100% a forward since 2014 but you conveniently forgot that Ronaldo was a left winger for Portugal for 10 years 2004-2014 if you don't already know this then I have to say I'm very surprised (He was a winger in euro 2004,world cup 2006,euro 2008,world cup 2010 and euro 2012) C.Ronaldo has scored nearly 70 NT goals playing most of his career with Portugal as a winger and since 2008 with average teammates (You shouldn't be confused with the goal oriented role Ronaldo Has been playing Madrid career to role he plays for the Portuguese national team at times they are completely different ask Portuguese poster on big soccer and they will definitely confirm this)
I don't completely agree with that, but I can at least partially agree with that e.g. you could compare Messi 2010-11 vs. Messi 2011-12, and in 2011-12 he was clearly much more interested (or obsessed) with his goal tally. It's not easy to say that that arguable obsession definitely hurt the team, but what is obvious, is that Messi 2011-12 was the beginning of his "who scores the most goals in the calendar year" rivalry vs. CR7 - and whilst it's unclear to say that said change in mentality definitely hurt the team, I think it's fairly evident that the tactical change (in Messi's game) was not aimed at actually improving the team, but was instead specifically aimed at creating a legend out of Messi. That's fair enough, but I really struggle (no offense meant) to think of the evidence for that. I mean, Franco Baresi, Ronald Koeman, Paolo Maldini, Fernando Hierro, Helguera, Roberto Carlos, Alessandro Nesta - those guys are as good or better "with the ball" than most of the defenders of the modern game. The expectation is for players to be all-rounders perhaps more than ever before (as should be expected given the technology), but the creative players do in fact play increasingly insular "compartmentalized" roles - the physically dominant players are being pushed into more aggressive roles (not central midfield roles), and the high IQ players (many of which are not physically dominant) are becoming the new midfield elite or at least are more efficient today than they were in the 1990s. My theory is, in essence, that because football was not as tactically organized as it increasingly became post-1995, that the tactical nature of the pre-1995 game typically included “clusters” in the midfield and at the same time “empty spaces” in the midfield, and tactics had not yet sufficiently evolved so as to efficiently exploit the “empty spaces” in the midfield areas, and at the same time, the “clusters” in the midfield areas made it more difficult to systematically exploit "acceleration space." And by "acceleration space" what I mean is that it is possible to have less time on the ball, and yet more acceleration space when you have time on the ball. The early 1990s was the opposite of that (more time on the ball, but with less acceleration space), and I believe that was one of the main reasons as to why less physically dominant midfielders, were definitely less successful in the early 1990s. When you have typically “disorganized clusters” in the midfield--and disorganized clusters always create "empty gaps" in the midfield--, the midfield itself becomes shorter and slower, which means that midfielders on average have less space available when they want to accelerate through the designated “acceleration space” (which is full of "clusters" of players) i.e. midfielders on average have to accelerate or decelerate using less space, which ultimately means that accelerating and/or decelerating was on average more “intensive” in the midfield architecture of the past, compared to the midfield architecture of the modern game. On the other hand, with the modern game you have less time on the ball, but you also have more space available for acceleration. That is the dual nature of time-space that gets conflated into the one popular conclusion: that less time on the ball, equals having to accelerate and/or decelerate even more “intensively” than in past eras, since you have less time on the ball. Of course, the reality is that you have less time on the ball, because you simultaneously have more space on the ball, which initially may sound like a contradiction, but which isn’t a contradiction because time and space are not the same thing – space is longer because the game is faster, you have less time on the ball because the game is faster, and acceleration is easier and/or less intensive because the space is longer and faster--which therefore allows you to moderately or fluidly, not intensively, generate your speed--; longer midfield space allows for progressive or fluid acceleration, which is arguably softer on the joints, which arguably prolongs your career at the top of your game, and which does consistently