How many Manchester City players of years gone by would get in Pep Guardiola's gilded team? Some would make a case for the likes of Bell, Summerbee or Lee.
It's probably not necessary to make a case for Georgi Kinkladze. The video footage will do that.
It is more than two decades since the little Georgian painted his unique pictures across the turf at old Maine Road. Such close control, deftness and imagination is the norm at City now. It wasn't back then.
'I am blessed to have come to England and played football,' Kinkladze told Sportsmail this week. 'So I would change nothing. But sometimes I see the way City play and think it would have suited me.
'It is like a team on a PlayStation, isn't it? Silva to Sterling to De Bruyne. Boom, boom, boom.
'If I had the ball now, I could pass it to Aguero without even having to look up. I know it. But every skilful player thinks they could play in this Guardiola team. It's not that easy.
'You would have to play at 100 per cent every game. Even Messi — if he didn't play well — would be on the bench.
'But me? Yeah, I think I would do OK here now even if I wouldn't change anything in my career.
'The most important thing when you play is to hear the fans clap. And when you retire the most important thing is to remember that sound. I remember like it was yesterday.'
In Caught Beneath the Landslide, Tim Rich's new book on City in the 1990s, Noel Gallagher recalls the first day of the 1995 season. Kinkladze was making his debut against Spurs and the Oasis guitarist was sitting next to Terry Venables in the directors' box.
'I thought, "Jesus, this is either the most frightening thing I have ever seen or the best thing I have ever seen",' Gallagher said of Kinkladze.
Nineteen years later, Gallagher's brother Liam was celebrating the 2014 City Premier League title win in the bar of the Hilton Hotel on Deansgate when Kinkladze walked out of the lift.
'First he laughed at my shoes,' smiled Kinkladze. 'Then he kissed me and started to sing the Wonderwall song but with the different words. That was great because it is his song really but also my song and City's song.'
To this day City supporters still sing the Oasis classic rejigged in homage to Kinkladze and his manager, the late Alan Ball. When the 45-year-old is spotted at Sunday's derby against United, we will maybe hear it again.
'All the runs that Kinky makes are winding. And all the goals that City score are blinding. And after all...you're my Alan Ball'.
City fans' enduring love affair with Kinkladze is almost unique. It is rare that a player from such a poor team is remembered so fondly. Many football supporters of that era will recall Kinkladze's mesmerising slalom goal against Southampton in his first season.
'Even United fans stop me and talk about that one,' laughed Kinkladze.
Fewer will recall that in two of his three seasons at the club, City were relegated. By the time he left for Ajax in the summer of 1998, the club were in the third tier.
But maybe that is what makes Kinkladze's story so magical.
When he had the ball at his feet, his unreadable hips swivelling on velvet pivots, there was some order among the chaos.
He said: 'To run and dribble like that was a gift to be honest.
'It was just there. Yeah, I used to practise beating players. Of course I did. But it was instinctive, really.
'Defenders would say they were going to break my legs, but the bigger the defender the better because I could just run past them. I didn't speak any English. At training Alan Ball would just say, "Lads, give it to Gio".
'That was a big responsibility, but I tried my best. Sometimes it worked, not always. After 11 games of season one we had two points.'
Kinkladze arrived in Manchester as a sporting refugee from war-torn Georgia. Brought up by football-mad father Robinzon, he was the star of the all-conquering Dinamo Tbilisi team that was deliberately ripped up by a club president fearing for his players' safety.
'He sent us all on loan to escape the fighting,' nodded Kinkladze.
Try-outs in Germany and Spain came to nothing while a move to Boca Juniors was stymied by Diego Maradona. 'He was near the end of his career, but had come back to Boca and he played in my position,' recalled Kinkladze. 'I looked at him and thought, "This guy is my hero. I can't compete with him for one position". So I went back to Georgia.' After seeing Kinkladze help Georgia beat Wales twice in European Championship qualifiers — the second won by a ridiculous Kinkladze lob over Neville Southall from 20 yards — City chairman Francis Lee paid £2million to bring the 22-year-old to England.
Living in a hotel in Cheshire, Kinkladze became close to Lee and his family. 'He would invite me over and feed me,' said Kinkladze. 'We are still in touch.
'My job was simple. Train and play and try to drive the car on the left side. I was late for training a few times because I couldn't understand the roads.
'There were no English lessons for me so I learned it in the dressing room along with some swear words.
'But everything was high quality at City. Maine Road was good with a great pitch and the atmosphere compared to the new stadium was much better. It was amazing. And the stadium was always full. Even in the lower divisions they came to see us.'
Kinkladze's final act of a debut season in which he contributed five goals was to play in one of the most infamous games of City's history.
Drawing 2-2 at home to Liverpool on the final day of the 95-96 season, a message conveyed to the field suggested a point would be enough to ensure Premier League survival. City took the ball to the corner flag and played out time. But the message had been wrong. City were relegated on goal difference.
'That was so sad, it was horrible,' said Kinkladze. 'Steve Lomas stopped the game in the corner and someone on the pitch said, "Gio, it's OK". But the crowd started shouting. It was too late to react.
'There are 23 years gone but I still have memories of the game. I had come to England to win and this happened instead. The dressing room was like someone had died. I was crying, I think.'
