Who Is The Greatest Dribbler Ever

Really? You know this for a fact? Have you checked the average age of people attending live football in the premiership recently?

You'll find that most young people are being priced out of being able to watch their clubs live and it is becoming a live event sport for the wealthier people with more throwaway income readily available to them. David Conn has written about it on quite a few occasions. He is informative and hits the nail on the head with many of his insights and his findings.

Young people aren't as happy as you think with how things are run in football in this day and age.

 

You direct your compliments towards James but I want to hand out a compliment to you as well. I hope you understand and can see what I mean. Some good insight and angles from your side.

 

I agree with you on the average age and social class filling the seats in stadiums. I cannot deny your point here.

But I do not see any complained nor sign of protest among current younger generation. they seem to be quite content watching from TV. Most my mates do.

When boxing became limited to the wealthy and excluded us the working class, we didn't complain nor take action to revert the process right? That is the point/underpinning I am making here.

If the younger generation was so unhappy about it why is this not making the news in the media?

 

I think it does, but perhaps the media has learned from the 1980s that it doesn't help to highlights the 'dark' sides of a phenomenon. One can ask to what extent it is in their interest to highlight a weak spot, if there is one.

 

Puck I guess we both agree on most things to do with the business side of football. I am a fan of Pipiolo but I think that in this occasion he didn't understand what we were talking about here. Besides that there are many members here thinking that you and I (inlcuding @leadleader ) are conspiracy junkies, while actually they are, in my opinion, naive idealist who think the world is black and white (a rosey world) and will take any theory put forward about how the mafia pulls the triggers behind the doors with a pinch of salt. While the reality is that football is as corrupt as boxing has ever been.

 

That is a related observation.

Money and investments following where the most fans are located isn't neither corrupt (in itself) nor a conspiracy theory.

 

The dark side has yet to come. Look what happened to Boxing?

If the business side of things keeps in it's due course for too long it will (guaranteed) destroy football as an attractive sport. To much capitalism into a spectacle sport can take away the sport out of it. Boxing is a good example.

Once good example; up until early 90's the FIFA WC was the greatest event in football. But now we can see how UEFA CL is closing in in terms of media coverage, attendances, and popularity.

When a sport metamorphose into a business event to the extreme, it's days will be numbered. I do believe that football in general as a sport is in dangered of becoming irrelevant. The more money is being poured in the more they are destroying it. Beware for it might end like boxing did.

 

It's not corrupt but it surely is bad practice. We both should in principle agree that it is changing football negatively. To start with, it's killing the competition.

 

It's an interesting subject, but I think we are going a bit too far off topic ...

 

What good would that do? Sky aren't interested in them.

If you are interested in the subject I would advise reading David Conn - The Beautiful Game? Searching for the soul of football

Well worth a read.

 

I will. Thanks for the endorsement.

And I agree with you. It won't change a thing.

But I was just adding to @leadleader comments on boycotting. I merely mentioned that theoretically a boycott suggested by @leadleader might be possible but I reiterated that it wouldn't happen though. Simply not realistic.

 

People who deny that football is as corrupt as the next thing, are either lying or just ignorant. In either case, I often think that a lot of people who accuse others of being "conspiracy nuts" are themselves conspiracy theorists behind closed doors, they just care too much about their public persona to talk about it publicly and without anonymity.

 

As that other person mentioned, maybe that statement isn't entirely correct. That being said, something I have confirmed far too many times is how most younger people, people below the age of 22 or even a little bit older, are obsessed with "instant gratification".

For example, in this day and age, "glory hunters" as they call them (glory hunters: fans who support the club that is winning), are a common thing. In the late 1980s and early 1990s that did not appeared to be the case -- fans were more loyal to their clubs, fans weren't changing which club they would support the next year.

In addition to that, the appreciation for the art of the game, I feel, has degraded over the years. As Jaweirdo (was it him?) mentioned some pages ago, in boxing you can see that many of the younger fans say that Mayweather is "boring to watch" when in fact Mayweather is a pure boxer who actually created his own legacy -- most young fans just want to see a brawl between professional boxers. And whilst corruption has damaged boxing, would it be right to say that corruption is also responsible for fans who don't actually genuinely enjoy the sport? This lack of respect for the art, I think is also true for football.

For example, you can see that many younger fans appear to care more about which individual trophy CR7 will win at the end of the year, rather than what Real Madrid will accomplish at the end of the year. That type of thing was not part of the appeal of the game back in the 1980s and early 1990s. And sure, the internet has definitely changed things in that respect, but still, it is difficult to deny that football is increasingly being supported by fans who care more about the superficial gimmicks of it (individual trophies for certain players; the odd Champions League game here and there) than they care about what really matters. If the fans themselves are of lesser quality, then it would be logical that the sport itself will eventually follow suit.

