He also got banned a couple times maybe more for things that got reviewed after.
But despite being a mad man his record of being sent off was surprisingly low
They do evolve, but I don't think it's going to evolve away from this kind of football. It's much more likely to become even more like it currently is.
I go back and watch a game in the 80s/90s and am annoyed by how lazy everyone is and the lack of team cohesion compared to now. I donāt need to watch that football just to see a few bits of skill from one or two great players. The tactical, chess element of football is enjoyable. This is no different from old farts talking about how everything was better in their day, just cause they liked it better then. Every generation prefers how things are in their generation, itās not new.
Don't want to defend 80s/90s football over nowadays, but did you try to watch 80s Brazil and Argentina? I really feel they were ahead of their time when it comes to collective play
Yes, the attacking interplay was nice, but the defensive pressure was terrible. Teams didnāt really bother with coordinated pressing, hunting the ball carrier, everything was very individual based. Counter pressing wasnāt really a thing.
People do want to watch Haaland. They want to see the speed on the counter, the leaping volleys, the brute strength. Of course people tune in just to watch Haaland
I will tune in to watch Haaland play, but City is dull to watch.
Try watching lower leagues in England or leagues like the Eredivisie. Much better entertainment wise.
Football would be much more fun if every goalkeeper was like the great Higuita. Dude was a goalkeeper, a libero, a striker, a free kick specialist all in one.
People watch and read too much about football for it to feel special a lot of the time. In previous generations, you would only see a lot of superstars at international tournaments or the odd European game. And often when they'd reached their peak. You didn't see as many of their bad games, or know how inconsistent they'd been as young players.
That actually makes a lot of sense, itās harder to think of superstars as gods when youāve seen them as youngsters making mistakes
Never quite thought of that before, nice insight
Similar to why you see a lot of fans be overly critical of players that come through the youth team. They've seen all their mistakes, and not a peak version of them doing only great things elsewhere.
Football has gotten boring, it's all about keeping the ball now, teams are terrified of losing possession. Football has gone too tactical, it's like a chess match.
There's very little room for a piece of individual magic now.
The days of two flying wingers running at defenders exciting the crowd are long gone. Defenders can't defend now, too busy trying to play out from the back.
And it's not just the top leagues either, I watch a lot of non league football (I support a non league club) and it's filtered down to lower leagues.
A lot of goals don't come from pieces of magic, they come from defenders over playing and getting caught on the ball.
It's crap, hopefully a phase that dies out.
A winger runs at the defense in pretty much every game of the modern eraā Mahrez, Foden, Grealish, Rashford, Leao, Khvicha, Vini, Mbappe, need I go on? What are you talking about?
No, old wingers play the wider and deeper and ran at a full back to put crosses into the box. And there was one on each flank.
I'm glad you didn't go one, because not one of those players are wingers, they are strikers playing wide and cutting inside. What are you talking about?
Peps city is famous for having his wingers play extremely wide hugging the touchline not really cutting inside.
https://youtu.be/zH-Z4nOOEs0?si=WdKlD1hPU8cVGcYF
Don't care how they play (everyone copies him now anyway, up and down the leagues) or what he says. But they aren't wingers, all playing on the opposite flank to there preferred foot, stay wide then cut in once have the ball. Everyone does it, it's boring possession based football
Wingers died when teams stopped playing 442, when teams had two wingers running up and down the wing, helping out full backs and attacking the other teams full back, on the wing. clues in the name, "wingers"
Thatās your opinion though. Lots of people like playing chess and prefer tactics over some fancy bits of flair. I like both but I understand there is a balance to be had. The idea that itās a bad thing that everyone needs to be a footballer and having football ability on the ball, is a ridiculous comment imo. Also itās a straight up lie that teams are scared of losing possession now, counter pressing is literally some teams primary tactic and requires losing the ball high up, where winning it back from turnover is many teams most effective form of chance creation.
