The quality of football at the moment...

It's not it's a horrible thing, especially as most use the money really badly.

But the idea that PL has drastically declined is absolutely nonsense, obviously something that is only mentioned by those who just watched top 4 face offs as the rest of the teams were garbage.

Quality is a strange term. There are more talent in the EPL now than there has ever been, but on the pitch talent doesn't equate to off the pitch excellence, so at the end of the team there is still a disparity in terms of teams "qualities" so to speak.

I can't blame the EPL for the downfall of other leagues, and the fact that there is no "middle class" anymore. And to be frank, i am not sure i even understand the term.

From what i can see, football is still just as top heavy as it was 15 years ago, except that EPL has replaced Serie A in terms of importance.

"middle" class meant that you could count on 3-4 teams in all the top 6 leagues in Europe to compete with anyone.  You had Porto win the CL or Monaco reach the final.  You didn't have Bayern, Madrid and Barca pretty much penciled in for every CL semifinal.

We have too many elite teams today and those elite teams hoard too much talent.

With the way FFP is set up, you're not going to see it change either.

those years when Monaco and Porto reached a final were anomalies that happen in every sports. I don't think it's proof of anything. Frankly, if we look 15 years back, we still had some top heavy side expected to be in the last 4 late in may.

a couple of things to point out.....overall quality of football is difficult to assess, its just too broad. I do agree with the above post about defense, it seemed there were a lot of tough defenders back then, and even those we consider tough now, have a lot of "shaqtin a fool" moments, i think defense has regressed, but i may be wrong, its just a perception ....

now to Quality, serie a has obviously dropped tremendously, u can't compare it to what it was in the 80s or 90s, not even close; people assume this is down to calciopolli but its deeper, it started with mismanagement at clubs like lazio, fiorentina, parma, especially when parmalat suffered a crisis, just to name a few

the premiership imo has gotten better; note i said the premiership NOT english football competitions like the fa cup. i understand some fans may disagree, and competition doesn't necessarily equate to quality, but its much better than man utd and arsenal trading title exchanges back in the day

now spain, yes people will say "real and barca dominate, except for few times like last year when atleti went against the grain", and others will respond "if real and barca were in another league they would win".....imo, just my opinion, the reason why i say spain has regressed is, no top level or close to top level player wants to play at any club in spain besides madrid or barcelona...now this has largely been the scenario, but fueled with lack of funding (yeah i know what i did there), whilst real and barca rack up the talent acquisition, smaller clubs can't even invest in depth.....now i'm a madrid fan i'm biased, and this sounds a bit cynical, but as long as madrid wins, i could care less about this, or arguments about "what league is better"

i've never followed german footy enough to know what goes on, i catch a few games here and there especially their champs league games and that's about it, so i can't comment on if they've regressed or advanced; same with ligue un, never been a staunch follower (i did love juninho's free kicks, and i might occasionally try and watch ibra play)

all that above isn't enough to judge quality of football, its enough to judge the quality of what YOU watch; according to what my american friends tell me, the mls keeps growing albeit at a slow rate, but growing nonetheless in comparison to what it was....and this yields positive effects on their national team

south america may not have the financial clout of european clubs, but they have passionate fans, and their organizational structures have gotten better compared to 20 years ago, especially brazilian serie a, which was marred by corruption for a while

africa still provides a lot of talented players and has been a huge market for a host of premiership clubs, in the last 20 years top epl clubs for that matter, especially arsenal, chelsea and united; as well as an amass of talent who feature regularly in ligue un....the problems some parts of the continent face are obviously more pressing and more important than football

oh and the world cup i thought was amazing, especially the group stage. brazil 2014 imo was way better than 2010 and 06, we saw teams try to win and score, obviously it gets more tactical as teams advance; but the idea of cowering, slowing down the game, time wasting, senseless possession or keeping the ball was what was on menu in 2010

all these have an impact on quality in one way or another; it affects quality. My point is, we can only judge the quality of what we watch, rather than using what we watch to judge overall quality (if that makes any sense).

damn didn't expect that post to be that long....my apologies

the point is mole no matter how many talent the epl buys, the quality of the footy is the same pace and power, when that fails time to park the bus, its not stronger at all, the top teams just got worse, if wenger and sir alex went out and spend like they should have done, there would be no sign of competition in the league, all this "anything can happen stuff" is just marketing, since gonna be the same top 4 and same teams winning the thing more or less, just like la liga or bundi or serie a

agree with Mole

Mole is spot on when it comes to the Premier League.

