What's good/better about football today?

[adexkola]

A lot of talk nowadays about what's changed for the worse in football.

VAR
Decline of individualism
"Sportswashing"

And so on.

But what has changed for the better? Can choose any timeframe or perspective (from the players, managers and/or fans watching).

Go!

 

[redshaw]

Pitches are much better.

 

[duffer]

I get to watch a ton of it from home.

 

[Offside]

Hmm… major international tournaments? A lot of tournaments between 82 - 94 every game felt like a borefest. Stupid formats were tried and the 2 points for a win didn’t work as well. The last 3 world cups have on the whole been cracking. Football in general doesn’t reward drawing as much.

 

[Powderfinger]

The depth of technically skilled players is much greater, at least in England.. I’m not talking about top players or flashiness but in basic technical ability bottom table teams are way better than they were 20 years ago.

 

[Bobski]

Pitches are much better.

Massively so, go and look at some of the late autumn through to late spring pitches Utd were playing on at OT and away back in the 90's through the early 00's, some shocking bobbly mudheaps at times. Technological development in this area is a major reason why heavily possession based football came to the fore, simply would not have been possible in those conditions.

 

[tenpoless]

Tickets, official merchandise, and tours are more accesible for people abroad.

 

[Gopher Brown]

Access to highlights of games and videos of players. It took sky sports a long time to catch up and start putting highlights on YouTube, but I’m glad they finally did.

 

[kaiser1]

Physical fitness and diet
Less doping
Less Hooliganism
Less brutes( players who are just on the field to injure creative players)
Time wasting back passes to keeper can take 15mins from 90

I still think VAR is a positive vs the days of refs claiming they didn't see the controversial action

 

[Scandi Red]

I think the level of international football has improved simply because there are more nations that are good at football these days. You can (and should) criticize FIFA, but you cannot deny the quality of the last two world cups as well as the AFC and AFCON recently.

VAR is not a problem in my opinion. It's the people inside the VAR room who still get it wrong despite having all the necessary tools to get it right 100% of the time. As with most things, it's human incompetence that is the problem and not the technology.

 

[Lay]

Goal line technology
Better stadiums
Better pitches
Lesser nations improving including nations in Asia and Africa becoming better and better.

 

[Abizzz]

Racism is still a problem but it's improved since I was a child. I actually think that football as a whole contributed a lot towards tolerance. Still a long way to go, but progress none the less.

 

[KeanoMagicHat]

Pressing is both good and bad, definitely leads to higher paced games, but has negatively affected space for number 10s who were the most interesting players. I don't know if football in general is better to watch or worse, just different. Fewer long shots, dribbles and non-percentage plays damages the spectacle.

But that front foot football of Pep, Klopp and others is at least better to watch and dynamic than the mid-2000s Mourinho, Benitez and even Quieroz-influenced United at times, where 1-0 would be what you play for, or 0-0/1-1 away from home.

 

[Abizzz]

Also a lot less career ending challenges these days. Improvements in medicine have also led to fewer early retirements I think.

 

[Zen86]

I don’t think very much is better, besides the pitches and probably the levels of abuse.

 

[TwoSheds]

Full backs are better footballers (though frequently crap defenders). Cafu, Zanetti, Carlos were the rarities back then whereas now they're more or less the norm (albeit those players would still easily be the best around in the modern game).

I do think though that Kyle Walker would have fitted in well in an old school team at RB despite being a bit thick.

 

[mu4c_20le]

VAR is something I was completely against, but overall it has been good.

Fitness levels are a lot better

 

[adexkola]

I still think VAR is a positive vs the days of refs claiming they didn't see the controversial action

Just to be clear, I don't think VAR in and of itself is a problem. It's implementation can be better in the PL, and it is controversial despite what I think, which is why I listed it

Pressing is both good and bad, definitely leads to higher paced games, but has negatively affected space for number 10s who were the most interesting players.

I personally think there is an arbitrage opportunity for teams that develop tactics where the traditional 10s and other roles that have gone out of favor in the game are utilized to attack the weak points of a pressing oriented game.

 

[Gio]

Pitches are much better.

Yes. They have allowed teams to commit to a possession style of play from August to May without having to plan for direct football 3-4 months a season.

Alongside that the raft of attacker-friendly rule changes allows us to see more creativity and technique than before. It’s an easier-on-the-eye product

 

[Eriku]

Production values in footage. The super slow-motion clips showing defenders rushing in, a ball flying no-contact through the legs his legs and into the net. The margins are incredibly fine and we are seeing them in increasing detail.

 

[Oranges038]

Pitches are much better.

Surface wise aye.

But I miss those different designs the groundsmen use put on the pitch.

 

[RG77]

Higher level. I know people like to say that we had so many great [x] years ago but the level and consistency is so much higher now. Even teams from the bottom are training and managed so much more. Everyone is incredibly fit, every team has countless ways in which they’ve improved. From diet, base technique and passing, defending as a unit, tactics. You name it.

Which in turn means that players who belong to the very top have it even harder to stand out. Just compare the spaces in which the modern winger or midfielder needs to operate to just 20 years ago.

 

[Scandi Red]

Alongside that the raft of attacker-friendly rule changes allows us to see more creativity and technique than before. It’s an easier-on-the-eye product

Tactical fouls aside, the game is also much cleaner (in a good way).