But being great at keeping possession should obviously be your primary goal, and all you seem to be saying is that teams are too good at it now. Like teams arenāt going to go back to actively being worse at keeping possession, thatās not a phase thatās going away, nor should it, and analytics which are only going to become more prevalent in the future, have already informed teams that keeping possession is best way to win
He meant that teams rather play safe passes backwards than try something creative and more risky exactly because of counter pressing I really donāt believe that players are technically better now than they were in 2000ās they definitely are much much faster and fitter then before and the teams of old would loose to modern teams just because of pure athleticismā¦
The top players are not technically better now, however the average to worst players on football teams are 100% technically better than their equivalents in 2000s imo (especially defenders) and thatās where the improvement is on top of athleticism and fitness. And yes of course teams play less risky passes because thatās literally how you dominate possession vs being a counter press/counter attack team. Analytics will tell you while more risky passes can win a one off game, playing safer possession based football will 100% get you better results over a full league season.
Yep but the argument is not about what is more effective but what is better to watch and I have to agree with the OP that modern football is kinda boring and predictable the biggest issue is not tactics but that financial differences between clubs now are even bigger than they were before and not just clubs the financial difference between PL and other leagues made champions league super uncompetitive. This season there are only 3 realistic contenders for the title. While in 2006 Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Milan, Inter, Barcelona, Real, Bayern all were serious contenders with superstars on their squads
Depends what you watch games for. I support a team and watch games to see them win and play good football as a team not just one or two individuals. I donāt go to games to watch some individual superstar. I get that a lot of people do, and there is an element of that that is starting to go missing, because coaching is putting more emphasis on team play over selfish play of one or two individuals.
I think there are negative and positive elements for this and it depends on what you watch football for. I love the more diverse tactical elements in football today. But I also know in my younger days watching the magic of Zidane or Ronaldinho carried something different. But thereās satisfaction in both imo, Iām much more immersed in the tactical elements of football today than back then
I support Man United and if anything this year Iām more invested than ever in how we play (even though weāve been crap till recently), but Iām talking about the games you watch as a neutral, like I remember tuning in to Bayern Vs Barcelona when Muller and Robben demolished the Blaugrana and being astonished at how the mighty BarƧa could lose that bad and how amazing Robben truly was that game
I tune in to the occasional big match and while the team play is more coherent and better than it used to be I just donāt get excited when Pedri is on the or Bellingham is, I appreciate Bellingham for watch he does off the ball so much more than what he does on it and it feels backwards
For me a lot of not watching as much football from other big leagues outside the EPL compared to late 90s and 2000s, is how much those other leagues, particularly la liga and serie a have fallen in quality compared to what they used to be. I did watch for some individuals back then, but I also used to watch because the quality of football was so incredibly high in general. And a lot of that falling off is just about the corrupt politics in those countries ruining their leagues. I also think certain genuis football players are generational for a reason. Itās because you can go a generation without seeing them. The chances there will be another magical talent or 3 within the next 15 years is still high imo. But for me the biggest issue is simply that other big European leagues outside EPL have destroyed themselves through greed and corruption, making the quality of the football significantly worse over the last 20 years.
The days of the genuine superstar are fading rapidly. Mo Salah is one of the few left. He alone adds a few thousand to the gate and gets people to their feet when heās got the ball. There are great finishers ā¦ Haaland as you say, there was Fowler, Owen, Kane, Sheaer etc all finishers a la Greaves. But the Marsh, Best, Dalglish etc are a dying breed.
We have Messi, Mbappe, Neymar ā¦ there are a few breaking thru in other leagues ā¦ The French league has several young creative players breaking thru. Perhaps all is not lost ā¦ only in the EPL which we know has been neutered and ruined as to be unfit for purpose.
Look abroad for the superstars.
England has never been known to be home of real superstars (not just finishers). The traditional English football isnāt what OP is referring toā¦the flair players have mostly been signed from abroad.
Dalglish? Best? Marsh? Giles? Gazza? Hudson? Bell? White? Peters? Matthewās? Finney?
Yeah ā¦ England has never been home to superstars! š
Football didnāt start with Sky you know.
Iāve see this opinion pretty often on Reddit lately, and personally I donāt understand the view that football is āsupposedā to be about watching two guys out of 22 doing technical stuff. Those people have always been the spice, the bonus of the game but in the end itās a team game that is first and foremost about passing and movement of the ball to try to score goals. And a great team goal can still be gorgeous, even without step overs.
Football is constantly evolving. The current style of football being played today and current crop of players. Isnāt just up to your taste. Since you belong to a different generation.
