Once you’ve picked a legend from Italy, Spain, Brazil, Ireland, Belgium, France, Portugal, Germany and the Netherlands - the options become slightly more limited as we look to complete our XI of footballing legends and their modern day FM counterparts. Knowing we need a more defensive player to complete our squad, it was hard to settle on a player and country worthy of replication as part of this series; that is until one man popped up who in addition to being the most-capped player of all time for his country, was simultaneously one of the most influential Defenders and Defensive Midfielders in European and World football - as well as playing for West Ham…
The rules are simple - any modern-day replica identified must be of the same nationality as the legend at hand, and must be aged 23 or under in order to qualify and earn the mantle as the next big thing. Having won 2 Champions Leagues, 5 La Liga titles and been capped 147 times for Argentina including reaching the World Cup final in 2014 - who would covet the unenviable task of being dubbed the next Javier Mascherano in Football Manager 2021?
by MaddFM.
When Javier Mascherano arrived at West Ham as part of a somewhat controversial or shady deal which saw he and Carlos Tevez move to The Hammers amid rumours of third party involvement in terms of ownership of their registration as well as alleged interest in buying out West Ham. After an unsuccessful spell at the then Upton Park, Mascherano completed a £20m move to Liverpool and it was from here that his career began to flourish on the international stage - two seasons later he was a first team regular at Barcelona winning the League and Champions League double, and he became a key part of the Pep Guardiola reign at the Catalan giants initially playing as a Defensive Midfielder before moving back to partner Gerard Pique at Centre Half.
What made Javier Mascherano such an influential player was his unrivalled positional play and sheer ferociousness and excellence in the tackle. Tenacious, fierce, aggressive - Mascherano had that unique ability to cover large areas of ground, read the game perfectly and always put himself in the right place at the right time which was one of the catalysts in Barcelona’s period of dominance between 2011 and 2018. In Football Manager terms, Mascherano typified the Anchor Man role before reverting to Centre Back and based on this we will try to emulate Mascherano’s combined defensive and positional ability by winding back the clock to 2015 in order to see his key attributes and guide us towards finding his modern day counterpart.
Rewind ⏪
You’ve just lost a World Cup Final, but can take solace in the fact that you are about to win your third La Liga title in a double-winning season for Barcelona. Quite simply, FM15 Javier Mascherano was Defensive royalty. Aggression, Tackling, Determination, Positioning, Bravery, Work Rate, Stamina, Marking - too many to even mention, however these are what will form the basis of our search as we load up FM21 to try and replicate Mascherano’s key attributes and playing style to identify his modern day replica.
🔍 Tackling
🔍 Aggression
🔍 Anticipation
🔍 Bravery
🔍 Work Rate
🔍 Marking
🔍 Argentinian
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You might be asking yourself - who? At the beginning of FM21 Nehuén Perez is a 20-year-old Central Defender on loan at high-flying Granada from Atletico Madrid, and although not yet capped for Argentina has been included in multiple friendly squads and is very much knocking on the door of the international fold as well as starting to show enough quality to be in with a shout of first team football at his home club next season. Other candidates included the likes of Marcos Senesi, Santiago Ascacibar, Ezequel Palacious and Cristian Romero however when we look at raw defensive ability and potential it’s Perez that is the most exciting option to fill Mascherano’s shoes for both club and country. With Stefan Savic reaching the latter years of his prime, Perez has the opportunity to stake a claim for a full-time position at the heart of Diego Simeone’s defence and when looking at his attributes in FM21 one can clearly see the likeness with Mascherano particularly looking at his Mental attributes as well as is Physical and Defensive ability - with a bit of retraining he would be a quality option in Defence or Defensive Midfield, and for this reason he receives the #WeStreamFM seal of approval as the next Javier Mascherano in FM21. Watch this space!
Thanks for reading especially those who have been following and enjoying this segment all along, that’s our series complete for now however next week we will do a full recap on our Legends XI and how they compare to their “Dubbed the Next” cohort of modern-day replicas.
Cheers,
Interested in writing a Guest Author piece for WeStreamFM? Drop us a DM or feel free to reach out to MaddFM directly.
