Coach: Nuno ESPÍRITO SANTO




GOALKEEPERS:

Steve MANDANDA
NENO


DEFENDERS:

Samuel UMTITI
Marcel DESAILLY
Patrice EVRA
Basile BOLI
VICENTE
William AYACHE
Marcel SALVA
HILÁRIO


MIDFIELDERS:

Patrick VIEIRA
Jean TIGANA
Claude MAKÉLÉLÉ
Mário COLUNA
OCEANO
SHÉU


STRIKERS:

EUSÉBIO
MATATEU
Rui JORDÃO
YAÚCA
JACINTO JOÃO
Emmanuel AZNAR
Bill PERRY


________________________________________


RESERVES:


GOALKEEPERS:

Nuno ESPÍRITO SANTO
Yvon MVOGO


DEFENDERS:

Abdelkader BEN BOUALI
HÉLDER
Fernando FREITAS
Jean-Alain BOUMSONG
Carlos ALHINHO
Mapou YANGA-MBIWA
Johan DJOUROU
Abel XAVIER
RUI RODRIGUES
Jean-Pierre ADAMS
José BOSINGWA


MIDFIELDERS:

Émile ZERMANI
Omar SAHNOUN
William CARVALHO
Mário TORRES
JOSÉ MARIA
Gelson FERNANDES
Olivier KAPO
George BOATENG
DANILO Pereira
Ibrahim BA
Colin VILJOEN


STRIKERS:

Gerald ASAMOAH
Christian BENTEKE
EDER
Collins JOHN
Emmanuel OLISADEBE
Mbo MPENZA
Blaise NKUFO
Peguy LUYINDULA
Amara SIMBA
Breel EMBOLO
Joaquim DINIS
Gelson MARTINS

Small mistake. Hilario still has portuguese flag here.

So the key here is: African players of african ethnicity that played for European teams and beyond?

Yep, only players that played for or were called up to the national team, and were born and have ethnic roots in Africa. Because there were quite a lot of guys like Just Fontaine, Gentile and Christian Lopez that we’re born in North Africa but have no connections to Africa otherwise. I wanted to keep it somewhat limited which is why you see a quite large drop off in quality in the reserves.

Also, special shoutout to Rio Mavuba, who was born on a boat off the coast of Angola and therefore has “born at sea” on his birth certificate

I'd personally replace Hilário for Evra, because if you are gonna play 4-3-1-2, you'll need energetic SBs that can go up and down constantly to provide an passing option that Hilário wouldn't simply make due to his more conservative defensive style.

Any defensive "deficiency" that Evra had, he can cover it with his pace and stamina + Vieira and Makélélé can effectively stay deep to provide defensive cover on the left flank.

Edit: You can add in your formation: Desailly and Vieira to go up at freekicks and corners.

What about José Aguas and Costa Pereira? After all they both spent at least 20 years of their life in Africa. Or did they miss out because they come from families with a colonial background?
Btw, now as I think about it, Emmanuel Aznar, Abdelkader Ben Bouali, Mario Zatelli, Émile Zermani and Jean Bastien could all be considered here.
And I wouldn't replace Hilario with Evra here, Hilario certainly wasn't inferior to Evra.

Eh, I mean even the top teams rarely use two attacking full backs and Ayache is already quite attacking, think of Abidal at Barcelona. Plus Vieira has Box to Box and Marauding cards, and high green AGG, so he’ll be pushing forward a lot. There’s so much stamina in that midfield that they can probably dominate the entire middle third of the pitch while still providing plenty of support in both the first third and final third.

Also IMO Hilário is just better than Evra, even in game (Hilário is always amazing for me, even though his stats aren’t extraordinary or anything).

Yes, I didn’t count Aguas and Costa Pereira because their background is strictly Portuguese, they were African by birth only.

I missed Aznar, Ben Bouali and Zermani but were Bastien and Zatelli of African descent? I think Zatelli was an Italian who was born in Algeria and it’s hard to tell with Bastien. I used Transfermarkt to make this so I’m sure they’ve missed a few, their records have a few mistakes (listing Nani’s place of birth as Cape Verde, and listing Bamako as part of France, therefore putting Tigana’s country of birth as France).

I also left out the players that played for the FLN team like Zitouni and Ben Tifour.

Larbi Benbarek and Just Fontaine were born in Morocco and played for France. Another name is Camavinga, he was born in Angola, but I don't know if these players have the parameters to be on the team.

I didn't add Ben Barek because he played for the Morocco national team (or a version of it anyway). Fontaine doesn't have any African ancestry, that's why he isn't here or some others like Gentile or Aguas. Camavinga can be added and since I made this team there's a few others that qualify now too: Brice Samba, Marc Guehi, Alphonso Davies, Almoez Ali, Amadou Onana for example.

I didn't know that Larbi Benbarek was played for Morocco, sorry for the wrong suggestion. Now I understood the purpose of the list. Thanks for the explanation.