How to divide the eras?

I wanted to start this thread as I think it's a genuinely interesting subject that a lot of fans (myself included) do not comprehensively understand, and most importantly, a subject that fans of all ages might enjoy to enough a degree (enough to participate in the thread). I understand the differences between eras, mostly after years of having watched a lot of footage from the 1990s and the 2000s and the 2010s, etc. I understand policy changes to a somewhat contextually-limited degree, such as when Barcelona 1993/94 could not field 4 foreigners at the same time, compared to modern day Barcelona which could field an almost unlimited of foreigners. But I don't comprehensively understand the specific policy change that caused that, and how said policy continued to expand or contract in the following years, etc. In this area of the sport, I do not consider myself a comprehensively "educated" fan. And to be honest, I don't think many fans my age are comprehensively educated in that scholarly area. In conclusion: I think this thread would be a good space to share our observations of how eras should be divided, defined, and understood.

So here's my most simplistic explanation, of how I look at the eras. I tend to divide football into 3 basic eras:

1 - Little to no protection, defensive off-side-rule, defenders could pass the ball to the GK and the GK could grab it with his hands, all which made life difficult for creative skillful players, and life easier for the defenders whom actively benefited from an insane off-side rule. I would define the 2nd half of the 1980s, all the way to at least 1994 (if not 1997), as part of this era. (I did not included the first half of the 1980s, nor the 1970s, due to the fact that I have not watched comprehensive video of those eras, and therefore I prefer to keep myself out of said eras.) Skillful players abounded, but the reassurance that protection could offer did not existed, as was actively made self-evident by the punishing tackles that were actively employed against the skillful players - the measurable lack of yellow cards after heavy tackles, was an active and a prominent difference when compared to the 2nd half of the 1990s and the whole 2000s.

2 - A lot more cameras and therefore a lot more protection compared to the immediate past (in my opinion mainly the result of multinational corporations investing unprecedented sums in the fitness of specific players - said corporations would not want to see their priced assets get hacked down to pieces), a much more offensive off-side-rule, the GK cannot grab the ball with his hands if a defender passes the ball back, but attacking tactics did not evolved quickly enough, that is, attacking tactics did not evolved at the same immediate speed as the immediate attack-minded policy changes. This era was more or less the perfect era for skills-and-tricks players, because tactics remained slow enough (due to their defensive-minded immediate past) that skillful players could slow down the game and use their tricks, without considerably conditioning how the entire team functioned. Not coincidentally (in my opinion), a large portion of the famous tricks-and-skills players happened to have played between 1995 and 2007 e.g. Ronaldo, Figo, Zidane, Del Piero, Rui Costa, Denilson, Totti, Riquelme, Joaquin, Thierry Henry, Ronaldinho, Cristiano Ronaldo in his early twenties, etc. All of them used more tricks than their early 1990s equivalent.

3 - More or less the same as the above, arguably with even better protection (and more cameras), but in this era the underlying tactics had been perfected to counter and cancel the "creative revolution" that was created by the policy changes that defined the 2nd era. Counter attacks were faster than ever before, and that greatly contributed to the sudden disappearance of skills-and-tricks players. For example, Cristiano Ronaldo 2005-2009 was a skills-and-tricks player (that resulted out of a skills-and-tricks era), but he quickly became another trick-less modern player after Real Madrid designed a modern tactic built around many of Ronaldo's strengths. However, the speed with which Real Madrid attacked, while it maximized many of Ronaldo's strengths, it simultaneously largely killed the tricks-and-skills that Ronaldo was known as at that moment in his career i.e. using two-tricks-too-many is a bad strategy for a forward player to use, when the underlying strategy of the entire team is not to dominate possession and create additional time for skillful players to showboat, but to counter attack with lethal speed therefore largely canceling the slower context (strategy) where tricks tend to function efficiently. Cristiano Ronaldo is a modern example of how skills-and-tricks were largely canceled out, by modern tactics.

Moreover: Iniesta, Messi, post-2010 Cristiano Ronaldo, Robben, Ibrahimovic, Ribery, Fabregas, Ozil, Suarez, Sanchez, Bale, Neymar, Hazard, etc. Not one of those players is known for using "flashy" nor "elaborate" trickery, the sport has gone back to the early 1990s tradition of pure basics. And in my opinion, the sport will eventually circle back to the 2000s tradition of tricks-and-skills-galore, as soon as a specific modern tactic finds the way of making trickery efficient again. It's only a matter of time. The Zidanes and Ronaldinhos of football will inevitably make a comeback at some point in the not-too-distant future: trends are circular in nature, after all.

Do you mostly agree or mostly disagree with the above logic? How would you divide the so-called eras? How would you define the eras? Do you know of any specific policy changes that deserve to be specified? Do you have any sources that could further validate your observations? The observations of any interested reader will always be appreciated.