facilitates the “mileage per game" - hence why a non-athlete like Iniesta can produce all that mileage per game, without looking like he's physically dominant at his role. Iniesta wouldn't had done that in the early 1990s, because then he would've needed to generate his speed in shorter and more crowded spaces - physical strength, size, and speed, would've been more important back in the early 1990s, than Iniesta's high IQ and ball retention expertise. Now, what the above means, is that the ball moves from one end of the pitch to the other end, at tremendous speed - and so having an all-encompassing midfielder-playmaker like Zidane is a lot more difficult today, because when Zidane gets dispossessed (and he was dispossessed a lot, mind you) you will get punished far more efficiently than in the 1990s or the 2000s. And so, the whole architecture of the game is more insular or compartmentalized, because the ball travels at speeds too fast for a classical all-encompassing player to truly function efficiently enough that his negatives would not be far more relevant than his potential positives. The logical conclusion or evolution is as follows: the creative license is mostly if not exclusively given to forward players like Messi or CR7 or Alexis Sanchez, not to midfielder-playmakers like Zidane or Maradona or Ronaldinho or Riquelme, etc. In other words: forward players can get dispossessed, but you won't get punished anywhere near as badly as you would if Zidane gets dispossessed (and it is a known statistical certainty that he will get dispossessed *a lot* if he does not adapt to the modern game i.e. if he does not adapt to a more boring "system" role). So I believe that there is no argument about it - it is a fact, football is more compartmentalized today, than it was in past eras. Because the speed of the game has forced tactics into becoming more area-specific, in order to decrease your vulnerability to the deadly counter-attacks of the modern game. Iniesta is the new Zidane, Hazard is the new Zidane, and Iniesta and Hazard have never (and will never) enjoy the creative license that was invested in players like Zidane, Riquelme, etc. In essence, I think it's correct to say that football essentially is more "compartmentalized" today, than at any point in the 1990s or 2000s. The freedom is going to the forward players, and forward players have the fairly simple role of scoring goals and/or assisting goals - in past eras, it was midfielders or playmakers who enjoyed the creative license, and midfielders-playmakers have a much more multi-faceted (not insular, not simple, not compartmentalized) type of creative license. I think you much preferred when football was a game that invested its creative license into either the midfielders or the midfielder-playmakers, and I'm not sure if I fully agree with that sentiment, but without a doubt, I certainly do miss players like Zidane, Riquelme, Ronaldinho, etc. I would positively welcome it, if a big team invested most of its creative license in a player who does more than just score goals and/or assist goals - but the speed of the game is too fast for that it seems, that I doubt that any big teams will be investing that much of their creative capital into players like Iniesta or Ozil or Hazard, etc. For better or worse: the modern game, the unprecedented speed of it, has become a seemingly insurmountable obstacle for the artistic classical midfielder-playmaker types.
i agree with what you said about the freedom of players being passed from midfielders to forwards, more gaps in todays game due to the lack specialization in roles and tactics back then. if you could explain the whole thing about 'less time, more space for acceleration' and vice versa using specific player examples that would be nice because the explanation went over my head. and speaking of players like zidane, riquelme, and ronaldinho not being able to adapt to the modern specific roles due to the change in the dynamics of the game, one team that seemed to slow the game down to at least somewhat encourage this type of play was the Barcelona of Guardiola which may seem to contradict common sense when i say slow down. but what barcelona did do that might help a player like zidane, riquelme, or ronaldinho have more success on such a team is because barcelona had such a large chunk of possession that the turnover rate was very low, preventing fast paced back and forth games. in addition, they pressured immediately when they lost the ball. However, the reason all this came together is because the midfielders had such restricted and specialized roles that didn't allow a player like zidane to play on such a team. and personally, i don't think zidane would have been a good fit for this barcelona unless he made some changes to his game.