Kinkladze earned good money at Manchester City and spent some of it on a £150,000 Ferrari Testarossa.
'Francis Lee told me not to buy one, but I didn't listen,' he smiled as we talked in the bar of Manchester's Lowry Hotel.
Driving to training along Manchester's Princess Parkway with his friend and team-mate Nicky Summerbee in the car ahead, Kinkladze flipped the Ferrari over. In the car behind was another friend, Paul Ashbee.
'I ran to the car and dragged him away,' recalled Ashbee. 'There was blood everywhere. I thought he was going to die. He had 30 stitches in his back and I remember calling Francis Lee from outside the hospital. That was not a good conversation!
'News at Ten were there and everything. It was a hard time for Gio, that. It frightened him.'
Ashbee is known in Manchester as the man who helped put Oasis together. More importantly to this story is his long-standing friendship with Kinkladze.
A United fan, Ashbee used to wash cars with Liam Gallagher at the training grounds of both Manchester clubs for £10 a time. A few years later, this is how he first met his friend.
'I saw a very shy lad but a special talent,' said Ashbee. 'Back then in Manchester we didn't have a lot. But it was a town coming to life.
'The music scene was still growing, United were starting to smash it and then we had poor old City. Same old.
'But they had this special thing. Gio was some sunshine through their clouds.' Kinkladze has been in Manchester this week visiting his teenage son Saba who lives in Cheshire.
He and Ashbee are also promoting a joint venture importing and exporting Georgian wine and 'chacha', a Georgian brandy. The two men have plans to open a bar in Manchester's Northern Quarter. Its name? Kinky's, of course.
Kinkladze is a shy man and has done few long interviews after retiring following subsequent spells at Ajax, Derby County and Rubin Kazan. He says his English is poor but it isn't.
To this day some of his old City team-mates question his legacy.
Striker Paul Walsh has said Kinkladze was 'the catalyst for City's problems' because Alan Ball indulged him. 'He didn't make enough goals and didn't tackle or head it. His overall contribution was not enough.'
Another forward, the German Uwe Rosler, was more measured when he said: 'Technically he was the best I played with and he made us exciting. People came just to watch him. But he wouldn't get in Guardiola's side because he would not have worked hard enough.'
For his part, Kinkladze is phlegmatic. He insisted this week that he felt only friendship and respect from his team-mates.
'We went out and socialised and had a good time,' he said.
'I don't know what they said outside the club about me but I never felt jealousy or bad things. Maybe a couple of them wanted to play the way I could play, I don't know.
'But I was an attacking footballer so I was always going to be better with the ball than without it. I was not a defender, was I?
'We had 11 players on the field. Not just me. Look at City now. They have six attacking players. Six! I don't think Silva, De Bruyne, Sterling and Sane are coming back and tackling and defending, are they?'
Maybe Kinkladze has unwittingly proved Rosler's point but it doesn't matter. Nobody in the 1990s played liked City play now.
Kinkladze loves returning to his old club and is still in touch with Summerbee, now living in Qatar.
He grimaces when we talk about the car crash but not for long.
'The car was finished after that,' he smiled. 'Did I buy another one? Of course.'
Kinkladze was the subject of interest from Manchester United in the summer of 1997.
City's season in the second tier had ended with them in 14th position having got through three managers, Ball, Steve Coppell and Frank Clark.
Other clubs wanted City's playmaker, too, but remarkably he stayed. Before the final home game of that season, against Reading, 25,000 City fans signed a petition begging Kinkladze not to leave.
Afterwards he was led to the centre circle on his own to wave at the crowd, many of who were holding Georgian flags.
It may have annoyed some of his more industrious team-mates — Rosler was furious — but it seemed to work.
'I stayed because City fans had been loyal to me and I wanted to repay something,' he said.
'I had an emotional connection and thought we would come back to the Premier League anyway. I could have left and earned more. When I eventually did go, to Ajax, they doubled my money. But it wasn't about that, it was about love.
'United? Yeah, that one was there. I would have been unpopular, wouldn't I? It was difficult for City back then as United were hammering everyone but I didn't think about winning medals when the United thing came up.
'They were our rivals so I didn't even consider going.
'Anyway, City fans had a better sense of humour and definitely dressed better.'
In Kinkladze's third and final season, City did not come back up as he had hoped. They went down. Again.
Noel Gallagher's vision of the apocalypse — 'he will either win us the European Cup or take us to the fourth division' — was threatening to come true and not in a good way. This time Kinkladze — isolated under manager Joe Royle — did leave.
Previous managers tried to build their teams around the Georgian but Royle would not, sticking him on the left wing.
'I think he had got me mixed up with Andrei Kanchelskis,' laughed Kinkladze.
It seems at odds with the popular narrative of Kinkladze's time that he left City having scored just 20 goals in total. Maybe he was the right player for the wrong City team but no follower of the club would change a single bit of it and neither would he.
'In one way it was sad because I came here to win,' he shrugged. 'But we lost. A lot. But I loved it and this is my second home. It surprises me that people still stop me here and say: "Thank you for what you did. It was special". That is very nice and that's what is important.
'The people here have always been like a family for me. As I said, I can still hear the applause and that is enough'.
Giving It The Bigun: Oasis, Manchester, Football & Me by Paul Ashbee is published by New Haven Publishing Ltd on November 26.