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As 2014 draws to a close, we at Row Zed decided to reflect on the footballing year, honouring those that have decided to call it a day and hang up their boots in the last 12 months.

What better way to do that than to put them back in the starting line-up Football Manager-esque style?

Every member of our star-studded XI are now doing other jobs. Ryan Giggs and Clarence Seedorf are plying their trade in the management game, whereas the great Thierry Henry will try his hand at punditry after signing for Sky.

But even though they are all getting on a bit, how good does this team look?

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It gets better. In typical Row Zed fashion, we have gone a bit further and delved into this hypothetical side's stats. Just look at these insane numbers:

The Retired XI in numbers 6120 Combined number of professional appearances 1028 Combined number of goals

To be fair, a one in five goal return for an entire side isn't bad... Mario Balotelli would snap your hand off if you offered him that right now.

Our side of old timers are not just popular names, they're a successful bunch too. Between our XI former pros they've accumulated 50 domestic cups, 62 league titles and 14 Champions League winners medals.

The most difficult decision was deciding who would wear the captain's armband. In the end, we opted for Italian legend Javier Zanetti at right-back... Puyol was close though.

Javier Zanetti's accolades

Notable mentions go to Clarence Seedorf, who managed to win Europe's elite club competition an incredible four times, and Brazilian Rivaldo who is our only Ballon d'Or winner.

Speaking of Brazilians, Juninho is our resident set piece expert so he'll be the man on the all the dead balls, playing in front of resident hard man Juan Sebastian Veron.

With a combined worth of 857 international caps between them, we've got three World Cup winners amongst our ranks with a couple of Olympic medals thrown in for good measure.

Not bad, eh?