearly a better, but then someone else argues that player Y was more important and thus deserves the spot. But it's seems this argument doesn't apply to other cases. I understand the choices are based on a mix of thing, including the quality and the impact on the team, I'm just trying to show that one of the criterias seems to be more or less relevant based on convenience.

Messi being already on the team was kinda irrelevant for the argument I was trying to make. I was just trying to point out that sometimes a player is rated higher because of its overall quality compared to the others, but sometimes not. Messi is a good example because everyone knows how good he is, but he was still rated lower because his impact on the NT wasn't good enough. That kinda points out the relevance for the NT matters much more than the overall quality of the player, but then we have cases (like Edinho x Aldair/Lúcio) where the quality of the player is more important.

For me, one of those two criterias should always be the most important, and in my opinion it should be the quality of the player. Of course that doesn't mean a player with absolutely no impact on the NT should be included just because he is good, but in all examples I brought here the players were very relevant for the NT.

This "convenience" can be associated with the fact that a team must have all the positions covered. For example, you may see a DMF in the first team instead of a possibly better AMF because a DMF was needed. I don't think it's just a "I like this player more" thing.




Even the selection for the best XI can be a mix of skill and importance, always trying to make a believable line-up. And before the last update, anyways, the main striker for Argentina was a certain Batistuta, not Maxi López.




If only one of those criteria had to be considered the most important, a team would end up being focused either on skill or NT statistics, and the result wouldn't change: people would complain about it anyway.

at the end the main criteria is not well defined as mods take in account sometimes the aspects from one team but that do not feat another team, and it will be until they get a formula that quantify the deserves of the players.

It's impossible to use the same criteria for all national teams.
There's a category that includes the likes of Brazil, Italy, Germany and so on for which you must take all factors into consideration.
Then you have the likes of ex-Soviet and ex-Yugoslavian countries. Here you have to consider those players who capped for the former countries, and in some cases players who didn't cap at all.
The last case goes also for teams like Mozambique and other African countries, some Asian ones and many North American ones that haven't had a national team for most of their history.
Then you have small national teams that miraculously played in major tournaments or even World Cups. Those automatically need players who were featured in those tournaments and others who had an overall solid career even if it was mostly at club level because the team may not have enough players worthy of the first team to begin with.
And last we have the weakest teams like San Marino, Andorra, Bhutan, Pakistan and so on. In these cases, the only way to build a "decent" team is by considering overall career, recognition, caps and goals. And sometimes you're lucky if you find enough info to somehow even create the team.

The answer is really simple. Selecting the best players of a national team should have to do ONLY with the performance when wearing country's shirt. In other words, since national team football is not fully representantive of a player's value, it's the ability to repeat club performance on a national level. Legacy exists but a careful glance is required. Usually contemporary players tend to surpass their predecessors. I don't understand why this subject has to get complicated. Lately something that disturbs me is finding out sneaky updates on great national teams without any notification or explanation.

This is true. But such criteria can be applied only to strong national teams with a long history. And don't forget those cases where players have bad form with clubs and great one with the national team, like Edu Vargas for example. We can't talk about "repeating club performances with the national team" for guys like him.

That is way is needed some formula to evaluate every single factor and have an average to rate,
that aspects includes the fame of the player, the contribution, the matches He play, the trophies, etc, etc. and then by order by position and tactics
Other is just matter of what some people think or not.
Something DimonSpa uses.

Yeah, and his teams were top 100 lists instead of all star teams, some of them having 4-5 defenders in the first team because it's often easier to rate midfielders and forwards higher than defenders. He's definitely not the best example when it comes to the structure of the all star teams in this forum.

It was just an example, I didn´t say was perfect, as you can read I put this formula should be orderer by other aspects like tactics.

I gave Brazil and Argentina as examples. Even if I agree with your statement, those two should have the same criteria. It is stupid when someone gives a player suggestion just to hear "oh, but the other player was more important for the team, so you can't touch him", while a lot of player decisions was based on pure quality and not importance for the team. On the same topic as Edinho, I can easily suggest Thiago Silva over him, as he is an even better player, one of the best defenders of his generation, and has more WC appearances and A LOT more caps than Edinho.

well, i'm brazilian and i think brazil all stars is perfect, those players were iconic and eternal in their positions, i consider in my part, the players from 2010 until today, a failure in the national team, thiago silva can even be a better player, but he never showed me that in Brazil, so I think the Brazilian all stars team is perfect.