Euro 2024

Real Madrid have completed football. Hes gonna be incredible

 

Need to ban these ridiculous runups

Skickat från min SM-F926B via Tapatalk

 

The slogan in my head at the moment is EFC

English * *

 

This is even worse this English team is full of arrogant massively over paid big headed mega *. Their pundits are the most bias * on earth and a sizeable plus chunk of their fan base are also mega off the scale * which is extra bad being an actual nation who say tournament after tournament football is coming home. It is totally untakable on a scale that is almost evil!!!

Now we need an Orange team to win bigger than big time

 

England would cruise to the final if they drop Kane and imo start Watkins

 

Think they'll cruise to the final anyway tbh. By cruise I mean win 1-0 after both teams decide maybe they'll come out their own box after 89 minutes of passing between 2 defenders.

 

Spain 5 France 0
Holland 4 England 1

 

The peak of footballing skill has probably already passed and will never be reached again.

People playing football now just never mastered control of the ball as well as players born 20 year before as they most likely played much less football than them as kids.

Like a person born in 1980 didn't see a playstation or that type stuff till they were like 15, they probably grew up playing football 4x more than someone born in 2000.

People born from like the 50s till the 80s I think would have been the most technically skilled players ever.

Now with playstations, ipads, phones and everything anyone born now probably has 10% the chance of reaching the type of skill on a ball players had up till recently as they're never going to spend as much time with the ball as theres too much other stuff.

Then as you said the more football goes on in the modern era the more physical and tactical it becomes as everyone knows everything about how everyone plays.

There used to be loads of highly skilled players who were like masters of the ball Del Piero, Totti, Bergkamp, Berbatov, Zlatan, Pirlo, Xavi, Riquelme, Veron, Rui Costa, Iniesta, Zidane, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Kaka, Brazilian Ronaldo before all them there was Baggio, Zico, Socrates, Platini, Cruyff and whoever and that now theres barely any especially younger players like who under say 25 sticks out as massively skilled on the ball only guy that sticks out like that to me is Musiala probably.

The level of skill on the ball I think was better in the 80s, 90s and 2000s than it is now.

Even like Alexander Arnold sticks out as a passer of the ball not just because he is good but because theres not really anyone else like him whos came through since him who passes a ball that well.

 

Saw the actual video. Honestly would love all the world to just turn against the english and start punching them everytime they see one.

 

I agree..

I still watch plenty and enjoy football but I deffo get bored more and switch off mentally. Don't always watch champions league as it bores me also like you say..

Agree with a lot of posts in this about the game changing but no for the better. For example City are the best team in the world with a master tactician/coach and yet they bore the life outta me anytime I watch them. Countless sides like it..

Agree with @ILoveTheCeltic that I just think there was much more excitement and flair from past players. Technically I genuinely think overall there was just so many better ballers..

It's so rigid and tactical now with athleticism taking over skill and individuality getting you nowhere. Have to almost be set-up and robotic now..

It's nowhere near as enjoyable as a neutral anymore..

 

It's an interesting idea and goes against the general perception of sport in which every generation improves on the previous.

For what it is worth, I think players today are better than at any other point in history. They are faster, fitter, stronger and I do think they are just as good on the ball as well. I think the most robotic nature of the game has come from generally much better footballers defending as well as attacking, improved defensive tactics, and mostly because they are all coached to within an inch of their life to follow regimented systems.

I also think attacking players are also expected to be able and willing to track back, and press off the ball. Managers for whatever reason prefer that over the kind of natural flair players who don't put in the miles across the pitch.

Outside of Celtic, I don't really enjoy or watch top football. I think it's dull. But I suspect it's not because of skill levels but all the other reasons I mention.

 

Players are having the creativity coached out of them. Its all about the system now.

 

I don't think they are better on the ball.

You only really get good on the ball just by playing with a ball all the time, probably the younger you are when you are doing it the better.

It's not like you can be coached on how to control a ball, you learn it on your own naturally and get better and better the more time you spend messing about on your own with the ball.

I don't think players more recently spent as much time with the ball just cause they wouldn't as theres so much other stuff they can do now. When Zidane 15 it was 1987, they didnt even have any sort of computers or anything I don't think, probably had close to no tv channels, dont even know if they had VHS at the time, probably only had board games, books, toys and a ball and spent thousands of hours outside alone running about with a ball kicking it off a wall and whatever.

Barely anyones doing that now at least to the same level, in 1980 there might have been 10 or 20 people playing with a ball hours a day for every 1 now.

