Technically Charlton was doing things 5 decades ago that are still well beyond Cleverley's reach today. It's really not difficult to see that from the videos available. Cleverley could run more if you're comparing him against the Charlton we know rather than a hypothetical one that grew up in the same era with the same benefits, but that's not something anyone would dispute. So what exactly is the point being made?
Football in the olden days (pre-1990's) was crap, discuss.
- Thread starter Kentonio
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Yeah there's some very good match comps of Charlton on YouTube.
Was impressed when I saw them.
If anybody saw Argentina vs Chile tonight, then you would have seen an awful condition of the pitch, and a very underwhelming game from both teams, despite stars like Messi, Sanchez, Di Maria, Aguero, Higuain, etc. For instance; Brazil 82' would have looked far more modern and appealing compared to the wc qualifying game of tonight at Estadio Monumental.
It is true that today's pitch, stadiums, preparations, etc. are in general far better condition compared to previous decades. However, you could also argue that it makes today's players being pampered and they're getting the best circumstances to perform well - a privilege previous generations never had.
And let's not forget; today's football rules and climate are beneficial for attacking players. In the 80's (for instance) you could have got away with brutal tackles, whereas today's discussions are rather about where we should draw the line between a pure dive and an amplified reaction from the player that was 'tackled'.
Taking all of this into account, then - if anything - it could also propose a question of which players of today would survive in the 'old days', when the training conditions were poor, football climate was different,pitches were different, the rules were not as beneficial for attacking players, and so forth.
I believe as some have stated earlier, that it most of the time is not fair to compare different generations of players, and that it is about context.
It is true that today's pitch, stadiums, preparations, etc. are in general far better condition compared to previous decades. However, you could also argue that it makes today's players being pampered and they're getting the best circumstances to perform well - a privilege previous generations never had.
And let's not forget; today's football rules and climate are beneficial for attacking players. In the 80's (for instance) you could have got away with brutal tackles, whereas today's discussions are rather about where we should draw the line between a pure dive and an amplified reaction from the player that was 'tackled'.
Taking all of this into account, then - if anything - it could also propose a question of which players of today would survive in the 'old days', when the training conditions were poor, football climate was different,pitches were different, the rules were not as beneficial for attacking players, and so forth.
I believe as some have stated earlier, that it most of the time is not fair to compare different generations of players, and that it is about context.
Charlton's career is well-documented and if you want, you can get to know him just like you do with the modern players. Edwards is a special case, of course.
The second part is based on absolutely nothing though.
Pre 90's football was much better than the stuff served up to today, you rarely see exciting end to end matches played by players that just want to win rather than wanting to cheat, dive and feign injury anymore.
Never show your opponent you're hurt has been replaced by throw yourself to ground as elaborately as you can whilst screaming at the top of your lungs. Then stay there trying to get your opponent booked or sent off, extra points awarded if he never even touched you.
Never show your opponent you're hurt has been replaced by throw yourself to ground as elaborately as you can whilst screaming at the top of your lungs. Then stay there trying to get your opponent booked or sent off, extra points awarded if he never even touched you.
The OP is definitely over the top but, is a direct response to the modern football is crap thing that people here often parrot. Hell there is a thread on here saying Football is crap compared to just 8 years ago. Right now in Football the technique is higher than it has ever been, the fitness levels are better, the professionalism is better, tactics better, etc. And even this season we have had an exciting PL season, La Liga season and the ko stages of the CL so far has been better than I have ever remembered it being.
Do you really think the best players back then are as good as modern Premier League players? Stanley Matthews was nearly 42 when he won the Ballon D'or in 1956, I doubt he'd even be league 2 standard if he played now.
He beat Raymond Kopa and Di Stefano to that award.
This point is bollocks because I played on pitches like that loads of times growing up and would let my kids play on them no problem.
They'd also probably be League 2 standard.
We have to take in mind that Cruyff was one of the first pro footballer (together with Keitzer). Before him people did not live of football. It was just a semi-pro sport. Look at his inicial wages. 40 florins per week, hell.
One of the worst tournaments in the history of football was South Africa 2010 - atmosphere shite, football shite and I missed the final because I wasn't bothered. Dull football can happen in any era. Italian football in the 90s was certainly more interesting than Spanish football has been over the the last decade.
Funny how Matthews playing at a high level at 40+ is used as an indictment of standards back then yet someone like Zanetti doing the same thing is all down to the wonders of modern sports science. Matthews never smoked, was fastidious about his diet and controlling his weight, performed sprint training by himself, received sports massages, and began limiting his number of matches as he got older. He's an incredibly shit example to use to criticise the standards of old football really, as he was in many ways so modern in his preparation and lifestyle. I'll bet he took it alot more seriously than many current top-level pros, for all that standards have undoubtedly risen across the board.
It's hard enough trying to convince some people Pacman wasn't the pinnacle of video-gaming - as right as you are, you're never gonna win this one against the armies of fetishistic nostalgia.
