How the beautiful game has lost it's beauty

milanista99 wrote:I have been meaning to make a thread about this for over two years, ever since Goal.com lithium. But somehow I never created it, but now another person has created it and here's my chance to give my humble opinion on this matter.

My hero Gianni Rivera in 1998: "There is a strong risk that we will be overcome by too much money, in our society materialism has won. This is the football of financiers"

Boy, oh boy how right he was but more on that later.

The quality of football has decreased significantly, the last great international tournament was 1998. It was full of magical moments, Croatia 3 - 0 Germany quarter finals, The beginning of Italy vs France rivalry in the quarter finals, Bergkamp's goal vs Argentina, Davids goal vs Yugoslavia, Denmark close to upset Brazil, so many good matches. 98 WC was the last truly great WC, the quality of football dropped from that time. 2002 was exciting because of underdogs upsetting the favourites, and two of the upsets are because of South Korea being disgustingly favoured by the referee. 2006 was a tournament dominated by drab horizontal play, only Italy matches (ironically) were the ones which put you on the edge of your seat and 2010 was ruined by ultra defensive football, abysmal refereeing, persistent fouling and a disgraceful beach ball.

And it's not just international touraments but club leagues and competitions too. Remember a time when AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, Roma, Lazio and Parma would fight over the league for the entire season? When Real and Barca wouldn't destroy every team 8-0 in the La Liga and the gap between second and third was 1 point except for 27 points? When La Liga had the likes of Valencia, Atletic Bilbao and Super Depor competing for the title instead of a two horse race consisting of Real Madrid and Barcelona? Remeber when footballing powerhouses (Marseille, Ajax, Red Star Belgrade, Borussia Dortmund) existed outside of Italy, Spain and England and Bayern Munich? A match between 1st place and 6th place used to be highly competitive and nowadays it is labelled as warmups. And the quality of those matches, compare them to the quality of matches nowadays. It's like comparing The Godfather to Max Payne. Compare UEFA Champions League 2003 to UEFA Champions League 2011. The difference in the quality of the matches is vast. Money has destroyed competiton in football, plastic balls have destroyed quality.

How often do you see a perfect through ball which Zico, Platini, Mazzola and Mardaona used to with their eyes closed? How often do you see some chip the ball over 4 defenders to the path of a running striker which Baggio, Totti, Socrates and Rivera would do with a bored expression on their face? How often do you see someone bend it like Beckham? How often do you see a a curling free which Roberto Carlos,Beckham, Juninho and our beloved metronome Pirlo would do every time they too a free kick. What has chaged. Quite literally football has changed. Before it was a simple pure leather Adidas Tango ball now it is a flashy colourful plastic synthetic ball, a minor change surely that will have little to no effect on the game. But far from that. The balls nowadays travel too fast, they are very light and bounce a lot. These attributes of synthetic footballs have made trequatistas, registas and fantasisti endangered species just like poaching has made tigers endangered species. We all laugh at Cristiano Ronaldo for blastic the ball at aeroplanes but is it really his fault? The synthetic balls travel so fast and are so unpredictable that all long range screamers are hit and hope instead of pure skill, placement and power. Synthetic balls have also affected long range passes and the first touch of a player, these plastic football are ruining the beautiful things of the beautiful game.

Another vital factor which has changed football is unavoidable and was beyond anyone's control is that football has evolved. The God With The Ponytail Roberto Baggio said it perfectly, nowadays skill is the secondary factor. Strength, athleticism and other physical attributes come first. Compare Carlos Tevez in Corinthians to Carlos Tevez in Manchester City. Compare Cristiano Ronaldo in his early Manchester United days to the Real Madrid Cristiano Ronaldo. Compare our golden boy Alexandre Pato 2007 to Alexandre Pato 2011. Compare Alessandro Del Piero 90s to Alessandro Del Piero 2000s. Compare Ronaldo O Fenomeno pre injury to Ronaldo O Fenomeno post injury. These are just a few examples on how footballer have evloved their physical attributes to catch up to the modern game. Before the top defenders in the world relied on game reading interception, nowadays most of the top defenders rely on their reactive senses and athleticism. Evolution has made footballers uglier but more effective.