 

[LInkash]

Football on social media is fun

 

[DJ Jeff]

Pressing is both good and bad, definitely leads to higher paced games, but has negatively affected space for number 10s who were the most interesting players. I don't know if football in general is better to watch or worse, just different. Fewer long shots, dribbles and non-percentage plays damages the spectacle.

But that front foot football of Pep, Klopp and others is at least better to watch and dynamic than the mid-2000s Mourinho, Benitez and even Quieroz-influenced United at times, where 1-0 would be what you play for, or 0-0/1-1 away from home.

The disappearance of #10s is what I loathe the most about modern football. We lost so much with that.

 

[eire-red]

Hard not to think through everything with a negative bias given I'm 30 and my "now vs then" is watching us struggle vs watching us win continuously, so everything I view with a bit of a bitter light.

Being able to watch pretty much all of United's games on the TV springs to mind, so I guess the non-local fan experience is much better. However, I can barely watch big game build up on Sky anymore because it is just too full of bias and whatever the going narrative is.

Goal like technology is the obvious no-brainer when comparing a unilaterally accepted improvement now to the naughties for example.

VAR is a positive tool, but just needs proper implementation. It has removed diving to a decent extent and controversy around offside.

More punishment for time wasting in terms of added time. Next step I think should be a stop clock and shorter halves.

 

[Lexicon Red Devil]

Higher level. I know people like to say that we had so many great [x] years ago but the level and consistency is so much higher now. Even teams from the bottom are training and managed so much more. Everyone is incredibly fit, every team has countless ways in which they’ve improved. From diet, base technique and passing, defending as a unit, tactics. You name it.

Which in turn means that players who belong to the very top have it even harder to stand out. Just compare the spaces in which the modern winger or midfielder needs to operate to just 20 years ago.

As someone has already pointed out in this thread, the pitches are much better these days so it's easier for the smaller sides to play a passing game. Put the players today on some of the pitches from 20/30 years ago and they'd struggle big time. The game was also pretty rough and today's players get a lot more protection.

Less hooliganism and racism are the only things I think have definitely improved. The game is a lot more polished and neatly packaged, but it doesn't necessarily make it better.

 

[Big Ben Foster]

Production / broadcast quality and availability. It's so easy to watch almost any match in the world in 4k on TV or a reliable stream. It wasn't that long ago that to watch most United matches in the US, one would have to install Sopcast and find a dodgy Russian or Japanese language stream in 360p resolution.

We've come a very long way.

 

[ThierryHenry]

The quality of play in big games is light years ahead of prior eras.

 

[adexkola]

Production / broadcast quality and availability. It's so easy to watch almost any match in the world in 4k on TV or a reliable stream. It wasn't that long ago that to watch most United matches in the US, one would have to install Sopcast and find a dodgy Russian or Japanese language stream in 360p resolution.

We've come a very long way.

Great times

I used to have the exe file in my flash drive so that whatever computer I ended up at in school for the day, I could install and watch if needed

 

[Mike Smalling]

It’s nice that the women’s game seems to be coming along nicely.

 

[Moby]

Players being far more educated on average and being super respectful to their partners.

 

[GMoore23]

As already stated :

Much better playing surface
No picking the ball up from a back pass
Goal line technology

 

[Rozay]

Even the proprietors of the game don’t like it as much. Even Pep hates stat addiction (much like myself), and the PL has become cyborg wars where only the strong (literally) survive, with a few exceptions.

I fell in love with the art of football, however, it’s gone way more towards the science side now.

The pitches are much better now.

 

[fergiewherearethou]

Production / broadcast quality and availability. It's so easy to watch almost any match in the world in 4k on TV or a reliable stream. It wasn't that long ago that to watch most United matches in the US, one would have to install Sopcast and find a dodgy Russian or Japanese language stream in 360p resolution.

We've come a very long way.

Basically this.

 

[simonhch]

Games are often dictated now by turnovers of possession based on intense pressing. It’s become a matter of fitness as much as it has skill. I used to prefer teams having to be picked open by artistry not by relentless running. The game has become more technical for sure but not in that regard. Yes defenders now need to be good in possession but the death by suffocation we see the top teams employ, is boring to me. I guess I always valued a tight 1-0 or 2-1, that was played like a chess match.

I think all my favourite players have been artists before athletes. Ronaldinho, Bergkmap, Cantona etc.

 

[Robertd0803]

Highlights are much more accessibile. Being able to watch 3 minute highlights 15 minutes after a match is wonderful compared to waiting for Match of The Day or Goals in Sunday and suffering through a shit level of analysis. (Or The Premiership when RTE had highlights). Without this I doubt Id ever watch anything.

Goal line technology. Cant argue this one.
VAR in theory-while in practice its an utter farce the idea at least is right.
Better pitches.

The quality overall is (arguably) better, teams approaches like Bolton and Stoke from late 2000s are consigned to history.
Watching something like Sheffield United vs Derby in 2007 was like a sadistic pleasure because of how bad they were while now Luton vs Forest is likely to be a contender for game of the season. This does feel like a negative as well though that most teams play the exact same boring approach.

International tournaments are better because "smaller" less renowned teams no longer fear the big names and are more than happy to have a go instead of just showing up to get beaten.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

Pitches are far better - and can watch every match on TV.

Shame the rest is worse. Quality and excitement regressing.

 

[Shane88]

The backpass rule. How the feck did people even watch football in the old days? If a team went a goal up, did they not just pass it back to the keeper for the rest of the game?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Pitches and back pass rule. And that’s it.

How long have we had good pitches and no back passes? Must be 30 years?