Uruguay had a player called Hector Castro who had a large part of his arm missing, he even scored in the 1930 World Cup final.
He was only born 11 years before Matthews was. The 1930s aren't that far removed from the mid 50s. The sport was incredibly amateurish back then like all sports were, no players from the 1950s are comparable with modern players.
Jim Abbott, baseball pitcher who played for a decade in MLB from 1989-99, was born with no right hand:Uruguay had a player called Hector Castro who had a large part of his arm missing, he even scored in the 1930 World Cup final.
He was only born 11 years before Matthews was. The 1930s aren't that far removed from the mid 50s. The sport was incredibly amateurish back then like all sports were, no players from the 1950s are comparable with modern players.
Nick Newell competed at a decent level in fecking MMA until a few years ago with half a left arm:
I don't even know how to respond to that to be honest. Wanted to find a suitable metaphor but the claim is so absurd that I can't even find one.
You don't have to think that football peaked in the 1920s to disagree that everything before Rupert Murdoch and Sky TV came along was shite.
The biggest single difference is the speed. Sprint speeds have gone up, number of sprints has risen, defenders with the turning circles of large supertankers can't compete. It reduces the scope for certain kinds of skills, makes average players look like amateurs if they try them in normal matches, but makes players who can still deliver them at speed incredibly valuable.
Incidentally one side-effect of that speed issue is that high speed collisions are more common. Crudely, the collision energy doubles if you increase the collision speed by 50%, football is a hard game if you're on the wrong end of a high speed crash, players haven't gone soft. People talk about the hardness of the old game, but players like Best sometimes played without shinpads and bones weren't harder in those days. Two factors there, defenders were slower and Best was quick, he saw them coming. Plus not many players actually choose to do real damage, not now and not then either.
The other one is tactical sophistication and variation. There's more now and you can almost see a kind of arms race underway as one team tweaks and refines its way to the top, and others tweak and refine to hunt them down. The rise of multiangle televised football has led to rapid dissemination of ideas, information and counter-measures. We routinely see mid-match changes of formation, tactics and even personnel. 3 players out of 11 is a lot of subs. In the olden days of one sub (or going back further, zero subs) you really did have to save your sub for an injury.
Incidentally one side-effect of that speed issue is that high speed collisions are more common. Crudely, the collision energy doubles if you increase the collision speed by 50%, football is a hard game if you're on the wrong end of a high speed crash, players haven't gone soft. People talk about the hardness of the old game, but players like Best sometimes played without shinpads and bones weren't harder in those days. Two factors there, defenders were slower and Best was quick, he saw them coming. Plus not many players actually choose to do real damage, not now and not then either.
The other one is tactical sophistication and variation. There's more now and you can almost see a kind of arms race underway as one team tweaks and refines its way to the top, and others tweak and refine to hunt them down. The rise of multiangle televised football has led to rapid dissemination of ideas, information and counter-measures. We routinely see mid-match changes of formation, tactics and even personnel. 3 players out of 11 is a lot of subs. In the olden days of one sub (or going back further, zero subs) you really did have to save your sub for an injury.
So do you think Matthews would be one of the best players in the world today? If you took him from 1956 and put him in a PL team right now what do you think would happen?
Didn't have any problem advertising cigarettes though.
Yes, absolutely. He was always in great form, Giggsy-esque professional. Let alone his actual football talent, he would've been a second best dribbler in the world after Messi
Also here
Which makes him a lesser footballer why?
Nope. Not sure why that's relevant to his own prowess as an athlete though.
I never said it did.
Eusébio could run 100 meters in 11 seconds. It's not like there weren't any great athletes back then. The general athleticism is better now, but being a good athlete and a good football player are very different things. Just like you'd take Cleverley over Edwards would you take him over Iniesta?
Tactics have changed, if they got better or worse is a good discussion to have, but let's not just assume they got better because everything gets better with time.
Nainggolan smokes, Coentrão too and I'm sure there are a lot who do it in secret. But things like diet, psychology and lifestyle are important and if the players from the past had those things I'm sure the general level would have improved. But certainly not enough to make average players from today the best in the world in 1940 or to say Pelé today would be nothing special.
Tactics have changed, if they got better or worse is a good discussion to have, but let's not just assume they got better because everything gets better with time.
Nainggolan smokes, Coentrão too and I'm sure there are a lot who do it in secret. But things like diet, psychology and lifestyle are important and if the players from the past had those things I'm sure the general level would have improved. But certainly not enough to make average players from today the best in the world in 1940 or to say Pelé today would be nothing special.
I couldn't disagree more. I think if you put a 42 year old Stanley Matthews in a Premier League game today he'd be noticeably the worst player on the pitch.
Someone mentioned the change in the backpass law and that was a good shout. It liberated attack minded philosophies and did for Liverpool. Also the early 80s cultural impact of breakdancing shouldn't be underestimated. Breakdancing really enhanced the way players flowed through midfield, allowing them to crab and headspin around dirty bastards while making short work of boggy penalty areas. A number of coaches introduced bodypopping into daily training routines and we are living with the results today.