If marijuana users suddenly stop caring about the quality of their drug, then drug dealers will simply sell a cheap product at the same price as the old (better quality) one -- more money for the dealers.

But is this era a weak era? I honestly don't think so, even if I am convinced that fans today are much more superficial than fans were 10 or 20 years ago. But I think that is merely the result of a cultural, global, movement, and not just something limited to football as a business.

 

this .... obviously .... so

the so called "beautiful games" (nick name of Football invented by English in 19th century) has been DYING a long time ago ...
now it's just a directing, entertaining Sports, and betting feature in our lives .... LOL

 

Glory hunters are also fans who would support the next hyped player around the corner.

 

jaweirdo's example of boxing is a classic one that can be applied in the Romario vs Ronaldo thread.

Romario is an old school player. His dribble is minimalistic and he plays the game of positioning. One two. With Romario the build up to the goal is slow but steady. To move from the midfield to the box he will zig zag passing the ball, one two...one two until reaching deep into the box area. it's a slow process of mind game (like chess) that requires vision and positioning and clinical passes. Bebeto, Laudrup, Stoichkov understood this old school approach that relied a lot on technique and vision instead of physique and power. Hence they fitted well into Romario's game. On itself it was an art that fitted very well in the "tiki taka" of Cruyff and later Guardiola. A young kid of the current generation does not appreciate this slow paced build up that lacks sensational individualistic maze runs A La Messi or R9. Hence to them Romario is automatically regarded as not worthy of top 10 strikers.
In turn, R9 delivers exactly what the young generation "glory hunters" want in football. They want flash and sensational moves. They want to see individualism and want to see the ball moving from midfield to box area quick as possible. It doesn't require brains to do what they want as long as the player is physically/athletically capable (e.g Ronaldo R9) this type of game can be achieved. It is a very marketable style of game and hence why R9 became famous in the first place. To the "glory hunter" R9 is worthy of top 5 because they found pleasure watching those maze runs. To them Ronaldo is way above Romario. But to someone who appreciate intelligence and old school game above physical game will put Romario above Ronaldo.

 

Agree, although Romario is usually and rightfully considered as top ten striker of all time, even top five:

Eusebio
Van Basten
Romario
Ronaldo
Muller

 

Also, it's not Ronaldo's fault he was big and strong. What was he going to do, not utilize those tools?

And Romario was built like a little brick house. Yeah, at 5'6" he couldn't exactly be a prototypical physical center forward, but he used his strength and body very well. If he was built like Jesus Navas or Pedro, he wouldn't have near the success he did.

 

That's also what the same David Conn has written for about 20 years; that club and country football will because a variety of interconnected factors tend more and more towards an oligopoly. Or a 'cartel'.
That's his theory and observation.

 

I am definitely going to read his book. He sounds like a real pundit who can give good insights into the corporate world of the game.

 

You are damn true about both players being stocky and showing strength. No doubt about that. But if you look carefully Romario was more subtle and gently on the ball then Ronaldo. When Ronaldo often try to beat the goalie with power shots, Romario in turn opted to caress the ball with a simple toe poach. Ronaldinho gave a good account of his observation in an interview when he was asked to give his opinion on Romario. He said that what amazed him most of Romario is that he seldom raised his head to look where the goal was. he knew by instinct where the goal was (watch Romario vs Atletico Madrid at home match, his first goal which is one of the most beautiful I have seen is good example of this) Also Ronaldinho said that it was amazing that Romario never shot hard but just touched the ball where the goalie couldn't reach for it. Hence all those hundreds of chips over the goalies. These can only come with great technique.

This to me shows that albeit both were muscle, Romario relied more on technique and positioning whereas Ronaldo relied more on power and speed. Also, to score toe poach the way Romario did requires good vision to read the game. Whereas maze runs and dribbling past two players A La Ronaldo did not require great vision, but athletic ability.

And do not forget what yourself commented above that Romario was only 5'6 short. It should amaze you that he scored a lot of cluch goals in big games with headers against tall defenders in Holland and WC94 (vs Sweden). So when posters claim that R9 was more complete, it just leave me wondering and asking myself if these poster have ever really watched younger Romario play. I doubt it.

@Pipiolo

 

@JamesBH11

I am still waiting for your respond on that earlier video I posted to you. Any comments?

 

ok mate. I'd rather not carry on the R9 vs R11 here ...

 

@Pipiolo what did I say? hahahaha!

 

you should accept the sad TRUTH LOL