I’ll see if I can make a video of it, if I find the time. But in theory, what that means is that less time is accomplished by running faster, but running faster requires longer distances of space, not longer distances of time, therefore less time and also more space for acceleration are an inevitable result of tactical evolution. Having less time and also less space for acceleration would require super-athletes in every position of the pitch – obviously, Scholes, Beckham, Pirlo, Xavi, Iniesta, etc., are not super-athletes. Obviously, intelligence in an ever-faster game, has become a greater factor than it was when the game was slower – this may sound like a contradiction, but in reality, the faster nature of the modern game greatly maximizes the value of efficiency of speed-of-intelligence. The players whom are most intelligent, rarely happen to be super-athletes. Making the game “longer and faster” tactically, inherently produces more acceleration space, which is arguably a big part of the reason why relative non-athletes have enjoyed unprecedented success in the midfield. Acceleration in long spaces can be significantly improved with specific exercises - think about David Beckham who was average at best in terms of speed, but as a midfielder he did enough that his lack of speed was never really a problem (thanks to the evolved tactics that minimized his physical negatives, and also thanks to the specific exercises that he might or might not have used in order to decrease his obvious lack of speed). Moreover, acceleration in long spaces also can be significantly nullified with tactical organization - again, athletes are being pushed into more aggressive roles, because the perfection of tactics has significantly nullified the factor that speed can play when used from the midfield i.e. the game is too fast, both intellectually and physically, that speed (when used in midfield roles) no longer is as efficient as it once was. Players are able to read and react faster than before, and so using speed from midfield areas is just logically a more difficult proposition - which again, is why we’ve seen an increase of non-athletes playing midfield roles. See how many super-athletes like Steven Gerrards you see today. Compare it to the likes of Modric, Verratti, James, Isco, Iniesta, David Silva, Ozil, Cazorla, Fabregas, etc. Furthermore, acceleration in short spaces is more rare (than acceleration in long spaces), and much more difficult to improve upon, which I argue is one of the big reasons why you didn’t see players like Pirlo or Xavi or Iniesta in the early 1990s. Because football in the early 1990s was shorter and more congested, which means less acceleration space—or shorter acceleration space, which requires you to go from 0 mph to 60 mph quicker than you need to in the modern game, using less space than you get in the modern game, which is again, which you didn’t have a Pirlo of the early 1990s—which ultimately means that early 1990s non-athletes had less tactical factors helping them out, and therefore raw athleticism was a very important factor in the midfield roles. That’s exactly my point – the game is faster, and that has forced a shift in terms of the creative license, that is, the creative license is now invested in forward players like Messi or CR7 or Alexis Sanchez, not on Andres Iniesta or Zinedine Zidane. When you have a physically rigid system, the result is that speed-of-intelligence becomes a more important factor than actual physical speed. We saw that in the late 1990s, the 2000s, the early 2010s, and the trend will probably continue into the late 2010s and the early 2020s. And yes, Zidane is not a good fit for Barcelona 2008-12, unless Zidane significantly modifies his game into a “system game” that Zidane fans would readily define as “boring.”
Is light a particle or a wave? It's both! I think you're both right. I think tactically, the game has become more specialized, while individually, players have become more well-rounded, especially technically, at the top level. I've always thought the difference between the wingers of the 90s 4-4-2, and the wide forwards of the modern 4-3-3. The wingers were expected to contribute much more during the defense and build-up phase. Yet, the wingers back then were almost one-trick pony when going forward. Think of the great Giggs and Beckham flanks. Giggs was a great dribbler, but he wasn't anything special in terms of crossing, finishing, or passing. Same is true for Beckham and crossing/passing. Tactically they had to do a lot, but on an individual level, especially with the ball, they did less. Compare to the wide-forwards of today. In many cases, they have less to do off-the-ball, but on the ball, they're expected to be able to do everything. The best ones are expected to be athletic, can dribble, and score double digit goals and assists.
That's an excellent point. Wide forwards is where I agree that the game has become less compartmentalized, and more all-encompassing. But at the same time, midfield players (the elite ones at least) play more specialized or insular roles, compared to the creative midfielders of past eras. Modern creative midfielders also seem to be less athletic than the ones of the past, I'd say. I think we could agree on the following conclusion: tactics have evolved so as to increasingly facilitate the tactical work as it pertains to wide players and to forward players, and that arguably is the main reason why wide players are producing more assists and more goals than ever before. At the same time, the evolution of the wide roles--ever faster and more well-rounded--has created an additional strength for the non-athletes who play central midfield roles i.e. the non-atheletes with high IQ who play the most intellectual role, and the super-athletes who play either as wide defenders or as wide forwards, has arguably proven to be a more successful mixture of talent, than simply having super-athletes in all the positions.