CIES Dream Team for 2015 has no place for Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Suarez or Neymar
The CIES (International Centre for Sports Studies) Football Observatory released their dream team for 2015 on their website and it has some surprising inclusions and exclusions. Among the players in the list, two of the final three FIFA Ballon d’Or nominees are not on the list. Five players from the Premier League make the list, including three from Arsenal. Barcelona’s treble-winning team has only two players on this team.
Criteria for selection
The team is based purely on individual statistics of players in Europe’s top five leagues only – The English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga and French Ligue 1. The stats are collected from 1 January 2015 to date.
The players are picked according to a 4-2-3-1 formation and the outfield players are spread among two centre-backs, two full-backs, central midfielders, attacking midfielders and forwards. A player can be selected only if he has played the equivalent of 25 games in the league – i.e. 2,250 minutes.
According to the site the players are picked based on six different aspects of their performances over the year – shooting, distribution, interceptions, take-ons, chances created and their ability to duel with opponents to win the ball and deny them chances to create or score.
CIES Team of the Year for 2015
Bayern Munich goalkeeper Manuel Neuer makes the team, as he almost always does when such teams are announced. In defence, Barcelona’s Dani Alves and Arsenal’s Nacho Monreal were selected as the full-backs while PSG’s Thiago Silva and Juventus’s Giorgio Chiellini were named the centre-backs.
In central midfield, Borussia Dortmund's Ilkay Gundagon is the only other Bundesliga player to make the team and he was paired alongside Arsenal’s Santi Cazorla. The attacking midfield spot went to the player with 101 assists since August 2008, Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil. The German playmaker has already made 15 assists in the first five months of this season alone.
The attacking midfielders on either side of Ozil are Kevin De Bruyne, for his performances with both Wolfsburg and Manchester City, and Chelsea’s Eden Hazard, last season’s PFA Player of the Year. The forward up front is none other than Lionel Messi who was instrumental in Barcelona winning five trophies in the calendar year, including his second treble with the club in the 2014/15 season.
Players such as Real Madrid forwards Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale and Barcelona forwards Luis Suarez and Neymar also missed out. Both Neymar and Ronaldo are in the running for the Ballon d’Or trophy in January. According to the report, Suarez finished second in the position for forward, followed by Neymar, Ronaldo and Bale.
A number of world-class players missed out since they did not satisfy the minimum minutes criteria due to injuries. Players such as PSG’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Luiz – both of whom won all domestic trophies in France – Manchester City’s Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero, Bayern Munich’s Jerome Boateng and David Alaba and Barcelona’s Jordi Alba all missed out.
According to the report, if each position had a Ballon d’Or award, they would go to Thiago Silva (CB), Dani Alves (FB), Ilkay Gundogan (CDM), Santi Cazorla (CM), Mesut Ozil (CAM) and Lionel Messi (FW).
CIES U-23 Team of the Year for 2015
The CIES also announced an U-23 team of the year for 2015. The players named are:
Goalkeeper: Loris Karius (Mainz)
Defence: Hector Bellerin (Arsenal), Samuel Umtiti (Lyon), Raphael Varane (Real Madrid), Wendell (Bayer Leverkusen)
Midfield: Corentin Tolisso (Lyon), Paul Pogba (Juventus); Bernardo Silva (AS Monaco), Ross Barkley (Everton), Felipe Anderson (Lazio)
Forward: Paulo Dybala (Juventus)