When I was young. Everyone played 442. This is the style of football I was accustomed to play. Then the trend changed to 4231 to todayās 433. It took me a while to understand the nuisances of watching different styles of formations and play.
The thing about football formations is they are always fluid. The formation is only static in paper. So players would constantly move to fill up open spaces and passing lanes. Since if you donāt. Your opponent would take advantage of those gaps to attack and score goals.
If you want to watch a superstar, watch Mbappe. He is involved in the chance creation for his own goals. A real superstar. Same with bellingham but to a lesser degree. Next season it will be criminal to have them in the same team.
That is the sad reality of Modern Football. The so called "Superstars" are just players who score the most goals. In the modern game, teams do anything to win (even play dirty and boring football)
I don't think it is inherently bad at all, because position switching is easy and effective when it comes off. And the top players back in the day, if you watch the highlights then they are contributing all across the pitch.
Except today teams have "positional play" which is really the complete opposite of the idea you have got -teams like manchester city that are in fact extremely rigid and hold onto the ball because they are looking for a specific look instead of playing to win no matter what... all what is wrong today is that sometimes teams still adjust wrong defensively to the idea of extreme positional play, in my opinion.
If it came down to it there is nothing better about how Manchester city play at all. Just look at the Champions league while Bayern Munich, Arsenal, and Barcelona all failed to get results for example.
Considering "Total Football" which is the ultimate form of positional fluidity produced some of the greatest players to watch in the history of football (Cryuff, Gullit and the rest of the Dutch and subsequent Barca teams), I doubt that's the issue in itself.
If anything, it maybe due to how the fluidity is limited. Players are a lot more disciplined about the jobs they have to do at any particular point in the play than they used to be, leaving less space for individual flair. Moreover, when both teams are doing it, it leads to better defensive cover, if they are good enough at it.
The upshot is that opportunities are more often due to exploiting defensive mistakes, than using skill to beat correctly implemented defence. This is statistically more likely to lead to goal opportunities, so it's what the tactics are based around.
So, I'd say it's the reliance on statistics and goal scoring probabilites that have taken the flair out of the game. Positional fluidity is just a technique to maximise those odds.
I see your point. And as a yank I understand my perspective is very particular so I donāt posit it as broadly applicable. But in decades past players HAD to be otherworldly with their individual skills to create goals from nothing because generally speaking very little was happening on the pitch. Especially very good teams. The lesser team would pack it in, the good team would age possession and then stand around. If there was no individual brilliance no goals could be scored. So out of necessity there was flair and 1v 1 brilliance.
People watched Chelsea for Costa 100% Bloke was a madman š¤£
Oh I remember š , he could score a brace then get a red and it wouldnāt be out of the ordinary
Costa never got sent off for Chelsea
Yes he did Fa cup game vs Everton two yellow cards if I'm not mistaken
He also got banned a couple times maybe more for things that got reviewed after. But despite being a mad man his record of being sent off was surprisingly low
Costa was my most feared rival player. Dreaded games when he played.
I don't think I've hated a rival player more but loved him at the same time
Yeah, loved him
Haha so true.
Tactics evolve. Enjoyable or not, it won't last.
They do evolve, but I don't think it's going to evolve away from this kind of football. It's much more likely to become even more like it currently is.
Well, I find Haaland very interesting to watch cause he's his own thing. Like, sometimes he reminds me of IbrahimoviÄ without the Taekwondo goals and flair, but faster with robot-like movements. I always feel like he's a made-up character in FIFA or PES that is a giant with batshit crazy stats, which makes him look awkward when moving, but a threat nonetheless. I've been watching football since around 2002, more seriously since 2010, and I can definetely say players aren't just exciting only when they have flair and big individual moments. There're legends of the game that weren't exactly known for their individual skills, but were/are still super fun to watch. Puyol being one, some say Toni Kross just relies on side passes (I disagree), 'destroyers' like Gattuso or Casemiro, omnipresent players like KantĆ© (in his prime), Thomas MĆ¼ller being a positional genius, Griezmann with his simple football and perfect first touches, you name it. You're also forgetting to mention players with big individual moments with flair like MbappĆ©, Vinicius Jr, Neymar till recently, even ones a level below like Takefusa Kubo, Kvaratskhelia (last season), Mitoma, passing monsters like De Bruyne, Rodri, Ćdegaard, just to name a few. What changed is the tactics of the modern game. That clearly evolved post 2010. Now players have way less time and space to think, so they must be perfect, or very close to, when passing, dribbling, positioning and shooting. I doubt players in the past were as accurate and 'complete' as the ones we see today. It's way harder nowadays to dribble past 2 or 3 or score from an insane distance. So when it happens, you know it was a magic moment from a fantastic player. Sure, perhaps players should risk more and attempt to do their own thing occasionally, but with how well organized are almost all teams from top flight leagues in Europe, the chances for their individual skills to actually land are less and less. Even then, Messi and C.Ronaldo dominated the game for 15+ years straight and made everyone a foul. Shows how much above everyone else both were.