I think thats why also that players from warmer countries were always better technically through the same rules applying that people in Spain, Italy, Croatia etc just spend much more time playing with a ball than people from England, Russia, Poland, Sweden and wherever because they have better weather and spent more time of the year and more time per day playing with the ball so they developed better technique over time naturally.

Now countries everywhere are worse cause theres much more to do now that kids don't play football as much. There is better coaching but that doesn't improve how good you are on the ball. When you watch kids coaching or that it's mainly playing matches just cause the groups of kids being coached are too big and then playing matches most players are hardly ever touching the ball. Really youth coaching needs to be 1 on 1 to see real benefits.

 

Just go to any beach in a sunny country and you’ll see a group of 50 year old men playing keepy ups like prime Zidane

 

My dad is like that, he played junior level but won a lot and was top scorer etc a lot he played with a lot of professionals and even guys who are managers now at teams, hes 60 and can keep a ball up all day to this day.

One of my family plays for Ayr and is nowhere near my da

 

But modern keepers, defenders, and defensive midfielders are miles ahead of their older counterparts in their ball skills. They need to be able to able to pass their way out of a press that simply didn't exist a few decades ago. I always think it's weird watching football from even 20 years ago and it's like defenders and midfielders just get to saunter up to the half way line without a sweat. Now you could have a press for 90 minutes as soon as you get the ball at your feet.

Similar when you watch attacking players a few decades ago, defenders would either just try to boot them and miss, or they would stand off and let them run past and try to slide in. Your VVDs, Dias, Salibas, Stones, type defenders rarely do either. They are much tougher to go past and much more likely to get pass attackers when in possession. I don't think attackers suddenly have no flair, I think what they are against is much better and managers would rather recycle the ball than risk their flair players losing it.

 

Are they really though like Roy Aitken and Alan Hansen were much better on the ball than Scottish defenders now same could be said of Souness and McStay and all that in midfield, John Robertson, Dalglish.

Most countries would say the same, Germany, Holland, Brazil, Italy, Argentina their old players were better on the ball even defenders and defensive midfielders Krol, Passarrella, Koeman, Rijkaard, Breitner and whoever.

They maybe didn't look it as now players pass around the ball short a lot more and do much more passing and moving tactically but are they actually as good on the ball, I don't think they are.

I think players were better on the ball but it wasn't acknowledged as much as they didn't do as much as the tactics were different. Like Roy Aitken would dribble out the back and ping it to the left winger and run into the box, loads of teams had guys like that and it was just normal.

Now a Roy Aitken type would pass it about like John Stones short and moving and look tidier and classier but someone like Stones couldn't run into midfield and dribble round players and hit a 40 yard pass on the run. He's not skillful enough on the ball really but guys used to be.

Guys with the ability of Kvaratskhelia, Musiala, Pedri are rare now with that silkier touch and ball control and balance but they weren't that rare 10-15-20 years ago or 30 or 40. To me theres just not that level of technique about as much now.

Even the range of passing of players is not the same now.

Now theres Alexander Arnold and who else really under the age of 30? very few

Kane, Kroos, Modric, Messi, Van Dijk, Busquets and all the best passers long range passers I can think of now are all old and will be retired soon and theres nobody really replacing them.

Even guys who are meant to be good like Billy Gilmour for Scotland has no passing range, Xavi Simons of Holland the same. Their set pieces are woeful.

Kroos, Kimmich, Schweinsteiger, Ballack, Pirlo, De Rossi, Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney, Scholes, Xavi, Alonso, Baraja, Totti, Del Piero, Rivaldo, Juninho, even Roy Keane used to be able to ping balls about with pace and accuracy. Now most long passes are more floated about as guys can't pass the ball as well. Used to be loads of players in each team even at Celtic we had guys like Mulgrew, Nakamura, Commons, Barry Robson, Hartley even but guys cannot pass the ball about as well now as they used to be able to.

 

Honestly, I don't know. Would be interesting to try and watch some old footage and compare. I think the Scotland point probably reflects the fall in standard in Scotland in particular, and our centre halves being particularly rotten. Without any evidence on my part, only going on intuition I would expect those elite level defenders of the past wouldn't be able to get close to elite attackers nowadays.

I appreciate we also need to compare balls, boots, state of pitches, rules and referees, etc, but I still reckon players nowadays are better footballers. I think the same it true in every sport and it's much easier to objectively measure in other sports - shot accuracy in basketball, passing in NFL, world records in running, etc. But I completely appreciate my football opinion comes from memory and the odd youtube clip. Would be interesting to look into it more