Today's standard

[T LEAFE]

Eye of the beholder and all that. If your own preference for entertainment is non-league level, valid though that is, I would suggest that’s not an argument for an objective decline of the game itself.

It's all relative in my view tbh
Non league has improved so much more

 

[Lanolin]

It's all relative in my view tbh
Non league has improved so much more

It seems unlikely that the worst players in the country have got universally better but the best players in the country have got universally worse, you’d have to say.

 

[Macker07]

I think crocodile Dundee is crap.
Tell him to put that in his pipe and smoke it

And Home and Away, however I'd still take Kylie out for a pint.

 

[zebedee]

….when I signed for the RS, they couldn’t speak to me for a full season because I played for Liverpool Schoolboys, that’s where the ladder of power was in the 70s. Representative school boy football was sacrasant.

My word, how the power has shifted to the clubs. Their interest is in themselves, they ditch 99% and then fans complain when a promising youngster chooses to move for the monies.

My brother went to Chelsea then Brentford was mental. Loads in loads out like cattle. Our friends son was an amazing keeper like sensational but was .5 of an inch off in height so didnt get through. That's how precious it is.

 

[Toffeepot]

I think we are all inclined to see the 'best' of 'sport/music/movies/culture/anything' as having happened when we ourselves were in our hay day

 

[Vaughan]

My brother went the game today. Hes home from Oz and been there years. After the game he remarked how poor the players are now. It got me really thinking that the game is at its poorest ive ever seen in 50 years. Playing on bowling greens and still cant make a simple pass or dribble or even stay on their feet. Players like Ndaiye used to be everywhere.

disagree. there’s less mavericks now but in the 90s-00s the prem was full of alehouse footballers

they can all play now

 

[Jokerdan]

….i’m a big believer in ‘street football’ truly engineered the quality of yesteryear. It’s not rocket science, if we weren’t in school we were playing footy. We honed our skillset with a ball stuck to our feet for 10 hours a day. We loved it, we became talented.

Taking control of a football on uneven streets or ‘ollers’, endless completion against your mates. Nowadays, it’s Academy football for the few a couple of nights per week, TV and computer games the rest of the time. Clubs take youngsters and make it feel like they’re doing parents a favour when they should be treating it as a privilege.

The quality is not as good from the top of the game to the bottom. The reasons are obvious.

Yep, I agree. And one of the best 'street' games with a ball was 'wally' against an end terrace. One touch and you had to learn how to use both feet. The householders probably hated it with the constant banging of the ball against their wall but no one complained because in those days - back in the 50's/60's - it was just accepted that kids were allowed to play in the street with little or no supervision and everyone looked out for each others children. If parents couldn't see them at least they could hear them

 

[AirMo]

I’m not sure it’s really to do with the standards of the players, which on the whole is much better these days.

I think football has adopted more in the way of set styles now. Not that there wasn’t any before but now you have the more rigid set-ups like Man City etc where players are really drilled to an inch of their life on patterns and where to go, what to do etc Grealish is probably a good example of a player that was really exciting to watch at Villa who has fallen off by being forced into the machine that is City.

Even the very attacking teams are still quite strongly drilled and there not much inventiveness and teams are very focused on keeping possession, passing between themselves etc (again not bad things in themselves but can be boring when taken to extremes).

I think this makes the game today look worse tbh, or more dull because you get much less individual brilliance coming out and players doing much less interesting skills. It’s more a battle of the styles now.

 

[Jacko93]

I was expecting a story in a newspaper.

Haha, I was looking for a link

 

[hallamblue]

I’m not sure it’s really to do with the standards of the players, which on the whole is much better these days.

I think football has adopted more in the way of set styles now. Not that there wasn’t any before but now you have the more rigid set-ups like Man City etc where players are really drilled to an inch of their life on patterns and where to go, what to do etc Grealish is probably a good example of a player that was really exciting to watch at Villa who has fallen off by being forced into the machine that is City.

Even the very attacking teams are still quite strongly drilled and there not much inventiveness and teams are very focused on keeping possession, passing between themselves etc (again not bad things in themselves but can be boring when taken to extremes).

I think this makes the game today look worse tbh, or more dull because you get much less individual brilliance coming out and players doing much less interesting skills. It’s more a battle of the styles now.

I used to console myself in the seventies that the rs were a boring "system" team and we had individuals like Duncan McKenzie and Dave Thomas. I still feel like that, give me a jinking run over a 35 pass move that gradually moves the full back out of position allowing a tap in at the back post. Man City bore me to death as did Barcelona's tiki taka.

 

[AirMo]

I used to console myself in the seventies that the rs were a boring "system" team and we had individuals like Duncan McKenzie and Dave Thomas. I still feel like that, give me a jinking run over a 35 pass move that gradually moves the full back out of position allowing a tap in at the back post. Man City bore me to death as did Barcelona's tiki taka.

Agreed. Tiki taka was alright at the start when it was a bit different but it got quite boring to watch pretty quickly tbh.

 

[mistuhp]

Agreed. Tiki taka was alright at the start when it was a bit different but it got quite boring to watch pretty quickly tbh.

To be fair, tiki taka is about as explicitly a defensive tactic as a low block. You're not making risky passes specifically under the theory that if the opponent never has the ball, the opponent can't ever score, with the hope that at some random moment the defense loses focus and basically allows you to get chances with their poor positioning. Just like parking the bus and hoping for random counters and set pieces.
Tiki taka gets boring really quick, like you say, but as much as we often associate low block with stout defenses making crunching tackles setting off exciting counters, we all directly experienced how boring that can get, too.

 

[West Side Charlie]

Messi, the greatest ever in any generation, Ronaldo wouldn't be out of place either.

 

[MaximusEvertonius]

I’ve seen enough of our strictly defence-minded set-ups the past few years to last a lifetime. I’m fine with that strategy the last few minutes of a match protecting a lead. As a strategy going into the start of every match? Yeah, no thanks.

 

[Marcus Kendall]

Messi, the greatest ever in any generation, Ronaldo wouldn't be out of place either.

Michael Laudrup criminally underrated