Cesc Fabregas names an insanely good XI of his greatest team-mates: No Ashley Cole or Xavi…
Cesc Fabregas was a truly wonderful midfielder. Silky, technically gorgeous, a footballing mega brain driving a well-oiled, high-class machine – whether at Arsenal, Barcelona or Chelsea in his prime years.
Fittingly, he’s played alongside many of football’s true greats, winning the World Cup and a couple of European Championships in the process. He was the key to pick the lock of a stubborn defence, and the metronome of some wonderful teams, as well as acting as a makeshift false nine when needed.
Speaking to the Daily Mirror back in 2019, Fabregas chose an XI of the best players he ever played alongside in his career. Here’s who the Spaniard chose as his greatest teammates. It’s one hell of a team.
GK: Iker Casillas
It’s a wild thing to say because he’s one of the most decorated goalkeepers of all time, but Iker Casillas is a slightly controversial choice here. Fabregas has played with Petr Cech, who many consider one of the greatest goalkeepers ever to play the game, and Thibaut Courtois.
But then Cesc did literally win the World Cup and the Euros with Casillas, so we can see why he’s gone with his Spanish teammate. He told Tribune: “When he was at the top of his game he was always doing saves that I’ve not seen many keepers do, especially in key moments.”
RB: Dani Alves
Yeah, well, he was good at football. In fairness to Fabregas, he named this XI long before Alves was arrested.
We’re going to move swiftly on.
CB: John Terry
John Terry is a bastard. He’s the bastard’s bastard. Horrible to play against, great to play with. Fabregas teamed up with Terry at Chelsea, and he had this to say about his old captain, to the Daily Post Nigeria:
“He is the type of player that I had many battles with. I disliked him very much at some point playing for Arsenal, we had a lot of confrontations, but one thing I always had for him was respect.”
Respect is an interesting word to use in a sentence about John Terry… You win two Premier League titles together, you’re going to bond, though, to be fair.
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CB: Gerard Pique
Fabregas and Pique played football together from the age of ten, products of La Masia. Pique says that Arsene Wenger tried to sign himself, Fabregas, and Lionel Messi when they were all very young, but only succeeded in securing Fabregas’s signature before Manchester United swooped in for Pique.
Messi was going nowhere—Barca weren’t that green.
The three childhood friends were reunited at Barcelona later on in their careers, which is nice, isn’t it?
LB: Jordi Alba
Barcelona’s (and now Inter Miami’s) Duracell bunny left-back is the left-back synonymous with tiki-taka and that wonderful Spanish national team, even though the famous World Cup win came just before Alba was involved.
According to Transfermarkt, Alba has assisted 27 Messi goals. You might say that anyone could assist Lionel Messi, but if you’re on the same footballing wavelength as Messi, we reckon you’re doing something right.
RW: Eden Hazard
Cesc played alongside Eden Hazard when the bootylicious Belgian winger was in his prime. For a few seasons before Real Madrid came a-calling, Hazard was untouchable. He would win games by himself, he was direct, he was powerful, and he was lethal.
Fabregas has a lot of time for his ex-Chelsea colleague:
“He can go one-on-one, can also hold the possession of the ball and has a great passing ability.”
You’re not wrong, Cesc. You are not wrong.
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CM: Patrick Vieira
We’d almost forgotten that Vieira and Fabregas overlapped at Arsenal. The 2004-05 season saw the two legendary midfielders partnering each other in the centre of the Gunners’ midfield. Fabregas was playing his first full senior season—a 17-year-old with his career ahead of him, whilst Vieira was still in his prime.
Arsenal lost out on the Premier League title to Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea, but Fabregas gained immeasurable experience from partnering one of the game’s great midfielders for a full season.
The season after the Frenchman left Arsenal for Juventus, the two giants drew each other in the Champions League. On Vieira’s return to Highbury, Cesc gave old Patrick the runaround and scored the opening goal past the great Gigi Buffon. Fabregas was 18.
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CM: Andres Iniesta
A couple of months ago, Fabregas was asked his view on the best midfielder of all time—one of those ‘this or that’ quickfire interviews. He ranked Iniesta higher than the lot of them. In fact, the only players Cesc even showed a hint of hesitation over were Zinedine Zidane, Xavi, Steven Gerrard, and Guti.
Busquets? Nah. Kevin de Bruyne? Nope. Pirlo? No, thank you. Beckham? Get the f*ck out of here. Andres Iniesta is the best midfielder in the history of football, according to Fabregas, and, to be honest, it’s pretty difficult to disagree with him.
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LW: Lionel Messi
As we mentioned earlier, Cesc and Leo are good pals. They go on holiday together, they grew up together in La Masia, and they played together at Barcelona. Fabregas remembers when Messi joined Barca, aged 13, and the first time he faced the Argentinian in training. He told OneFootball:
“He was a very small kid, he didn’t speak, he was very, very shy. The first training session we had with Leo I was playing a bit more of a defensive midfielder. We were doing this exercise of one against one. In my head, I’m thinking ‘I’m going to get the ball easy from him’ because I like to go on the floor and I like to tackle.”
“I saw that he was coming with speed that was not normal, he was coming very very fast at me. I was already shocked because I was already on the floor and he scored the goal. So from that moment I said ‘Hold on a second, we need to take this boy very, very seriously.”
An astute conclusion from the Spaniard, we’d say.
ST: Thierry Henry
We mean, yeah, if you’ve played with Thierry Henry at Arsenal, he’s probably going in your best XI, isn’t he? Here’s what Cesc had to say:
“When I first came to Arsenal in 2003 he was at his peak and I’ve not seen many strikers play or handle defenders like how he used to do it. He was fantastic on his day and for Arsenal he was the hero of the team.”
Fabregas played with some of the best forwards ever. Full stop. But prime Titi was, quite simply, different gravy.
ST: Diego Costa
Cesc Fabregas and Diego Costa just got each other. A proper, old school, telepathic connection between a creative midfielder and a lethal striker. The two directly combined for 16 goals. That doesn’t sound like loads, but the only players Fabregas has more joint goal contributions with in a comparable number of games are Lionel Messi (obviously) and Emmanuel Adebayor.
Having said that, stats can be misleading. Arsenal won every single game in which Fabregas and Jermaine Pennant both player (all nine of them). You can prove anything with numbers.
The Fabregas-Costa connection was for real, though. Two minds working as one. Beautiful.