Best of the Rest - World Cup Squad

[Great Birtannia]

Ok, so I'm sitting here bored and have decided to piece together a squad of players whose countries choked in the qualifiers *cough* Nigeria *cough* and those that didn't stand a chance e.g. Wales

Only one player per country is allowed in the 23 man squad. I have come up with the following team:


Shay Given (Newcastle, Republic of Ireland)

Carlos Diogo (Real Madrid, Uruguay)
Ivan Cordoba (Inter, Colombia)
Juan Manuel Pena (Villarreal, Bolivia)
Christian Chivu (Roma, Romania)

Aliaksander Hleb (Arsenal, Belarus)
Mahamadou Diarra (Lyon, Mali)
Thomas Gravesen (Real Madrid, Denmark)
Ryan Giggs (Manchester United, Wales)

Samuel Eto’o (Barcelona, Cameroon)
Sanli Tuncay (Fenerbache, Turkey)

Subs:

Jussi Jääskeläinen (Bolton, Finland)
Igor Akinfeev (CSKA Moscow, Russia)
Kakha Kaladze (AC Milan, Georgia)
Vincent Kompany (Anderlecht, Belgium)
Papa Bouba Diop (Fulham, Senegal)
Giorgos Karagounis (Benfica, Greece)
Morten Gamst Pedersen (Blackburn, Norway)
Yossi Benayoun (West Ham, Israel)
Eidur Gudjohnsen (Chelsea, Iceland)
Mido (Tottenham, Egypt)
Obafemi Martins (Inter, Nigeria)
Dimitar Berbatov (Leverkusen, Bulgaria)

It's a pretty handy little squad. Eto'o is probably the only genuine world class player but geez there is a fair bit of quality there. How far could my little squad go?

[aussie]

very strong indeed, could we have a 33rd side in the WC

[Craig]

I always thought Diogo was a midfieler?

[age_master]

indeed not a bad squad at all

[luckyeddie]

Well, seeing as there are two threads started by the same guy almost worded identically and covering precisely the same subject - and started six minutes apart (obviously becoming a Derbyshire supporter - "wick in t' ead"), even though it's a few years too late I should like to nominate one or the other of the Andy Gorams.