Nowadays even the just-promoted sides sign players like Cambiasso and Fer. Who was that striker who was about to sign for Chelsea but the deal seemed to fall through? No problem, frigging Leicester may sign him instead.

Mid-table clubs sign big names from the other top leagues like it's nothing (Cabella, Gomis, Cisse, Gaston Ramirez, Abel Hernandez, Lamela, Ricardo Alvarez etc). Even teams like Aston Villa, Swansea and Sunderland somehow end up with some really hot players (Benteke, Bony and Altidore).

I don't know if the top, top teams in Europe are as good as some great teams of the past, but that's looking at, like, less than one percent of the whole picture. For me, it's the other teams that are pushing the quality up. Perhaps most obviously in the Prem, because there's so much money, but I'd imagine elsewhere, too.

too many players that depend more on leg than their brain

in harsh word, stupid

guest_07 wrote:too many players that depend more on leg than their brain

in harsh word, stupid

Nonsense IMO. The thing is that the general level of physical ability is much higher now than it was in the past so you notice it more. It's a faster paced game where you almost need to be extremely athletic to keep up as opposed to the past where it was ok to just have skill. How many Pirlo's are left and effective in this world? Look at how the game has left Gerrard behind in the PL because of his age and legs. In the past Gerrard probably could have played another 5 years in the PL to be honest with his vision, passing ability and shot.

Chad the things you are arguing have always been there though.

Even when the PL was dominating Europe it was always like that perhaps even more so, for example players like Silva were less of a factor where as now there is more of his type though few as good.

I do agree with Nick on more talent not necessarily equating to better teams though, I have always said that teams should spend more on coaching/management and less on players.

But I do feel the league as a whole is stronger now than ever, especially as it attains to mid table and bottom half teams.

Football got more physical and a lot of technical players struggled to adapt at the same time with money injection to some clubs young talents found themselves on bench in for them and that hindered their development.

If technical, non-physical players are finding it harder nowadays, that doesn't mean football's quality has deteriorated. It just means that the focus in overall quality has shifted towards physicality - and that players who have both top physical and top technical abilities will fill the fields, which should only lead to better football.

it won't. It just shrinks the pitch and that automatically makes it much easier tactically since you don't have to cover as much geography.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Oh and that Portsmouth team which won the FA Cup and consistently fought for EL spots during this apparent PL hey day.....

That teams spine was David James-Linvoy Primus-Sulley Muntari-Benjani

GL pls.

Don't forget the Pompey legends Lassana Diarra and KP Boateng

Fußball wrote:Entertainment vs. quality. Entertainment is still there (Spurs 5 - Chelsea 3). Quality not so much.

Italian football is at an all time low. When the best thing the big Milan clubs can get these days are Arsenal and Atletico rejects (Podolski, Cerci) and Gervinho is dominating the league you know what's up.

Bundesliga is a joke. Bayern is a great team but since Pep took over they have lost 2 games in 51. Both when they were already mathematically champions with weakened teams. Basically when they were still competing no one in the league beat them, even with all those injuries to Martinez, Schweinsteiger, Thiago, Lahm etc. I repeat, they are great but even prime Barca lost games and conceded goals from time to time as does Real Madrid right now who aren't worse than Bayern. Real Madrid under Ancelotti already lost 8 games in La Liga. Meanwhile Bayern have conceded 4 goals halfway through the season. This doesn't speak for the quality of Bundesliga.

Premier League has regressed. Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal. They are playing shit on a stick football throughout the season. It's unwatchable. Even this supposed invincible Chelsea side is prone to collapsing and conceding 5 goals to an average Spurs team. Solid team, typical Mourinho team tactically, far from a great team. Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Willian, Oscar, Cesc, Costa. Meh. Far from fearsome. Just the most organized team in the league. Doesn't hold a candle to the old school Chelsea teams in the mid 00s with prime Terry, Carvalho, Lampard, Makelele, Essien, Robben, Duff, Drogba ... City is a weird one. They have the players but they suck in Europe and aren't super solid defensively. Naive is probably the best word to use, pretty much like Real Madrid under Pellegrini when they won lots of games in the league with great football but somehow got their asses handed to them against Lyon in the CL R16 or in the Copa del Rey against Alcorcon.