Quality of players over the year have also decreased. Andrea Rannochia and Leonardo Bonucci are touted as Italy's new Nesta/Cannavaro partnership. At Bonnuci's age, Cannavaro didn't let Alan Shearer (who some say is the greatest player of the Premier League Era) have a sniff at the ball and Nesta at Rannochia's age became one of the best defenders in the world while Rannochia concedes 5 goals against Schalke 04 and Bonucci is the defender of a team which finished 7th. While Maldini at Santon's age was a starter at one of the greatest teams in football history, Santos struggles to gain starts at relegation battlers Cesena. Is Alessandro Matri even comparable to Christian Vieri? Can Alberto Aquillani hold a candle to Andrea Pirlo? Is Salavtore Sirigu fit to don Buffon's gloves. And it's not like these players were one in a million. Before them there was Dino Zoff, Roberto Baggio, Franco Baresi, Gaetano Scirea, Claudio Gentile, Gianni Rivera etc. And it's not like Italy is the only country lacking in talent. Is De Jong even half the player Edgar Davids was? Is Mexes comparable to Lilian Thuram? Is Dani Alves, Maicon and Marcelo who only know how to attack and is average at defending equal to Cafu and Roberto Carlos? Does Ever Banega have 1/4th the creativity of Juan Roman Riquelme?

In the start of my post, I quoted Gianni Rivera who said there is danger that football will be overcome by too much money. Money has destroyed competition in football. For a small club to be a big club without a massive takeover nowadays is only possible in Football Manager, not in the real world. Whenever a small club rise due to a successful youth academy, a good manager, shrewd bargains etc they are just cruelly bought down back to earth. Either their prized assets are taken away from them (BOTH players and managers) or they are drowned in debt. And with 50 million world class superstars arriving in big clubs every Sunday, how do you possibly beat them? Football is the most popular sport in the world, and this has caused foreigners to invest in football. Clubs which do not have billionaire oil barons as owners have to take loans just to save themselves from relegation and as a result drown in debt. There are a few exceptions but mostly newly promoted clubs manage to stay at top flight for only a mere season or two. Money has destroyed competition in football.

So in conclusion, football has changed and for the worse. This is majorly due to lack of player quality, plastic footballs, evolution of game and money. The beautiful game has lost a lot of it's beauty, but that doesn't mean all is lost. Look at Germany vs Italy 2006 World Cup Semi Final and you'll see at some points it is still beautiful. And no matter what, it will forever remain my religion.

milanista99 wrote:How often do you see some chip the ball over 4 defenders to the path of a running striker which Baggio, Totti, Socrates and Rivera would do with a bored expression on their face?

Magricos wrote: You seem to focus a lot on the Italian NT when other countries quality have improved.

nichabr wrote:

Magricos wrote: You seem to focus a lot on the Italian NT when other countries quality have improved.

really which ones?

Lord Spencer wrote:Also, funny how this amazingly talented Spain team couldn't win the WC in a more convincing manner.

Lord Spencer wrote:If I remember correctly, both Paraguay and Chile were offensive against Spain, with Paraguay being narrowly defeated.

Lord Hispano wrote:I'll list the countries who have improved in the last 5 years.

Cote D' Ivoire
Japan
U.S.A
Uruguay
Algeria
Ghana
Egypt
Mexico
Paraguay
Chile

Lord Hispano wrote:

Lord Spencer wrote:If I remember correctly, both Paraguay and Chile were offensive against Spain, with Paraguay being narrowly defeated.

Only intervals where they managed keep the ball and actually attack them.

Lord Spencer wrote:The irony, most of these teams improved simply because they raised their fitness and play defensive football.

Lord Spencer wrote:
And for each of these teams, I can name teams that were once feared and now are meh.
The point, do not look at single teams, but the overall trend. Look at the World Player awards, no real contenders outside of Messi and CR7 exist. Some take this as a signal of their dominance, while taking it as a signal of the lack of competition is the more logical approach.

Lord Spencer wrote:

Lord Hispano wrote:

Only intervals where they managed keep the ball and actually attack them.

So would hogging the ball be considered talent, or a tactic. I am not one of those people who would criticize Barca for "Pazzing d ball 100000000000 timez to d defense", but I question your judgment here. Paraguay attacked when they could, because Spain would try to pass the ball to the goal. The problem, Paraguay is a team with high fitness, and although they just played a tiring game vs. Japan, they managed to stop the Spanish team from making any meaningful passes to the forwards. Spain had more possession, but most of that was in their own half.

I am sure that if the ball was not as plastic as it was, then the game would have been much more interesting.

Lex wrote:Where do people place Holland in terms of "top national teams"? Are they in decline, or are they still considered formidable opponents?

justdoit_ wrote:

Lex wrote:Where do people place Holland in terms of "top national teams"? Are they in decline, or are they still considered formidable opponents?

They have a good a chance as anyone to win Euro's next year.

After that, I don't know, Holland's young generation coming of age right now is very uninspiring in my eyes.