The saga continues - we visit another country and another undisputed world footballing icon as we look to Football Manager to help us emulate and replicate a former World Cup, European Championship, Ballon d’Or, UEFA Cup and multiple domestic title winner. If you don’t know or respect the name already - you will.
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. Are we confident that we can somehow piece together the key attributes to find ourselves the next Lothar Matthaus? One man is..
by @FMDoop
"A Lothar Matthaus will not be defeated by his body, a Lothar Matthaus will decide his fate himself."
A quote from the man himself.
It’s very rare to see a player’s trophy cabinet house eight league titles from 2 different top-flight nations, a World Cup, a European championship and a Ballon d'Or. In today’s Dubbed the Next episode, we are taking a look at Germany’s most capped player who was once labelled by Diego Maradona as “The best rival I’ve ever had.” Can we find a player that can come close to being as good as one of the most complete defensive midfielders of all time?
Lothar had great vision paired with a great range of passing. He possessed amazing positional sense, a tendency to perform well-timed tackles, as well as a powerful shot in his armoury. During his career, he usually played as a box-to-box midfielder, although late in his career he dropped back and played as a sweeper. Oh, how I miss the FM14 game when you could last play a sweeper. All in all, you can see why he almost won everything the game has to offer. Apart from a Champions League; Matthaus was famously minutes away from collecting a winner’s medal until Teddy and Ole ended those hopes and dreams. Sorry, Lothar, as a Manchester United fan I had to mention it.
Matthaus clocked up 596 club senior apps in 21 years. During that time he had two stints at Bayern Munich and a great 4-year spell at Inter Milan. As much as his club career was a huge success, Matthaus was able to Captain his country to a World Cup win in 1990 as well as being part of the Euro 1980 win. Following the 1990 World cup win, Matthaus was awarded a Ballon d’Or. With the great catalogue of German defensive midfielders at the time, Matthaus had the capability to move between the roles of Sweeper and Holding Midfielder and this was key to the amount of games he played at the top level.
So now we have had an introduction to Lothar Matthaus. Let us have a look at what he was like in Football Manager/ Championship manager and therefore try to identify a player who can fill his very very big boots.
Rewind ⏪
We are heading back to the wonderful Championship Manager 2, where we find a 35-year-old Lothar Matthaus described as a Sweeper/Defensive Midfielder. To be honest at the age of 35 he isn’t in his prime, however with the attributes of Determination, Tackling, Positioning all at 19/20, his Aggression, Marking, Technique and Passing all around 15/16 - it is safe to say he is still one hell of a player and his quality is clearly illustrated. With that in mind, we take to Football Manager 2021 using Matthaus’ key strengths to find his modern-day replica and hopefully again stamp the #WeStreamFM seal of approval in our Dubbed the Next series.
🔍 Tackling
🔍 Positioning
🔍 Passing
🔍 Marking
🔍 Technique
🔍 German
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Right, hear me out here. Yes, I have bigged up one hell of a midfielder. But Nnamdi Collins has the potential to be a world-class defensive midfielder. I have shown you two screenshots - one at Age 16 then one at Age 23 where he has since moved on to Tottenham in-game and is now valued at £61 million. At this age with a little bit of position retaining (if only someone had written a blog on how to do that - ah yes, footballmanager.com/the-byline/retraining-players-success-fm21), he is well on his way towards becoming the next Matthaus, a player that could hold that Sweeper/Defender role as well as a DM role for both club and country. He may lack the same aggression as Matthaus but of course he’s only a young lad and he excels in all the other areas we would require. Also, physically Collins is an absolute beast with a lovely turn of pace. With lower leadership and teamwork, he would need some work to become a good captain but that of course is down to a bit of good man management. Additionally, the fact he can play all across the back means he has Matthaus’ versatility also - highly valuable in Football Manager .
There were others who came close. Werder Bremen’s Maximilian Eggstein looks like he has potential on paper but is slightly lacking in the more defensive areas in terms of attributes. PSG’s Thilo Kehrer is always a safe and solid bet for an all-round Defender/Defensive Midfielder however his Positioning and Leadership put him some way behind aspiring to Matthaus’ greatness. Suat Serdar gave us a very difficult decision, however his potential to be a World Class player is definitely more limited therefore we put all our eggs in the Nnamdi Collins basket in the hope that he will go on to do great things as did his legendary predecessor.
With an early pick up in-game and a bit of development by the manager, I can really see Collins making a huge impact in German football. He already has great defensive attributes alongside his good passing and technique and still has plenty of time to grow into a star. Therefore, he gets the #WeStreamFM seal of approval and is officially dubbed the “next” Lothar Matthaus.
Thanks for reading.
Love Doop.
You can catch Doop live on Twitch most days where he is currently doing an Achievement Hunter challenge and doing bits at Red Star Paris, as well as every Monday on 5* Potential, your weekly Football Manager podcast.