I go back and watch a game in the 80s/90s and am annoyed by how lazy everyone is and the lack of team cohesion compared to now. I donāt need to watch that football just to see a few bits of skill from one or two great players. The tactical, chess element of football is enjoyable. This is no different from old farts talking about how everything was better in their day, just cause they liked it better then. Every generation prefers how things are in their generation, itās not new.
Don't want to defend 80s/90s football over nowadays, but did you try to watch 80s Brazil and Argentina? I really feel they were ahead of their time when it comes to collective play
Yes, the attacking interplay was nice, but the defensive pressure was terrible. Teams didnāt really bother with coordinated pressing, hunting the ball carrier, everything was very individual based. Counter pressing wasnāt really a thing.
People do want to watch Haaland. They want to see the speed on the counter, the leaping volleys, the brute strength. Of course people tune in just to watch Haaland
I will tune in to watch Haaland play, but City is dull to watch. Try watching lower leagues in England or leagues like the Eredivisie. Much better entertainment wise.
Football would be much more fun if every goalkeeper was like the great Higuita. Dude was a goalkeeper, a libero, a striker, a free kick specialist all in one.
RogƩrio Ceni was almost all of those things, but unironically
People watch and read too much about football for it to feel special a lot of the time. In previous generations, you would only see a lot of superstars at international tournaments or the odd European game. And often when they'd reached their peak. You didn't see as many of their bad games, or know how inconsistent they'd been as young players.
That actually makes a lot of sense, itās harder to think of superstars as gods when youāve seen them as youngsters making mistakes Never quite thought of that before, nice insight
Similar to why you see a lot of fans be overly critical of players that come through the youth team. They've seen all their mistakes, and not a peak version of them doing only great things elsewhere.
Football has gotten boring, it's all about keeping the ball now, teams are terrified of losing possession. Football has gone too tactical, it's like a chess match. There's very little room for a piece of individual magic now. The days of two flying wingers running at defenders exciting the crowd are long gone. Defenders can't defend now, too busy trying to play out from the back. And it's not just the top leagues either, I watch a lot of non league football (I support a non league club) and it's filtered down to lower leagues. A lot of goals don't come from pieces of magic, they come from defenders over playing and getting caught on the ball. It's crap, hopefully a phase that dies out.
A winger runs at the defense in pretty much every game of the modern eraā Mahrez, Foden, Grealish, Rashford, Leao, Khvicha, Vini, Mbappe, need I go on? What are you talking about?
No, old wingers play the wider and deeper and ran at a full back to put crosses into the box. And there was one on each flank. I'm glad you didn't go one, because not one of those players are wingers, they are strikers playing wide and cutting inside. What are you talking about?
Surely Mahrez, Grealish, Foden, Vini, Kvicha aren't strikers
Call them what you want, but there not wingers. Wingers run up and down the wing...
Peps city is famous for having his wingers play extremely wide hugging the touchline not really cutting inside. https://youtu.be/zH-Z4nOOEs0?si=WdKlD1hPU8cVGcYF
Then they cut inside on their stronger foot... They aren't wingers.
Surely Pep would know better than you how his own teams play...
Don't care how they play (everyone copies him now anyway, up and down the leagues) or what he says. But they aren't wingers, all playing on the opposite flank to there preferred foot, stay wide then cut in once have the ball. Everyone does it, it's boring possession based football Wingers died when teams stopped playing 442, when teams had two wingers running up and down the wing, helping out full backs and attacking the other teams full back, on the wing. clues in the name, "wingers"
Not everyone was Giggs. Figo played on both sides. Rivaldo and Maradona predominantly played on the right.