La Liga: Barcelona is playing the worst football it has played in a decade. The forward line Messi, Neymar, Suarez is solving games on their own. Granted, it can solve A LOT of games on their own. As a TEAM however it is rather mediocre. Real Madrid and Atletico are at their best though so it makes it highly competitive at the top while Valencia, Sevilla and Vilarreal are all fighting it out for 4th place nicely. The gap between Barca and Sevilla halfway through the season is only 5 points and Sevilla has got a game in hand! I think in terms of competitiveness, prestige games (Clasico, Madrd derby), football quality, "shock" results (Barca 0 - Celta 1, Real Sociedad 4 - Real Madrid 2, Valencia 3 - Atletico 1 ...) and everything else considered it's by far the best package in the world.

Intl. footy has regressed the most. Germany is the only great, settled team right now in Europe but ancient Klose is still the best striker we have. Spain have the quality and potential without a shadow of doubt, remains to be seen if del Bosque can build a great unit until Euro 2016. France is also a good team. But that's that. I remember around 2000: Zidane's France, Figo's Portugal, a great Italy team, entertaining Spain team that lacked the winning mentality and luck but played proper football, a great Dutch team with Kluivert, Bergkamp, Staam, van der Sar, Cocu, Seedorf, Overmars, de Boer. Man, even Turkey had their best ever team around that time.

TL;DR: Watch La Liga.

Suprisingly enough this post makes sense in a way.
Though I would also add that the mid-table scrubs like Everton, Spurs, Stoke, Swansea have gotten better in recent years.

Everton and Spurs, not in particular this season though.

jibers wrote:The world cup was atrocious as well. The semi finals 7-1 was one of the worst football matches I have ever seen. I thought the 94 and '10 WC were bad, but this last world cup literally was just something else. Ramos is a top cb? Are you kidding me? Brazil defending worse than a sunday league side? This was the semis of a WC! Germany didn't even play that well, that was the saddest part.

Yeah Brazil were bad in that one match, no one is going to disagree there, but the quality of this WC overall was great. In most WCs you have a few 'filler' teams. Teams that are not really WC level but make it on account of their region being so weak. Think North Korea in 2010, which went on to get plastered with 7 goals by Portugal. Or Saudi Arabia, which lost by 8 goals against Germany in 2002.

Oddly, that didn't happen this year. In fact, many of the teams that no one thought would do a decent job, like Algeria or Costa Rica, went on to become some of the surprises of the tournament. Even the ones that did not make it very far, like Iran, were still able to put in very respectable performances against tough opponents.

This has to be down to better coaching across the board. The level between the teams has evened out so much that the traditional favorites cannot rely on raw talent to go through to the later stages, as Italy and England found out.

You might associate better coached, more disciplined sides with tighter matches and more boring football. But this was not the case. In fact, relative to 2010, the goals per game went up and while everyone was disilusioned with SA the comments about the football in Brazil were mostly positive.

Furthermore, in 2010 there was very little tactical diversity, with most top teams opting for a 4231, which 4 of 3 semi-finalists used. 2014 had a much greater diversity with 3 man backlines making a comeback (most notably for the Dutch, who at one point used a 433) and tactical battles were thus all the more interesting for it.

So no, I can't say I agree with this at all. International football is definitely better than it was 4 years ago. The coaching level has evened out and there are no embarassing games (well, except Brazil...), games are more entertaining now and tactically more interesting.

TL;DR Pls go

El Gunner wrote:

Fußball wrote:Entertainment vs. quality. Entertainment is still there (Spurs 5 - Chelsea 3). Quality not so much.

Italian football is at an all time low. When the best thing the big Milan clubs can get these days are Arsenal and Atletico rejects (Podolski, Cerci) and Gervinho is dominating the league you know what's up.

Bundesliga is a joke. Bayern is a great team but since Pep took over they have lost 2 games in 51. Both when they were already mathematically champions with weakened teams. Basically when they were still competing no one in the league beat them, even with all those injuries to Martinez, Schweinsteiger, Thiago, Lahm etc. I repeat, they are great but even prime Barca lost games and conceded goals from time to time as does Real Madrid right now who aren't worse than Bayern. Real Madrid under Ancelotti already lost 8 games in La Liga. Meanwhile Bayern have conceded 4 goals halfway through the season. This doesn't speak for the quality of Bundesliga.

