Building PSG's Perfect Ligue 1 Footballer

Even before they got rich enough to casually splash the GDP of a small country on Neymar, Paris Saint-Germain were renowned among the football hipster community for hosting some of the sport's most intriguing talents.

While Les Parisiens winning the league every year might be boring by now, the players that they're equipped with are anything but, boasting more collective flair than your average episode of Wayne Rooney's Street Striker.

Imagine, if you will, a Frankenstein's footballer who combined the very best of PSG's very best... it would certainly terrify the likes of Amiens and Strasbourg (and might even help PSG hold onto a 4-0 aggregate lead...).

90min have taken to the laboratory to piece together this perfect PSG player (no, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, it is not safe to do this in real life), and the results were glorious...

Head: Zlatan Ibrahimović

The 6'5 Ibrahimović is so good with anything airborne that he can stick his feet where quite a few players can't actually stick their head.

But the big Swede's swede remains one of the most potent weapons in world football, with the shy and retiring striker having scored so many goals by simply rising at the back post and thumping a header home.

Of course, Ibrahimović's head was only the tip of the iceberg, and the man who could find a way to score with all four limbs tied behind his back surely had more in his locker than 99% of footballers ever to exist.

Brain: Ronaldinho

He stayed in Paris for no more than two seasons before doing a reverse Neymar and deciding the grass was greener in Spain, but it would be rude not to give our perfect footballer the brain of this Brazilian genius.

His goal against Guingamp in 2003, chosen as Ligue 1's Goal of the Season, shows the freakish speed of thought which went with his footwork, his initial one-two taking out three defenders before he shows excellent presence of mind at high speed by electing to chip the ball across the keeper.

Eyes: Marco Verratti

We absolutely need to borrow the eyes of the man who kept PSG ticking since 2012 (even if a couple of unhelpful red cards were sprinkled in here and there).

Bus-parkers beware, the Italian's precision from deep positions will unlock even the most miserly of defences, while his ability to evade pressure against more aggressive teams and free up wide players makes him such a versatile midfield weapon.

You still feel as though Verratti is waiting for that statement Champions League performance in his career which will stop 15-year-olds calling him a 'fraud' on Twitter, but the mini metronome is one of the standout reasons to tune into the latest crushing PSG victory on a Sunday evening.

Lungs: Edinson Cavani

While PSG are lucky enough to be able say that Cavani might not even be one of the five most talented strikers they've ever signed, you'd struggle to find one that works harder than the Uruguayan.

In England, Cavani seems to have gained a widespread reputation as a donkey exclusively off the back of one game against Arsenal (where he actually scored!), but it is his donkey work that has made him such a beloved figure in Paris.

A team where so many mercurial attacking talents have passed through needs one guy who is happy to muck in, do defensive work and drag the opposition all over the shop, and Cavani's insistence on relentlessly running anywhere and everywhere for his team makes it a lot easier for the freewheeling attackers to do their thing.

Body: Thiago Silva

It was difficult not to borrow the brain of the man that Franco Baresi labelled his 'heir', but also, in fairness, he can't complain when it's Ronaldinho that we're talking about.

Instead, it's only right to pay tribute to the sheer brute force of the man who refused to let a six-month battle with tuberculosis at the start of his career stop him from becoming one of the greatest defenders of his generation.

Thiago Silva isn't the tallest centre-back you'll ever see, but when attackers bounce off him they travel pretty far, to say nothing of how many forwards have come off second best against him in the air.

Indeed, his success can be explained through a pretty simple equation: Positioning + a huge leap + the strength of an ox = a tough day at the office for Ligue 1 forwards.

Left Foot: Ángel Di María

Yet another player who is largely overlooked by English fans, seemingly due to his failure to thrive in a Manchester United side that lost 4-0 to MK Dons that season.

The only thing this man hates more than Old Trafford is doing literally anything with his right foot, and in fairness, why would you when your left has time and time again been a trusty servant of the greats, from Cristiano Ronaldo, to Lionel Messi, to Kylian Mbappé.

As well as possessing a real can opener of a chipped through-ball from deep positions, Di Maria often just makes up for his complete lack of a weaker foot by scoring a ridiculous strike with his left instead.

Right Foot: Neymar

One of these days, the football world will be rocked by the revelation that Neymar has been applying superglue to his right boot before every match.

There's just no other explanation for his close control with his stronger peg, which can weave a ball in and out of a packed defence as if the defenders are all cones on the training ground.

His finishing with his stronger foot is a little different to Di Maria's (possibly due to having more than one foot to rely on), eschewing the blood and thunder of the Argentine for composure and placement.

Legs: Kylian Mbappé

Can we just draw PSG against Bayern Munich in the Champions League ASAP so we can see who is nippier out of Mbappé and Alphonso Davies?

The smart money might still be on the young Frenchman, whose 38km/h sprint to win a penalty against Argentina in the 2018 World Cup no doubt regularly appears in Marcos Rojo's nightmares.

Imagine this theoretical footballer whizzing past you with Mbappé's wheels and then scoring a crashing header straight out of Ibra's highlights reel... haven't Ligue 1's defenders suffered enough!?