Also, the key difference won't be in the quality of top players, who would've been top players in every era. But the level of players in the mid-table or even relegation-zone clubs is something that changed most drastically. Those players who don't have a generational level of talent are most improved by the coaching techniques, fitness, the fact that they're able to focus their whole life on performing at their best etc.
Older Generations vs. Newer Generations
- Thread starter KingEric7
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Very true and perhaps also a progressive change is they are protected better now. They use to get absolutely battered.
No, unfortunately. I respect that, going by that, he could've been a great player in his era, but the difference in technique is just so massive between someone like him and, say, Nani 2010, that I'm just not convinced.Perhaps Sir Tom Finney would be more to your liking.
Not one of his best performances as he wasn't fully fit and injured but the quality (not the footage) is apparent.
There are a combination of factors on both sides of the debate. There are big problems in these videos with the anticipation and technique of defenders, and Matthews/Finney it seems had a lot more time on the ball against them. It looks a very different game defensively, to be honest:
All sorts of problems with players committing, but to give a specific example, with regards to the goal towards the end of the video (pause on 10:06), that defender should be covering Matthew's strongest foot, but instead gives him a path outside.
I think technology and science has provided modern players with a range of tools that has helped. As motivation and ability are the key components then earlier players would still have made it.
Modern players are able to watch the opposition without attending a game.
They have heart rate monitors, blood tests, gym equipment etc available to use to check that they are working and recovering correctly to prevent over training. There are individual fitness specialists for aerobic, anaerobic, speed, agility, flexibility and strength.
They also have video analysis of their technique so they can see and correct
Tactics have had to be updated because it is a level playing field in that every club has access to this equipment.
Stanley Matthews training use to involve running on the sand at Blackpool beach and would add weights to his ankles whilst training so he would then feel lighter on match days. Now you watch Messi doing a session on the sand where there is a goal, cones and a coach passing him a ball to finish. So the idea is still the same but the equipment very different.
Modern players are able to watch the opposition without attending a game.
They have heart rate monitors, blood tests, gym equipment etc available to use to check that they are working and recovering correctly to prevent over training. There are individual fitness specialists for aerobic, anaerobic, speed, agility, flexibility and strength.
They also have video analysis of their technique so they can see and correct
Tactics have had to be updated because it is a level playing field in that every club has access to this equipment.
Stanley Matthews training use to involve running on the sand at Blackpool beach and would add weights to his ankles whilst training so he would then feel lighter on match days. Now you watch Messi doing a session on the sand where there is a goal, cones and a coach passing him a ball to finish. So the idea is still the same but the equipment very different.
Nothing a few lines of good quality cocaine couldn’t solve.
If you actually watch Maradona play one thing becomes very clear - he was playing in a day and age that was far, far more difficult for skill players...
The tackles that would fly in on him during a game would today result in multiple Red Cards a game... probably multiple reds a half...
If Maradona was around now, exactly as he was then, he'd be even better because of the protection he would rightly now receive.
He was a pioneer and was playing - quite literally - years ahead of his time.
Ir certainly is. Matthews era played 2-3-5/3-2-5/WM formations mostly. As in you have 3 defenders vs 5 forwards. So the defenders are not aggressive to close down. Plus the ball dynamics are not really suited to swinging crosses, so that threat is far lesser than modern day. Dribbling and taking on defenders were the primary aspects of attack and so the defenders were comfortable in giving them space and waiting for them to advance before tackling. Even tactivally, the concepts of closing down space etc are not really fit for purpose with the formation played in that era.
When comparing players across era's, I find it easier to imagine how their skill would translate into modern standards as against just picking attacking videos and comparing them to modern defences. Put most modern defences in a WM formation and you'll see them struggling against Matthews too.
To be honest, I'm watching these Tom Finney/Stanley Matthews videos again and, seriously, no formation explains what's going on here in terms of people committing to tackles and standing flat footed against incoming players. I dunno... I'm thinking at this point that Kevin Kilbane dribbling with a cannonball might star at this level. There is almost literally no defensive athleticism or anticipation.
The backpass rule allowed for defenders to be more physical ball-winners than athletic ball-players. It gave everybody a nice rest too.
The only difference is level of training and professionalism and tactics. There was a thread on here before and it was clear that defending in particular, has moved up a few levels. Average players i think are better due to training now than their equivalents would have been in the past. Thats not to say Finney and Matthews wouldnt star today. The videos may how bad the defending was but their technique, vision, skill stand out. At the end of the day you only have to play well enough to beat the opposition, you game is raised or lowered but your ability is still the same. Any one that has played different levels of football will know exactly what i mean.
It was a different game, people are hoofing the ball and its traveling 30 yards. Cross field passes aren't happening. The bounce of the ball looks different. The potential to have your legs broken was higher. The tactics and technique are pretty different and in some cases they just look rubbish tbh but it doesn't seem that comparable.