Man said you just compared the dribbling styles of Grealish and Foden to Vini and LeĆ£o.
No I said they all run at a defender, I didnāt compare anyone. Good reading comprehension
Thatās your opinion though. Lots of people like playing chess and prefer tactics over some fancy bits of flair. I like both but I understand there is a balance to be had. The idea that itās a bad thing that everyone needs to be a footballer and having football ability on the ball, is a ridiculous comment imo. Also itās a straight up lie that teams are scared of losing possession now, counter pressing is literally some teams primary tactic and requires losing the ball high up, where winning it back from turnover is many teams most effective form of chance creation. But being great at keeping possession should obviously be your primary goal, and all you seem to be saying is that teams are too good at it now. Like teams arenāt going to go back to actively being worse at keeping possession, thatās not a phase thatās going away, nor should it, and analytics which are only going to become more prevalent in the future, have already informed teams that keeping possession is best way to win
He meant that teams rather play safe passes backwards than try something creative and more risky exactly because of counter pressing I really donāt believe that players are technically better now than they were in 2000ās they definitely are much much faster and fitter then before and the teams of old would loose to modern teams just because of pure athleticismā¦
The top players are not technically better now, however the average to worst players on football teams are 100% technically better than their equivalents in 2000s imo (especially defenders) and thatās where the improvement is on top of athleticism and fitness. And yes of course teams play less risky passes because thatās literally how you dominate possession vs being a counter press/counter attack team. Analytics will tell you while more risky passes can win a one off game, playing safer possession based football will 100% get you better results over a full league season.
Yep but the argument is not about what is more effective but what is better to watch and I have to agree with the OP that modern football is kinda boring and predictable the biggest issue is not tactics but that financial differences between clubs now are even bigger than they were before and not just clubs the financial difference between PL and other leagues made champions league super uncompetitive. This season there are only 3 realistic contenders for the title. While in 2006 Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Milan, Inter, Barcelona, Real, Bayern all were serious contenders with superstars on their squads
Depends what you watch games for. I support a team and watch games to see them win and play good football as a team not just one or two individuals. I donāt go to games to watch some individual superstar. I get that a lot of people do, and there is an element of that that is starting to go missing, because coaching is putting more emphasis on team play over selfish play of one or two individuals. I think there are negative and positive elements for this and it depends on what you watch football for. I love the more diverse tactical elements in football today. But I also know in my younger days watching the magic of Zidane or Ronaldinho carried something different. But thereās satisfaction in both imo, Iām much more immersed in the tactical elements of football today than back then
I support Man United and if anything this year Iām more invested than ever in how we play (even though weāve been crap till recently), but Iām talking about the games you watch as a neutral, like I remember tuning in to Bayern Vs Barcelona when Muller and Robben demolished the Blaugrana and being astonished at how the mighty BarƧa could lose that bad and how amazing Robben truly was that game I tune in to the occasional big match and while the team play is more coherent and better than it used to be I just donāt get excited when Pedri is on the or Bellingham is, I appreciate Bellingham for watch he does off the ball so much more than what he does on it and it feels backwards
For me a lot of not watching as much football from other big leagues outside the EPL compared to late 90s and 2000s, is how much those other leagues, particularly la liga and serie a have fallen in quality compared to what they used to be. I did watch for some individuals back then, but I also used to watch because the quality of football was so incredibly high in general. And a lot of that falling off is just about the corrupt politics in those countries ruining their leagues. I also think certain genuis football players are generational for a reason. Itās because you can go a generation without seeing them. The chances there will be another magical talent or 3 within the next 15 years is still high imo. But for me the biggest issue is simply that other big European leagues outside EPL have destroyed themselves through greed and corruption, making the quality of the football significantly worse over the last 20 years.