Premier League has regressed. Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal. They are playing shit on a stick football throughout the season. It's unwatchable. Even this supposed invincible Chelsea side is prone to collapsing and conceding 5 goals to an average Spurs team. Solid team, typical Mourinho team tactically, far from a great team. Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Willian, Oscar, Cesc, Costa. Meh. Far from fearsome. Just the most organized team in the league. Doesn't hold a candle to the old school Chelsea teams in the mid 00s with prime Terry, Carvalho, Lampard, Makelele, Essien, Robben, Duff, Drogba ... City is a weird one. They have the players but they suck in Europe and aren't super solid defensively. Naive is probably the best word to use, pretty much like Real Madrid under Pellegrini when they won lots of games in the league with great football but somehow got their asses handed to them against Lyon in the CL R16 or in the Copa del Rey against Alcorcon.

La Liga: Barcelona is playing the worst football it has played in a decade. The forward line Messi, Neymar, Suarez is solving games on their own. Granted, it can solve A LOT of games on their own. As a TEAM however it is rather mediocre. Real Madrid and Atletico are at their best though so it makes it highly competitive at the top while Valencia, Sevilla and Vilarreal are all fighting it out for 4th place nicely. The gap between Barca and Sevilla halfway through the season is only 5 points and Sevilla has got a game in hand! I think in terms of competitiveness, prestige games (Clasico, Madrd derby), football quality, "shock" results (Barca 0 - Celta 1, Real Sociedad 4 - Real Madrid 2, Valencia 3 - Atletico 1 ...) and everything else considered it's by far the best package in the world.

Intl. footy has regressed the most. Germany is the only great, settled team right now in Europe but ancient Klose is still the best striker we have. Spain have the quality and potential without a shadow of doubt, remains to be seen if del Bosque can build a great unit until Euro 2016. France is also a good team. But that's that. I remember around 2000: Zidane's France, Figo's Portugal, a great Italy team, entertaining Spain team that lacked the winning mentality and luck but played proper football, a great Dutch team with Kluivert, Bergkamp, Staam, van der Sar, Cocu, Seedorf, Overmars, de Boer. Man, even Turkey had their best ever team around that time.

TL;DR: Watch La Liga.

Suprisingly enough this post makes sense in a way.

No it doesn't. It is hyperbole which doesn't really hold up to close scrutiny.

It's no surprise that a PL and Man Utd fan would bemoan the terrible demise of football as a whole, but it is still easy to see through kneejerk tbh.
Because, yes, the PL top clubs are worse than say 8 years ago. Doesn't mean it's worse than 20 years ago, or that all football is worse.

Typical case of people thinking the world revolves around them.
They get older and less excitable and less relevant, and that means that everything was better in the good old days.

And to claim that the Bundesliga is a joke NOW compared to earlier, if we're talking about FOOTBALL QUALITY, is frankly nothing short of ridiculous.
I've been watching Bayern for a long time, and we had strong no nonsense teams in the past, but if we want to talk about 'quality of football' lol, there's never been a better Bayern in any comparable past (the 70s are not comparable). Period.

That's also the reason why we lose so few games in a league that has hugely improved, not because the league is 'a joke'.

A joke is Barca fans, who probably 5 years ago when Pepcelona was in prime would have argued football quality is at an all time high in history, now seeing it fit to argue all football is bad, since they are worse than they were.

That the decline of traditional powerhouses like the Italian league leaves a dent is undeniable, but that of course is due to them not developing the way other leagues have developed, so to argue football as a whole is in demise is just nonsense, there are different cycles involved is all.

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Top 4 teams not rolling over the rest of the league anymore = regression according to GL.

The PL outside of the top 4 was *bleep* garbage back in the day, Stoke would roll them over blindfolded.

Nostalgia is seriously strong.

this

Yea personally Bundesliga is the most entertaining league in the world, would ratber watch any BL match than the average serie a/PL/la liga game.

The level of BL's teams is really high too compared to ther nations as it has 4/4 qualified in CL, 2/2 in EL, Dortmund topped their CL group and are last after 5 months.

