The team is taking shape thanks to your votes, we have a goalkeeper, a back 4 and now a right sided midfielder. Now let’s see some left field nominations.

With that terrible pun out of the way, here are the stories behind the men

Ali Benarbia

Benarbia is part of Monaco’s mighty squad at the start of 97/98. It’s a team filled with talent and he’s in direct competition with John Collins for the left midfield role. Did anybody ever question why John Collins was at Monaco? Anyway, in a team with Henry, Trezeguet, Djetou, Legwinski and more, it was hard to make an impression but Benarbia managed it. Constantly averaging over 7, Benarbia could also play down the right so he was a very useful man to have around.

Andrey Demtsjenko

This young Russian starts starts out at Ajax but has unbelievable potential. Surrounded by great players (the Ajax squad really is incredible) you can allow this young talent to flourish, and before long his potential ability means he is attracting interest from Europe’s finest. Martyn Oakley has this to say:

Little known Ajax youth player who would either be world class or very average whenever you loaded a new game. On the occasions he was world class he was a must have player.

Darren Eadie

Back in 1997 Eadie was deemeed a huge prospect for Norwich City and England. It is a little known fact that Eadie was in the England squad for “Le Tournoi de France” which was a warm-up for the World Cup the following Summer. As was typical of Eadie’s career though, injury forced him to pull out and he had to settle for Under 21 Caps and a career of what-ifs. Fortunately for fans of Eadie, the game was kind on the injury prone stat and his brief flirtation with the England squad made him a hot property with huge potential, starting the game at First Division Norwich and invariably seeing him get signed up by a Premier League club or Rangers. Indeed in the current save he’s at Man Utd. Once you had him in, he was a constant performer and would get England caps – but does he make your team?

Bjarne Goldbaek

CM 97/98 loves a good Scandanavian and Goldbaek was one of the beneficiaries. An AM who could play all across the midfield. As he starts at FC Copenhagen, he’s quite attainable for a Premier League club and not all that pricey, as Chelsea discovered in real life when they bought him, albeit they exchanged Brian Laudrup for him, which was a downgrade no matter how you look at it.

Rivaldo

Ah, Rivaldo. Now, given who he is up against, you would expect Rivaldo to win easily. And you might be right, but this is CM so allow me to tell you why Rivaldo is great. An attacking midfielder Left/Centre, for me I always had him on the left with Pep and De La Pena in the middle, and Figo down the right. You can’t get upset with that midfield. If I played my wingbacks formation Rivaldo could play in the middle as the attacking option, but his creative stats were something else, not to mention he took a mean set piece. CM definitely got this one right, as even on 96/97 he was unbelievable for Deportivo, and of course he was outstanding in the real world. But is he better than Darren Eadie?