I'm not so sure. That milan team was A) modern in terms of tactics(in fact, modern football is a byproduct of that milan side) and had 5 all time greats, 4 of which could be transported from 1990 to today without missing a beat(Maldini, Rijkaard, Gullit, Van Basten), and Gullit would still be physically dominant in today's game, he was that much of a marvel
But...i would still take spurs as favourites, yeah
Would Luke Shaw be considered better than a maldini or Irwin because he plays now with all modern coaching / diet (pizza) etc 
The great Milan teams could all play in today's game surely
The great Milan teams could all play in today's game surely
Last edited by a moderator:
Many argue Tom Finney was the greatest player of that era due to the fact he was considered the more complete player.
Some incredibly glowing endorsements here including Sir Bobby.
Not a great deal of football footage but a really excellent short vid regarding the best player of his era.
I can’t but agree with you on this. He was probably the most fouled player of all time. The pitches then were of lesser quality overall too.
Maradona also was often in his career a ‘one man team’ and whilst undoubtably a horrible little man for me arguably the GOAT.
Great past players would also have the benefits of modern science, nutrition etc. Surely great players would be even better if they came through now
Keep in mind, the biggest difference between today and even 10 years ago is tempo. Modern football is just faster, a lot faster, than it ever was. It's not about players being faster(though on average i suspect that would be the case), it's about endurance. Modern players can run more, sprint more, then their older counterparts. And likewise they are conditioned to think and act more quickly. This is also one of the main reasons why Messi and Cristiano blow every past great out of the water in terms of consistency, and why the best teams are more dominant than ever
It’s not about bursting bubbles. If that’s your thing then on yer bike. There are too many in here who just want to play oneupmanship. I am not a champion of all things modern as I’m pretty old now.
This is not my opinion, I’m merely going on what I have heard many pro sportsman of the past say with regards to the advances over time. I recall Mike Tyson even saying that due to advances in nutrition, training, sports s Ince etc that quite a few modern heavyweights would beat him. I’m not actually convinced they would but he is more of an expert than me so I’ll trust his opinion.
Oh and I might be wrong but I’m pretty sure more footballers smoked and drank back in the day than do today. Did Fergie himself not break the drinking culture at OT?
Stan at 80 would’ve tore you a new arsehole lad.
I'm still watching these videos and wondering if pre-60s is an absolute cut off point in regards to older footballers succeeding in the modern game. It cannot be emphasised enough just how much the standard of defending/technique has increased since then if this was the top level:
8:44:
Last edited:
Where did he go!
You'd have to give these chaps the benefit of training with modern techniques from childhood. I mean even in the 80s and 90s the technical level was lower. Guys like Ronaldinho, Messi, Iniesta and Thiago seemed like a new level technically to me.
You also have to look at this from an individual country perspective to get a proper worldwide view of football, not everyone has the same circumstances and is marching along in glorious lockstep progression or had a recent tactical renaissance like Spain. A fair few of the former communist European countries hit a real low point in domestic footballing quality/grass roots youth setup quality etc at some point the past 15-20 years due to struggling to recover from communism, football not being a priority and old football systems falling apart. a lot of the better players only develop to top standard by being farmed out early to Germany, England, Spain etc
This past two generations has hardly been a steady march forward of technical football development once you go east of Germany. Average fitness level is better same as everywhere else and tactics is easy at the basic level for any country to be up to date in an era of easy global communication, as everyone follows the trends of the most recently successful but domestic players from the 70s-90s were undoubtedly technically superior overall once you get to the ones playing for the better club and making the NT. There was a much higher ceiling available from domestic footballing development alone.
I don't know nearly enough about Argentina or Brasil domestic football structures to say what is going on there for sure, but i wonder if many fans that have extensive experience of watching football from different decades would say they are as good as they ever have been in terms of technical development? Fitness-wise sure, but it seems to me they produced better technicians in previous decades and are in a decline there, especially Argentina. Brazil still produces among the highest number of good quality, effective players, but in the midfield and attacking positions they seem to have become much more workmanlike in style over the past 15 years.
Taking in things as a worldwide whole, other than overall improvements in fitness i find football to be pretty stagnant in development over the past 2 decades really, tactically only the Spanish innovation really impresses and as a time period it's nothing remotely close to the big tactical upheavals we saw between mid 50s and 70s..we've long settled into a comfort zone of 4-4-2 and 4-3-3 variations and different pressing schemes(the main ingredients of which have been around for half a century now since Michels and Lobanovsky) as the height of innovation. As far as global quality levels, there has been progress, but not really any truly big developments in Concacaf, Asia or Africa...we are still waiting for any of these countries to make the consistent step up from occasionally decent/good second or third tier teams.
