Gabriele Marcotti

You couldn't say the same thing about the defenders of Frank's time.

The best of the best at that level and back in those days seem to have distanced themselves from the best right now.

Next question.

Yeah, go ahead.

I think it's also telling that, you know, we can conclude that Brazil and Gabriel and Marquinhos, if you want to say they have the best centre-back pairing in the world, it's also pretty telling that neither of those two is the best centre-back on their club team.

Because I think most people would take Saliba and Pacho ahead of those two respectively.

So I think that's a very, very valid point that Ali's making there as well.

In terms of the dominant defender who's in that role, maybe you could have put Van Dijk up there until recently.

But yeah, there's sort of a vacuum for somebody to step into right now.

Next question, what's the biggest penalty shootout you were ever a part of?

It's the one that stands out, though, Frank.

2011 Copa America semi-final against Paraguay and Gab's friend Ortigoza.

Good lord, I hated that guy.

In any case, and he scored a penalty, I believe, in that penalty kick shootout.

uh we lost the semifinals in copa america 2011 in penalties against paraguay and it's actually one of the things that bothers me the most if i look back in my career which i don't do often but if i were when i sat back i've already been taken out of the game by then but there was a thought as the game was going into penalties i wanted to go and tell our coach hey if we go to penalties

Our second goalkeeper, he's longer and was really good at penalty kicks.

And I knew this because we would take penalty kicks against both the starter and the second goalkeeper.

And I hesitated in making that decision.

And I always looked back, and it wasn't my job to make that decision, but I always, that at least I should have floated the idea.

then maybe we go with this guy, this guy is more difficult to score against in penalties.