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Today’s MFXI has been penned by William Abbs, author of Saha From The Madding Crowd. For those readers who like to use these lists to piece together the author’s football upbringing, William is a Manchester United supporter who spent his youth in Norwich. But you’ll also find a common thread from a particular World Cup. See if you can guess which one.

Previous Favourite XI: Rob Langham
Next Favourite XI: Liam Blackburn

Goalkeeper: Peter Schmeichel

Euro ’92 is a tournament that few people in this country remember very fondly, or indeed remember at all. However, after Italia ’90 had done the groundwork and the 1991 Cup Winners’ Cup final had given me a team to support, it was Denmark’s unlikely triumph that summer that truly cemented my love of football. Schmeichel saved a Marco van Basten penalty against the Netherlands in the semi-final shootout but, being the age I was at the time, it was the multi-coloured jersey with the hexagonal pattern he wore in the final that left the greater impression.

Right Back: Lilian Thuram

Another player who makes it into my eleven in no small part thanks to his performance at a major tournament, Thuram was capped 142 times by France and scored his only two goals at international level in the same game – 22 minutes apart. The match was the 1998 World Cup semi-final between Les Bleus and Croatia. It was the then Parma defender who played Davor Šuker onside for the opening goal, only to make up for his error seconds later by collecting a Youri Djorkaeff pass in the area to finish, and then scoring with a sublime left-footed shot midway through the second half to put France in front and into the final.

Centre Back: David Rennie

“Who?” you might quite legitimately ask. This Scottish defender (never capped, I should add) played for Leicester City and Leeds United at the beginning of his career but it was during his time at Coventry City that he earned my lasting affection. One of the last professional footballers in Britain to sport an unironic moustache, Rennie’s grinning face bedecked the last sticker I needed to complete my first Merlin collection. The sticker’s owner, once I eventually tracked him down in the playground, was the lucky recipient of every swap I had left – including a great many ‘shinies,’ or ‘glitters’ if you prefer. [Definitely shinies - Ed]

Centre Back: Alessandro Nesta

With all due respect to Rennie, with him in the side I’m going to need a pretty special player to partner him at the back. Step forward Alessandro Nesta, still turning out for Serie A leaders Milan at the age of 35, and the very picture of what an Italian defender should be. Blessed with the ability to defend without getting his knees dirty, the two-time Champions League winner and member of the Italy side that won the World Cup in 2006 has been playing at the top level for eighteen years. With his olive skin and dark hair, injury-prone Nesta was, in his younger days, in a certain light…no, let’s not go there.

Left Back: Denis Irwin

Put the description ‘reliable full back’ into Google and you should see a picture of Irwin. (You don’t – I checked – but you should.) Seemingly never at fault, Irwin would just quietly get on with patrolling his flank, occasionally straying upfield in order to dispatch a disarmingly vicious free-kick. The Republic of Ireland international played at a World Cup, and won seven Premier League titles and two European trophies with Manchester United, yet never lost the unassuming look of a man to whom you could probably go to discuss a financial problem or share a sensitive family matter.

Right Wing: Andrei Kanchelskis

Another United player, but one whose unique way of dribbling completely enchanted me as a schoolboy. Kanchelskis would not so much run with the ball as skip in tune with it, and had a habit of holding his palms out by his sides while he did so that was obviously for balance but made it look like he was preparing to receive some sort of religious sacrament. It took me five painful years to figure out that I was never going to be able to ape the winger’s style. One fact perhaps overlooked in Kanchelskis’ career is that he scored an impressive 30 goals across two seasons for United and Everton, the club he joined in 1995 after falling out with Alex Ferguson.

Central Midfield: Edgar Davids

This side is starting to look a bit soft and so, to add some bite, who better than the Pitbull? Rivalled perhaps only by Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira for his position as European football’s most intimidating midfielder around the turn of the millennium, Davids even managed to strike fear into many television viewers over the summer with his performance as a studio pundit for ITV. The network’s tempting of cuddly Adrian Chiles from the BBC might well have been a calculated move designed to neutralise the menace the former Ajax, Milan, and Juventus man could convey with a simple assessment of Uruguay’s chances of progressing to the final.

Central Midfield: Paul Scholes

Also adding tough tackling to this team, albeit in a rather more haphazard way, is the man they call the Ginger Pelé. Had he had the looks of David Beckham or half his former teammate’s sense of comfort with the media, there is no question that Scholes’ range of passing and scoring record would have earned him plaudits beyond the glowing references of fellow professionals and broadsheet journalists. It’s incredible that he quit the England side as long ago as 2004. His style has changed completely as he has grown older and slower, but there’s still not a player in the Premier League who can control and turn in one movement quite like Scholes can.