This past two generations has hardly been a steady march forward of technical football development once you go east of Germany. Average fitness level is better same as everywhere else and tactics is easy at the basic level for any country to be up to date in an era of easy global communication, as everyone follows the trends of the most recently successful but domestic players from the 70s-90s were undoubtedly technically superior overall once you get to the ones playing for the better club and making the NT. There was a much higher ceiling available from domestic footballing development alone.
I don't know nearly enough about Argentina or Brasil domestic football structures to say what is going on there for sure, but i wonder if many fans that have extensive experience of watching football from different decades would say they are as good as they ever have been in terms of technical development? Fitness-wise sure, but it seems to me they produced better technicians in previous decades and are in a decline there, especially Argentina. Brazil still produces among the highest number of good quality, effective players, but in the midfield and attacking positions they seem to have become much more workmanlike in style over the past 15 years.
Taking in things as a worldwide whole, other than overall improvements in fitness i find football to be pretty stagnant in development over the past 2 decades really, tactically only the Spanish innovation really impresses and as a time period it's nothing remotely close to the big tactical upheavals we saw between mid 50s and 70s..we've long settled into a comfort zone of 4-4-2 and 4-3-3 variations and different pressing schemes(the main ingredients of which have been around for half a century now since Michels and Lobanovsky) as the height of innovation. As far as global quality levels, there has been progress, but not really any truly big developments in Concacaf, Asia or Africa...we are still waiting for any of these countries to make the consistent step up from occasionally decent/good second or third tier teams.
I know where you're coming from as the contrast in footage from the modern game is so stark. But the impact that a heavy lump of a ball and clunky, heavy boots will have on dribbling technique is understated. I would go as far as saying that the close control and tight-space manipulation of a Ronaldinho is physically impossible with the tools Matthew had to operate with. Messi's ball-glued-to-his-feet dribbling and Cristiano's high-speed technical execution would not have been possible with this thing:
Wearing a pair of these:
That was the equipment they operated with in the 1950s.
When it comes to wingers, or anyone whose forte was 1v1 dribbling, the key isn't really their portfolio of skills but their ability to unbalance the defender to create space. That's where Matthews really stands out. He was a master at swivelling the hips and dropping a shoulder to shift the defender's balance, before springing in the other direction. It's one of the hardest things to do in the game and very few wingers master it, even the highly trained and highly drilled attackers of today.
To make a modern comparison, a highlights video of Ryan Giggs isn't going to display the close control of Messi or the blur-of-feet of Ronaldo, but it will show him weaving in and out of defenders, throwing them off balance as he teases them from inside to outside. Matthews was never really a Messi/Ronaldo level player, even in his own day, but he was more akin to his generation's Giggs or Figo in stature, while being even more of a thoroughbred winger.
I'll have to get one of these balls off Ebay at some point to see what they're actually like. My suspicion though after having watched more closely the contact between ball and foot today is that, at least with regards to dribbling, this problem is overstated. With regards to the above shoes, they basically seem comparable to the shoes I used to play in at school during lunchtime...normal, smart sort of shoes. Not ideal, but the way people have talked about this, I thought players were playing in heavy, thick hiking boots or something.I know where you're coming from as the contrast in footage from the modern game is so stark. But the impact that a heavy lump of a ball and clunky, heavy boots will have on dribbling technique is understated. I would go as far as saying that the close control and tight-space manipulation of a Ronaldinho is physically impossible with the tools Matthew had to operate with. Messi's ball-glued-to-his-feet dribbling and Cristiano's high-speed technical execution would not have been possible with this thing:
Wearing a pair of these:
That was the equipment they operated with in the 1950s.
The dribbling technique I've seen with Matthews where he gets the defender to commit is not going to be easy to pull off in today's game with defenders who are well balanced, aggressive, quick to react, etc, but with defenders who are flat footed, slower, prone to committing, it's a very different situation, in my opinion.
Last edited:
He advertised for money. Didn't smoke himself, iirc.
The Matthews situation has had me asking some questions about subsequent generations, and I've ended up watching the highlights of players from the Brazil team of the early 80s. What do people think? Something that's at the absolute forefront of my thinking every time I watch these videos is the period of adjustment players will have to go through as soon as they're put onto that pitch with modern day defending and closing down. Some of these players have technique that really holds up, but as soon as you start getting closed down, you start worrying more about losing the ball, and simple things like controlling a ball can become more complicated in the mind. More awareness becomes dedicated to defenders around you, and less to what's going on with the actual football, and what you could potentially do with it. The consequence of this is that a player loses technical excellence, vision and authority.