Lies!
Jim Abbott, baseball pitcher who played for a decade in MLB from 1989-99, was born with no right hand:
Nick Newell competed at a decent level in fecking MMA until a few years ago with half a left arm:
The current POTUS has two of those hands.
Notorious money grubber and skinflint. Look it up. Hypocrisy was also less defined in an era when smoking and false teeth were generally acclaimed.
Why stop at 1990? I think you could argue that modern football as we know it only emerged in the early-mid 00's. That is not to say that the quality before that was poor, just that it was a completely different proposition. Teams attacked each other, threw caution to the wind, played 4-4-2, 4-3-3 or even 4-2-4. Each team still had one or two players that were just as likely to wash the kit and hose down the coach as track back past the halfway line or break out into anything more strenous than a light jog.
I here the argument on TalkSport all the time that tactics and sports science have kind of taken a lot of the fun out of football and I have to say I am starting to agree
When was the last time you sat at OT and saw a truly great game of football? What I see most weeks is 11 men sitting back in their own penalty area falling on the floor at every opportunity and clingly grimly to a point as if their lives depend on it whilst the other team (us) containing very slightly better players try without much success to thread the eye of a needle. Im not just talking about Utd either, I wonder when Arsenal, Chelsea, City and Liverpool fans last sat and watched a game and thought "wow, what a game" regardless of the final score
Not losing has become more important than winning in football and that needs to be rectified
I here the argument on TalkSport all the time that tactics and sports science have kind of taken a lot of the fun out of football and I have to say I am starting to agree
When was the last time you sat at OT and saw a truly great game of football? What I see most weeks is 11 men sitting back in their own penalty area falling on the floor at every opportunity and clingly grimly to a point as if their lives depend on it whilst the other team (us) containing very slightly better players try without much success to thread the eye of a needle. Im not just talking about Utd either, I wonder when Arsenal, Chelsea, City and Liverpool fans last sat and watched a game and thought "wow, what a game" regardless of the final score
Not losing has become more important than winning in football and that needs to be rectified
I agree to an extent, money is also a big factor now for example lower teams desperate to stay in the PL , the result matters more than the way the game is played.
I agree with the general point. The standard of football was pretty crap by today's standards - largely. Obviously there are exceptions. The best players stood out back then because they were ahead of their time in many respects. Either through better fitness and taking better care of themselves than the rest or having superior skills.
It's also a one-sided argument when you only consider the weaker standards a negative. Sure, the pitches were awful and unfit hatchet men were more prevalent, but these can also be used in defence of the Peles and Cruyffs of this world. They shone in spite of these obstacles. Could Messi and Ronaldo replicate their talent on the cow fields those players had to put up with.
As I say though, I generally agree with the OP. I can't watch football from back then because too much of it looks amateurish.
Take video games as a comparison. There are games on the SNES and Mega Drive that were absolutely amazing at the time and can rightly be regarded as some of the best video games of all time. However, if you were to compare them to modern day games you could make a similarly effective argument that gaming in the olden days was crap, but it wouldn't make it true.
It's also a one-sided argument when you only consider the weaker standards a negative. Sure, the pitches were awful and unfit hatchet men were more prevalent, but these can also be used in defence of the Peles and Cruyffs of this world. They shone in spite of these obstacles. Could Messi and Ronaldo replicate their talent on the cow fields those players had to put up with.
As I say though, I generally agree with the OP. I can't watch football from back then because too much of it looks amateurish.
Take video games as a comparison. There are games on the SNES and Mega Drive that were absolutely amazing at the time and can rightly be regarded as some of the best video games of all time. However, if you were to compare them to modern day games you could make a similarly effective argument that gaming in the olden days was crap, but it wouldn't make it true.
I think also the way football is played & portrayed today shapes the minds & opinions of the younger generation who probably aren't old enough to draw comparisons. With all the technology available, not to mention football on tap pretty much 24/7, I sense they feel that football is far more important to supporters now than back in the days when the game was played on muddy pitches & some footballers smoked. But the fact is football fans were probably even more passionate back then. Every victory was just as sweet & every trophy won was celebrated with intensity & joy. Football has changed over the years, & it will continue to do so. However, the tribalism, rivalry, & one-upmanship will still be around amongst opposition fans when we're no longer here.....& beyond.
People do not evolve like machines do, not a good comparison.
Did anyone else think the video in Exhibit C rather contradicted Exhibit A?
Muddy football pitches were not as common back then as some people might think. Sure, after a prolonged period of heavy rain a lot of pitches would cut up pretty easily which in turn meant the players had to concentrate a bit more when running with the ball. But as someone who also played a lot of football back then I can't recall too many matches where we were ankle deep in mud. & even then, the games I played in, & watched, were generally exciting affairs.
Even non-league footballers could strike a ball pretty well back in the day.