It's just that Bayern are that good and would walk every league. There's a reason why they reached 3 CL finals in 5 years and are this year's favourites, and that they are the backbone of a German team who's been one of the best NTs in the last decade and every non deutsch player is the star of his NT

lol the whole argument about "quality" and "this league vs that league", has slowly become an excuse for fans to justify their teams' failures or their best players' successes...fans of teams that were invincible in previous years bemoan the quality of football....on the flip side, those with man crushes on their fav players justify those players' abilities to score 8 goals in a game against some teams whose players look like they'd rather be home watching reruns of  Fraser, by saying dumb stuff like "i feel blessed to be in this generation watching players x or y" or "i'll tell my grandkids about player x or y"....

i feel defense has regressed a tad bit, and that's mainly cos the defenders i consider top now can be very inconsistent...but i don't think that extends to the quality of the whole game. and to make such a call u'd have to watch or follow almost every game in almost all leagues.....oh and there are also fans, whose teams have run into money, and are no longer the pushovers of yester-years. for those type of fans, the quality has gone up a hundred fold. obviously some aspects of the game have changed for better or worse, but that's just how life is. nothing new here

jibers wrote:After discussing this with a few people on chat, I thought I would make a thread about this. The last three years I started to feel disinterested in football as a whole. The game as a spectacle has been atrocious to watch for a while. I need to point out that this has nothing to do with United, in SAFs last season, that was the worst football I have ever seen. I almost quit watching football after that season. I thought the 12/13 season was bad, this season has just been abysmal.

The world cup was atrocious as well. The semi finals 7-1 was one of the worst football matches I have ever seen. I thought the 94 and '10 WC were bad, but this last world cup literally was just something else. Ramos is a top cb? Are you kidding me? Brazil defending worse than a sunday league side? This was the semis of a WC! Germany didn't even play that well, that was the saddest part.

Even now I struggle to sit there and watch the full 90 minutes of matches, especially in the EPL were the football on show is just disastrous week in week out.

Has anyone else felt this way? If you did, what in particular made you feel this way?

I think I was the one having this discussion with you, and I agree. The quality of football has gone to shit, this season particularly has been horrendous, not just for my team Barca, but for every league.

I don't know whether my love for football, and thereby my tolerance for sitting and watching terrible games, has reduced, but I can't be bothered wasting my time watching garbage games for a full 90 minutes. If a game is shit(which is a vast majority of games), I bounce and go and do something more enjoyable. I don't sit and watch any and every game like I used to in my teens.

Not even those "exciting" high scoring games do it for me anymore, the ridiculous amount of defensive mistakes that go on in those games annoys the hell out of me, it's downright amateurish. Football really needs to get better.

Jonathan28 wrote:
I think I was the one having this discussion with you, and I agree. The quality of football has gone to shit, this season particularly has been horrendous, not just for my team Barca, but for every league.

Yeah right

For someone who says can't be "bothered to watch garbage games" you do apparently still watch quite a lot of football since you know all about how shit "every league" is

titosantill wrote:damn didn't expect that post to be that long....my apologies

Lol no need to apologise for writing great posts like that mate

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Chad the things you are arguing have always been there though.

Even when the PL was dominating Europe it was always like that perhaps even more so, for example players like Silva were less of a factor where as now there is more of his type though few as good.

I do agree with Nick on more talent not necessarily equating to better teams though, I have always said that teams should spend more on coaching/management and less on players.

But I do feel the league as a whole is stronger now than ever, especially as it attains to mid table and bottom half teams.

that the point mole yes you guys have more talent, but that doesn't equal to better footy, cause pace and power is the base, then bus parking, and for every silva that strives in the prem, dozens gets shipped out

before the prem dominated europe, its was just a top league, then 2 all english semi's in a row, "zomg best league eva" and it never stopped, but i just can't see how your league is stronger, because you guys run out, buy players and give them wages way beyond them, just to bench them in the long run and play the same shit tactics

again once the footy in the prem look decent and tactic are sound, then sure, but hoarding talent and spending doesn't=stronger, spur and pool sold 1 player each and spent over a 100 mil in talent and they still sucked, chelsea and mancity gonna run away with the league but every time they drop points "anything can happen in this league, best league eva and its only getting stronger"

the amount of times, I hear that the middle and bottom teams in the prem would smash la liga teams other than the big boys, based on the money they spent, but im pretty sure most la liga teams would play most prem teams off the pitch, like they did mou madrid just saying

quality is the same honestly my assumption is your probably just getting tired of the hobby maybe give it a break and you'll regain your interest?