Zico must've been a great player in his day, and his technique holds up, but I think Socrates could be in trouble in the modern game. The technique is okay when he's stationary and in a lot of space, but there are again big problems when he's running with the ball. I'll give a couple of examples from the following compilation:
0:52
1:42
His ability to strike the ball looks to hold up going by that compilation, but in a video like that, it can distort the perception of the overall player, I think.
Zico must've been a great player in his day, and his technique holds up, but I think Socrates could be in trouble in the modern game. The technique is okay when he's stationary and in a lot of space, but there are again big problems when he's running with the ball. I'll give a couple of examples from the following compilation:
0:52
1:42
His ability to strike the ball looks to hold up going by that compilation, but in a video like that, it can distort the perception of the overall player, I think.
How old are you? Genuinely curious.
Football/soccer was a little slower on adapting to the modern standards of professionalism seen in the North American team sports, however, your first statement is simply not true. When people say this, I have to assume they are often young, perhaps even less than 20 years old.
I can assure you, that almost nothing has actually changed in terms of sport specific training in the last 25 years in virtually all major professional sports. Nutrition hasn't really changed much either. The main difference, is the diffusion of knowledge. Good training advice is readily available for anyone who wants to find it. 25 years ago, this advice while there, was less available. Your coach or trainer had to have a pedigree or some sort of connection to someone who knew what was up. Now anyone can go on youtube, and find good techniques, good programs, good systems.
If you're telling me that David Beckham would be run off the pitch by anyone on any team in the premier league today, I'd tell you I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. The simple fact is, the "great revolution" in modern sports, came in the late 1980's and early 1990's as it pertains to football. Since then, not a whole heck of a lot has changed. Tactics have changed, how people strength and condition hasn't.
Last edited:
This is why I feel like you need to basically draw a line between the pre-modern and modern game. Where you draw that line differs by sport. For most of the North American sports, that line is in the early 1980's, where professional really meant professionalism. In football (soccer to be clear) that line is a little more fuzzy, and probably late 80's early 90's. Maradona could fall on either side of that line, and dominates on either side of it.
However, I look at the footage of Pele, and I laugh, when I see some of the guys he played against, grown men that I was bigger, stronger, faster, and fitter than, when I was 15.
As I have said elsewhere I am only echoing comments from sportsmen/women from some decades ago when discussing the differences between them and now. I tend to trust their opinions on these things rather than people on Internet forums. I am however open to both being wrong and being educated. For your information I am 50 years old this very day...
I think the main difference is the average fitness level. There were supremely fit players in earlier eras but they were few and far between which made them stick out and allowed them to dominate their opponents. Players like Gullit or Matthaus who never stopped running would be like Kante is today. Fitter than everyone else, but not by nearly as much as during their own time.
Congrats old man
My position is this. I was a high schooler in the 1990's. I began college sports in the late 1990's. The stuff we did then, is the same stuff that is trained now regarding strength and conditioning. We understood macro nutrients, calories in vs calories out. We understood protein vs carbohydrates vs fat, the ratios we wanted to hit for optimal strength gain, for conditioning, for endurance. There was also bro science around then too, just like now.
Meanwhile, today, ketogenic diets are all the rage, and the wealth of science that exists on this subject matter, shows that ketogenic diets are less effective than a diet that is fueled by carbohydrates for elite performance.
Things REALLY haven't changed much. If you could ask Gary Neville what they did for strength and conditioning, and asked Ole what his players are doing now, I can almost promise you that it is basically the same stuff. The only caveat here is, soccer WAS slower to adapt to this stuff than say American Football, Basketball and the other big North American sports and Olympic Athletes did. So, Neville and people of his generation may have started doing that kind of stuff 20 years ago instead of 25 years ago.
100% this - you can't compare generations without ignoring fitness, etc. - you have to imagine what these older generational players would be like if they played right now - at a club with all modern science and fitness available. Most of them would still be very fine players, with some of them being absolutely world class.
Older players couldn't compete. Modern footballers have the best doping programs known to man
Pft. 1954 germany says helloOlder players couldn't compete. Modern footballers have the best doping programs known to man
Just to follow up on this, I've been watching more clips, and I really think this guy seriously struggles in today's game. A lot of the emphasis in these discussions is on fitness, but I think how far behind technically a lot of these players are compared to the modern day greats like Messi, Ronaldo, Iniesta, etc is understated. Actually, I was watching highlights of Altrincham FC recently, and I found a guy down the left wing who reminded me of Socrates with his dribbling technique.
Yusifu Ceesay (number 11) down the left for Altrincham:
Feel a bit dodgy highlighting this Altrincham player, to be honest, and there is more to the game than dribbling technique, but so often I'm just seeing Socrates in masses of space and with no pressing, and I just think he'd have the shock of his life if he encountered, say, peak-Fletcher and Park.
Last edited: