Of course it matters. The talent pool is a lot deeper now but the number of spots at the top level of the game are still the same.
What level could an old great team play at ?
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It doesn't guarantee it. Why would it?
I've given you an example of a talent pool 28 times bigger than another producing far inferior talent.
Doesn’t work like that. The majority of that population increase has been in Asia who comparatively contribute very little to the talent pool at the very top of the game. As in the 1980s today’s top players are mostly from Europe and South America which collectively have seen much slower population growth. And the problem facing much of Europe has been fewer numbers of young people playing the game at the frequency required. Society has changed in the western world where there is less informal play due to wider social and technological trends. Some of that is compensated by more rigorous coaching for some children, but in overall terms the totality of hours on the park accumulated by all kids today is bound to be down.
I agree with the point in terms of snooker. However it is a relatively niche sport in global terms and as such has only really scratched the surface of its potential talent pool. As such it doesn’t translate as well to the global game of football where the development curve took place a long time ago as leagues across the world professionalised in the 1960s and 1970s.
It's not just the fitness: there is a reason why everyone wants ball playing defenders or sweeping goal keepers these days. It's because those old school type players get completely shown up against a modern pressing sytem. Just like today's teams wouldn't stand a chance in 20 years times, because by then you will have even more complete footballers.
Ours
Those point totals are a sign of economic inequality in leagues, not standard of players or fitness. Exact same players but distribute them more fairly through the league and you see 70 point totals aplenty.
Economic inequality was already a thing in 2006
Over Bruno? Not really.
Even going back to the Fergie days. I wouldn't take him over Rooney or Scholes when he played behind Ruud.
Not to the same extent though, if Real Madrid and Barca of 2011 or 2012 give away Messi and Ronaldo to Valencia and Malaga, do they get near 100 points? No it's probably 4 teams around 75-80 points, nothing to do with improved sports science and recovery methods.
If after three decades, the average team and player aren’t better than the ones back then, can you say the sport have regressed as a whole?
Pretty much. Same as every modern military would annihilate Alexander’s or Genghis Khan’s armies, same as how any mediocre physics student knows more about physics than Sir Isaac Newton.
For what is worth, I am thinking early eighties or before. Mid to end eighties start getting better, though I still think City would absolutely destroy the world XI from the eighties or nineties (and would do even worse to earlier era teams).
I think it would be impossible for an 80s team. They would be conference level.
Manchester United were one week preparation behind other teams at the start of the season, and they got outplayed by Palace and Brighton and absolutely spanked by Spurs.
This tells you a lot about the general level of quality and fitness of footballers these days.
Manchester United were one week preparation behind other teams at the start of the season, and they got outplayed by Palace and Brighton and absolutely spanked by Spurs.
This tells you a lot about the general level of quality and fitness of footballers these days.
Before Messi and Cristiano it was Ronaldinho and Zidane and Figo and Raul and Rivaldo and Ronaldo...
Those types of players *always* played for the biggest clubs
Yea because centuries and decades are the same.
Jesus Christ.
I get your point but this is an extremely poor example.
Them playing against a pressing team and possession team like City would get destroyed.
Against someone like Newcastle it’d be like an early round FA Cup tie against a minnow.
Having all the ability in the world won’t matter if you’re nowhere near the pace of the game or have the fitness to be good enough for long enough.
Against someone like Newcastle it’d be like an early round FA Cup tie against a minnow.
Having all the ability in the world won’t matter if you’re nowhere near the pace of the game or have the fitness to be good enough for long enough.
People under estimate how fit and athletic players are nowadays.
George Best used to turn up drunk and be the best player on the park. You couldn’t get away with that now. Teams are too fast and too fit.
George Best used to turn up drunk and be the best player on the park. You couldn’t get away with that now. Teams are too fast and too fit.
There are so many poorly thought out arguments in this thread. This nowadays talk belies players who stroll around doing what they want and coming to life in key moments to decide games. Messi is the ultimate stroller, and arguably the best player in the world, still.
'Fitness' and 'conditioning' are thrown around like blanket, definitive terms, yet someone like Matthaus would comfortably be one of the fittest players active, transported as is, from his peak years to now, and Messi's output being heavily frowned upon in a Capello or Sacchi side (or many others of these so-called clogger eras).
Low block teams, good-great ones, even now, nulify the press by not entertaining it. Uniform fitness does not determine games against top class, tactically astute and prepared sides as much as is being put forward in here.
Improvements in sports science and more rigorous enforcing of good diet for squads over the last 15-20 years is about picking some of the low hanging fruit that was around
and getting that extra 0.5% or so out of lots of players that maybe wouldn't have been disciplined or knowledgeable enough to do that, when plenty of clubs were not as systematic about these things. Making training more efficient to avoid needless injuries, recover better and extend longevity.
It's not about turning players into supermen that are so far advanced physically that athletes from 2 or 3 decades ago with their ancient 1980s hearts and lungs wouldn't be able to compete at all. From some of the comments you see on these things, you would think no one understood the slightest thing about fitness until 10 years ago when we discovered the benefits of vegetables and recovery periods. Getting someone fit enough to play 90 minutes of football, fit enough to the point where their skill becomes a much bigger factor has not just been cracked with new knowledge in the last 10 years.
Now granted, these small margins of improvement + greater accumulation of easily available tactical knowledge that managers have access to compared to pre-globalisation days can be the difference between victory and defeat in high level football, and i'd favour the average current team to beat the average pre-80s or so team more often than not (depending on the country in question, some have stagnated or even regressed in some ways), but there's always massive exaggeration in these things.
and getting that extra 0.5% or so out of lots of players that maybe wouldn't have been disciplined or knowledgeable enough to do that, when plenty of clubs were not as systematic about these things. Making training more efficient to avoid needless injuries, recover better and extend longevity.It's not about turning players into supermen that are so far advanced physically that athletes from 2 or 3 decades ago with their ancient 1980s hearts and lungs wouldn't be able to compete at all. From some of the comments you see on these things, you would think no one understood the slightest thing about fitness until 10 years ago when we discovered the benefits of vegetables and recovery periods. Getting someone fit enough to play 90 minutes of football, fit enough to the point where their skill becomes a much bigger factor has not just been cracked with new knowledge in the last 10 years.
Now granted, these small margins of improvement + greater accumulation of easily available tactical knowledge that managers have access to compared to pre-globalisation days can be the difference between victory and defeat in high level football, and i'd favour the average current team to beat the average pre-80s or so team more often than not (depending on the country in question, some have stagnated or even regressed in some ways), but there's always massive exaggeration in these things.
I've seen these players play for Ireland and they are nowhere near the level of the other players, talent is talent. And as thepolice123 pointed out, in your example you're talking about centuries, maybe this works for pre-war players and the modern day, but early 1980s isn't that long ago relatively speaking.
I know they have, but the distribution of the best players among the top teams crept up until the early 2010s when it hit its peak and the top teams in a lot of European leagues had these big squads of high quality, essentially super teams, in a way they didn't before. Just look at the discrepency in wages, transfer fees etc.
Also to get 90 points in a season, if the opposite happened - standards of the rest got worse - then it would be easier to get to 90 points.
Tactics nowadays are just as further advanced as fitness is. Messi is a supreme athlete, regardless of how he looks compared to other modern players. Players in general are running more per match than they were in the past, and the difference grows in KMs the further back you go. I remember reading a UEFA study somewhre that showed players now are running several more kilmetres per match then players in the 60s did. The differences don't need to be huge to have an impact on the game. It's undeniable that players now are fitter and stronger. Even "lower" level teams from "poorer" leagues have fitness specific coaching, nutritionists, physical therapy setups, etc. Even average players are cutting about now with muscled chests and six-pack abs. They know more about what to eat, when to eat, when to nap, when to train, when to recover, etc.
The likelihood of an alcoholic or bowly legged player becoming a world star in the modern game is next to impossible. The idea of a coke filled Maradona being able to go out and perform every week in England or Spain now? Somewhat unlikely haha. All this is before the ease of access for information for teams to study their own games and watch opponents and get tactical info that way, even pub teams can do that with the internet.
Past players would struggle to adapt to these conditions if simply plonked into a game against a modern side. In terms of talent it's purely subjective about who was better, but all the other non technique stuff is heavily weighted in favour of modern teams. It's nostalgia goggles from the "back in my day" brigade saying otherwise IMO.
The likelihood of an alcoholic or bowly legged player becoming a world star in the modern game is next to impossible. The idea of a coke filled Maradona being able to go out and perform every week in England or Spain now? Somewhat unlikely haha. All this is before the ease of access for information for teams to study their own games and watch opponents and get tactical info that way, even pub teams can do that with the internet.
Past players would struggle to adapt to these conditions if simply plonked into a game against a modern side. In terms of talent it's purely subjective about who was better, but all the other non technique stuff is heavily weighted in favour of modern teams. It's nostalgia goggles from the "back in my day" brigade saying otherwise IMO.
Consistency would be the biggest issue. The best players today are able to keep up with intensity, training, pressure non-stop.
I don't see that with an old great team, where the intensity of the game would catch up and destroy them. Just see some newly promoted team, which starts decently, but completely fades away as they can't continue to cope
I don't see that with an old great team, where the intensity of the game would catch up and destroy them. Just see some newly promoted team, which starts decently, but completely fades away as they can't continue to cope
The counter to that is the elite clubs have big squads to manage the condition of their best players. For example, Villa won the league with just 14 players 40 years ago, where the same players had to continuously manage the intensity of games without breaks. Surely with the bigger squads afforded by the wealth of the modern game they would have more chance of maintaining their levels through the course of the season?