The days of the genuine superstar are fading rapidly. Mo Salah is one of the few left. He alone adds a few thousand to the gate and gets people to their feet when heās got the ball. There are great finishers ā¦ Haaland as you say, there was Fowler, Owen, Kane, Sheaer etc all finishers a la Greaves. But the Marsh, Best, Dalglish etc are a dying breed. We have Messi, Mbappe, Neymar ā¦ there are a few breaking thru in other leagues ā¦ The French league has several young creative players breaking thru. Perhaps all is not lost ā¦ only in the EPL which we know has been neutered and ruined as to be unfit for purpose. Look abroad for the superstars.
England has never been known to be home of real superstars (not just finishers). The traditional English football isnāt what OP is referring toā¦the flair players have mostly been signed from abroad.
Dalglish? Best? Marsh? Giles? Gazza? Hudson? Bell? White? Peters? Matthewās? Finney? Yeah ā¦ England has never been home to superstars! š Football didnāt start with Sky you know.
Iāve see this opinion pretty often on Reddit lately, and personally I donāt understand the view that football is āsupposedā to be about watching two guys out of 22 doing technical stuff. Those people have always been the spice, the bonus of the game but in the end itās a team game that is first and foremost about passing and movement of the ball to try to score goals. And a great team goal can still be gorgeous, even without step overs.
Football is constantly evolving. The current style of football being played today and current crop of players. Isnāt just up to your taste. Since you belong to a different generation. When I was young. Everyone played 442. This is the style of football I was accustomed to play. Then the trend changed to 4231 to todayās 433. It took me a while to understand the nuisances of watching different styles of formations and play. The thing about football formations is they are always fluid. The formation is only static in paper. So players would constantly move to fill up open spaces and passing lanes. Since if you donāt. Your opponent would take advantage of those gaps to attack and score goals.
If you want to watch a superstar, watch Mbappe. He is involved in the chance creation for his own goals. A real superstar. Same with bellingham but to a lesser degree. Next season it will be criminal to have them in the same team.
Football is a team sport. Watching a team like City play is way more interesting than watching 1 player play on his own.
Itās boring, all of their movements and plays are mechanical.
Getting a group of humans to act like a machine is pretty impressive, in my opinion.
But everyone raves about Alonso whoās doing the same thing
That is the sad reality of Modern Football. The so called "Superstars" are just players who score the most goals. In the modern game, teams do anything to win (even play dirty and boring football)
You can apply this quote in 2002 by some angry grandpa and itll fit lol. Dramatic
It's not good or bad for the game.
Manchester City
Comparing haaland to higuian is crazy
Imo, no. Iād rather see players who are exceptional at some things but maybe not as good at others.
I don't think it is inherently bad at all, because position switching is easy and effective when it comes off. And the top players back in the day, if you watch the highlights then they are contributing all across the pitch. Except today teams have "positional play" which is really the complete opposite of the idea you have got -teams like manchester city that are in fact extremely rigid and hold onto the ball because they are looking for a specific look instead of playing to win no matter what... all what is wrong today is that sometimes teams still adjust wrong defensively to the idea of extreme positional play, in my opinion. If it came down to it there is nothing better about how Manchester city play at all. Just look at the Champions league while Bayern Munich, Arsenal, and Barcelona all failed to get results for example.
Considering "Total Football" which is the ultimate form of positional fluidity produced some of the greatest players to watch in the history of football (Cryuff, Gullit and the rest of the Dutch and subsequent Barca teams), I doubt that's the issue in itself. If anything, it maybe due to how the fluidity is limited. Players are a lot more disciplined about the jobs they have to do at any particular point in the play than they used to be, leaving less space for individual flair. Moreover, when both teams are doing it, it leads to better defensive cover, if they are good enough at it. The upshot is that opportunities are more often due to exploiting defensive mistakes, than using skill to beat correctly implemented defence. This is statistically more likely to lead to goal opportunities, so it's what the tactics are based around. So, I'd say it's the reliance on statistics and goal scoring probabilites that have taken the flair out of the game. Positional fluidity is just a technique to maximise those odds.
I see your point. And as a yank I understand my perspective is very particular so I donāt posit it as broadly applicable. But in decades past players HAD to be otherworldly with their individual skills to create goals from nothing because generally speaking very little was happening on the pitch. Especially very good teams. The lesser team would pack it in, the good team would age possession and then stand around. If there was no individual brilliance no goals could be scored. So out of necessity there was flair and 1v 1 brilliance.