Left Wing: Ruel Fox

The Arjen Robben directive states that every top side should have a left-footed winger playing on the right, or vice versa, and the naturally right-sided Fox is the man for the job in this outfit. The diminutive player was part of the Norwich City side that topped the Premier League for a significant proportion of the 1992/93 season and, even though he later brought his old-fashioned wing play to the more glamorous settings of Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur, Fox’s best years were at Carrow Road. In truth, Fox’s time in the sun was as fleeting as Norwich’s, but during that brief period between taking Dale Gordon’s place in the Canaries’ starting eleven and losing his spot at Newcastle to David Ginola, he was one of the most feared wide men in the country.

Striker: Romário

When he wasn’t painting unflattering pictures of his enemies on the toilet doors of his nightclub, Romário was scoring goals for Brazil, Barcelona, PSV, and a host of other clubs. Lots of goals. Whether or not his debatable tally of over 1000 career strikes was augmented by those scored on games consoles, the 1994 World Cup winner was very possibly the best striker in the world around the time he was averaging a goal a game in the Eredivisie and then La Liga. Romário had a way of putting the ball into the net with the outside of his boot that, like Kanchelskis’ dribbling gait, I could never quite pull off no matter how hard I tried.

Striker: Eric Cantona

He’s not a footballer, he is Cantona. Maybe it’s impossible for anyone who isn’t a Manchester United fan to understand quite how inspirational a figure the Frenchman was and indeed still is, but in a relatively short period of time – Cristiano Ronaldo spent longer at Old Trafford and never got near the same level of adulation – Cantona not only bought into the mystique that already existed around the club but made his own contribution to it. Playing with a swagger but prone to self-sabotage, capable of breathtaking arrogance yet exuding undeniable charisma with it, if any player embodies the divisive nature of the Manchester United of the Premier League era it is Eric. (Oh, and that bit he said about the seagulls: it was a pretty straightforward metaphor. Stop pretending not to understand it.)

Substitutes:

Bryan Gunn

A legendary figure in Norwich both to the football club and within the local community, Gunn played alongside Fox in the Canaries side that beat Bayern Munich in 1993 and briefly managed the team in 2009. What’s more, he has raised funds tirelessly for leukaemia research ever since the death of his daughter Francesca from the disease and, in recognition of his contribution to the city, spent a year as sheriff of Norwich in 2002.

Laurent Blanc

His best years were behind him by the time Ferguson signed Blanc as a stopgap replacement for Jaap Stam in 2001. The Scot admitted that not buying the Frenchman earlier on in his illustrious career was one of his biggest regrets. Depending on when Ferguson steps down at Old Trafford and how Blanc performs as the coach of France, the former centre back could yet return to Manchester as manager.

Roy Keane

He would’ve signed for Blackburn had it not been for the personal intervention of Ferguson, and thank goodness the Irishman changed his mind. United spent years wondering how they were ever going to replace Keane once serious injury threatened his long-term presence in the side, until they realised they never could. The four-year gap between league titles, from 2003 to 2007, had a lot to do with Keane’s decline and exit, and the acclimatisation to life without his leadership.

Zinedine Zidane

It says a lot about Zidane that, for all the wondrous feats he pulled off on the pitch, I have no idea what he sounds like. His head-butt in the 2006 World Cup final was a sad image on which to end his career – not least because France lost the subsequent penalty shootout following Zidane’s departure from the action – when it is the footage of the volley he scored against Bayer Leverkusen in the 2002 Champions League final for which he should be remembered.

Gabriel Batistuta

For many a man of my age, weekends in the 1990s were synonymous with Football Italia on Channel 4. In the days when Sky would show just one live game on Sunday afternoons, it was possible to watch a Serie A match over roast beef then switch channels at 4pm for the Premier League affair. Batistuta was Fiorentina’s main man up front at the time, a lethal long-haired finisher clad in violet. Very, very cool.

Tags: Alessandro Nesta, Andrei Kanchelskis, Bryan Gunn, David Rennie, Denis Irwin, Edgar Davids, Eric Cantona, Gabriel Batistuta, Laurent Blanc, Lilian Thuram, Paul Scholes, Peter Schmeichel, Romario, Roy Keane, Ruel Fox, Zinedine Zidane