The level of disrespect to athletes from former generations never fails to surprise me on the caf. Such a lack of knowledge on show and recency bias off the scale.
We will soon see people shitting on Messi and Ronaldo because they can’t hold a candle to likes of Haaland because he is more ‘newer’.
If a lower division team can give a prem team a game on a given day in the FA Cup, and the likes of Juan Mata can play for some of the biggest sides in the game - and I’m sure there are countless other examples of non athletic players - well let’s take current version of Messi and Ronaldo (pretty much geriatrics) still being able to impact the modern game, you can bet your bottom dollar a prime Van Basten, Baresi and Gullit would be up there with the best in the game very easily.
Time is not a fixed constant in terms of quality growth - you have dips and sometimes you have stagnation and overall you would hope to see improvement but in a skills based game, that doesn’t always happen.
Teams overall are much better at keeping the ball, so tactically I do believe the game has advanced to a degree and fitness wise, the overall standard has improved across the pyramid - but a top side of the past, with access to regular training and a proper forward thinking manager with access to modern training methodologies would certainly hold their own and to say conference is such a joke it’s untrue.
The biggest thing that separates players in terms of class from UCL standard to lower league is decision making with the ball. In terms of systematically, there has been a general increase of football IQ since Pep Barca influenced generation of coaches - but we are talking a side from the past containing the best football brains from that era, they are not going to be found wanting in terms of decisions. Their speed of thought would still transfer across even if put in a different era and especially if they had access to modern coaching.
You’re talking players like Hoddle who even when he was coaching people said he was the best player on the pitch, a virtuoso with the ball and underrated players like Sansom - one of the most cultured full backs England has produced, Pep would love to have someone like him competing with a Zinchenko.
We will soon see people shitting on Messi and Ronaldo because they can’t hold a candle to likes of Haaland because he is more ‘newer’.
If a lower division team can give a prem team a game on a given day in the FA Cup, and the likes of Juan Mata can play for some of the biggest sides in the game - and I’m sure there are countless other examples of non athletic players - well let’s take current version of Messi and Ronaldo (pretty much geriatrics) still being able to impact the modern game, you can bet your bottom dollar a prime Van Basten, Baresi and Gullit would be up there with the best in the game very easily.
Time is not a fixed constant in terms of quality growth - you have dips and sometimes you have stagnation and overall you would hope to see improvement but in a skills based game, that doesn’t always happen.
Teams overall are much better at keeping the ball, so tactically I do believe the game has advanced to a degree and fitness wise, the overall standard has improved across the pyramid - but a top side of the past, with access to regular training and a proper forward thinking manager with access to modern training methodologies would certainly hold their own and to say conference is such a joke it’s untrue.
The biggest thing that separates players in terms of class from UCL standard to lower league is decision making with the ball. In terms of systematically, there has been a general increase of football IQ since Pep Barca influenced generation of coaches - but we are talking a side from the past containing the best football brains from that era, they are not going to be found wanting in terms of decisions. Their speed of thought would still transfer across even if put in a different era and especially if they had access to modern coaching.
You’re talking players like Hoddle who even when he was coaching people said he was the best player on the pitch, a virtuoso with the ball and underrated players like Sansom - one of the most cultured full backs England has produced, Pep would love to have someone like him competing with a Zinchenko.
Loads of people here seem to be sure any decent championship side would wipe the floor with Brazil of 1982 simply because the modern team is seen as the better athletes. If we make a comparison between football and pole vault for an example the current athletes should be streets ahead of the unfit athletes with bad training regimens of the 80s, 90's or 00s. The new, modern athletes should be faster, stronger, more technical and have access to more advanced poles. Yet the trajectory is not linear as one would expect. Sergey Bubkas 6.15m record from 1993 has only been bettered by two men (Lavillenie 6.16m in 2014 and Duplantis 6.18m in 2020).
I know some will chalk Bubkas results down to doping but at the same time Yelena Isinbayevas 5.06m record from 2009 is yet to be bettered and this is a record set in "the modern times". Usain Bolts 9.58 from 2009 still stands and we know a lot of his competitors like Asafa Powell, Tyson Gay, Justin Gatlin were all doped up. Great athletes will always adapt and they will also rise to the occasion, it's no fluke a lot of the world records are set during the olympics - they simply push themselves because of the competition. Given time to adapt the Brazil-team of 1982 would have crushed any championship side.
I know some will chalk Bubkas results down to doping but at the same time Yelena Isinbayevas 5.06m record from 2009 is yet to be bettered and this is a record set in "the modern times". Usain Bolts 9.58 from 2009 still stands and we know a lot of his competitors like Asafa Powell, Tyson Gay, Justin Gatlin were all doped up. Great athletes will always adapt and they will also rise to the occasion, it's no fluke a lot of the world records are set during the olympics - they simply push themselves because of the competition. Given time to adapt the Brazil-team of 1982 would have crushed any championship side.