As simple as that: when was the game at its zenith? Considering the quality of World Cups and other nat'l and intl competitions, number of great players and teams, absence of corruption etc?
Many people will point to their childhoods, when the game was perhaps more simple and pure. For me that would be the Van Basten - Maradona era. Or from a Romania fan POV, the Hagi - Lacatus era. But in reality the game has no golden era as long as new generations are picking up the ball and playing, attending live matches and watching on TV. Every time someone new falls in love with the game becomes the golden era for that person. Years from now many people will look back at this current era we are living now with fondness and nostalgia.
Agreed. For me it was Eto'o, Michael Owen, Henry, Van Nistelrooy, and Ronaldinho. I mean I still thoroughly enjoy the game, but those guys and other greats of the late 90's and early 2000's are MY golden age. I can't tell you how many YouTube hours have been dedicated to watching those guys at their peaks.
1980'S and 1990'S. Hosts were true football countries. Spain 1982, Mexico 1986, Italy 1990, France 1998. Now we have "popularisation" of football. 1970'S were the bridge for the Golden Age with Brazil, Germany, Netherlands, Argentina. In the 21st century I can't remember anything that had very high attention, hosts are on the stadiums which have never experienced any type of football history. Battles of architects and constructors, sponsored fan girls who don't know who actually plays. Global clubs and companies create everything. Football went far from football fans, became more distant. You need special TV arrangements so that you can watch top national leagues. Before 25-30 years, every national TV station made broadcasts with quality guests who could really elaborate every game aspect. In comments today, I notice usual phrases which became wider. In 20, 30 years, we can expect one large artificial island in one of the three oceans so that they can play the World Cup. Host will be: The World with the slogan: From The World To The People.
When the Colorado Rapids won the MLS cup in 2010! Seriously, maybe the 90's when the stadiums were safe but tickets were still affordable and hooliganism and racism was being stamped out but atmosphere's were still really good? Just nostalgia no doubt.
In terms of allowing more teams to participate it's 1998 to today and probably will be the future. In terms of quality, the 30's to 50's for sure. You'll notice goal averages dropped off drastically in this era. One thing that's not mentioned is that soccer was more popular than football and maybe baseball in the early 20th century in the US and that soccer losing popularity actually had a lot to do with the game getting worse. The 0-0 sterotype didn't use to exist. Today if a world cup averaged three goals a game that would be historic prior to 1962, 3.6 was the lowest. The 5-3-2 heavily favored offense and these new formations resulted in lower scores. 5 strikers taking on 2 defenders changing to 1-2 strikers taking on 4-5 defenders changes everything and the product is much harder to watch with your typical team as opposed to the Belgians who were putting three men forward. A lot of people complain we're just not appreciating the creativity or the tactics of whatever as if this is how it's always been and it's just not more boring than it had been in the past. Baseball had a period in the early 20th century called the "Dead Ball era" where stats were very bad and getting like 15-20 home runs in a year was an incredible achievement and it's called for what it is, a more boring period. This is why the goal records of Puskas's and Pele's for international play were so hard to touch and they're only getting approached now because longevity is making up for the difference while those guys were done scoring on the international scene by their 30's. Also look at past WC rosters, almost every team had all or close to all domestic players. An occasional transformative talent went to play overseas but generally an international team was a domestic league's all star team and by all those measures these leagues were pretty good. Now anyone who's any good outside of England, Spain Germany, Italy and maybe France goes overseas to those leagues with the result being most of the world's domestic league's being terrible. People always complain about not supporting your local club and watching EPL and La Liga but one's got to ask the question if a country's players do it, why is not ok for their fans to do it? So in the past soccer seemed to be good all over the world and the world cup seemed to be a reflection of this now the world cup is basically power league all star games with each country having a handful of players on that scene with the best ones having more than a handful.
The period when the big commercial changes were only just beginning to happen as a result of the bigger and bigger TV contracts and the Bosman ruling came into effect. Between early-90s to about 2001. Football finally felt like a truly global sport, not just a South American and European sport. Now football is all about money, but back then clubs were still producing a lot of local talent and playing for local pride. They weren't just concerned with signing ready-made foreign footballers and were limited to three signings of that kind. They made real investments in local talent. They had teams where most of the team was local or at least from the same country. Slowly sponsors started to appear on the front of jerseys. Players began to see their names on the back of their jerseys. There was a little more innocence to when this first started and the beginning it was great, but now that innocence is completely gone. The balance is gone. The jerseys are too expensive. Tickets are too expensive. We're lucky if teams have even one local talent on the team. Clubs no longer have the same identity. Almost every national team has a Brazilian. There's too much money in modern football and the signs were there by the late 90s. How can someone like Neymar who kicks a ball around be worth a quarter billion euros? That right underscores something is very wrong with modern football. I thought it was crazy when Veron, Vieri, and Denilson were selling for 40 million, which only was in the late 90s! Players are now going for double, triple those rates. It's out of control.
The Golden age was playing in the backyard as a kid, with no shoes on in the mud. now that was the golden age
Good points in the previous posts. I think there's no one true golden era as everyone's definition is different. My club Liverpool was winning trophies for fun in the 70s and 80s but the period was also marred by racism, hooliganism and other blights on the game. Today, while some good things have gone away, other things have improved. Sure there's more money, higher ticket prices and TV rights but that's because it's a truly global sport played in every nation. When I was a kidkI couldn't watch games live easily. Today I wake up and there's a half dozen prem games on, along with bundesliga, MLS and the Mexican league. In terms of quality, I don't bemoan foreign talent coming to the top leagues because it's more appealing to watch for many people. It's why the World Cup remains the most watched sporting event in the world. Sure, less goals todaytperhapa but conversely it's better defending. The sport's never been more exciting or popular than today and that's exciting in it's own right.
Probably depends on where in the world you are from, I think in the UK (England and Scotland) it was probably the 1950's affordable tickets, huge crowds, high scoring entertaining games but particularly affordable tickets!
I feel like we are living in a pretty good era of football rn. We are watching arguably the two best players of all time (Messi and Ronaldo) simultaneously.
60's: Dream Team of the decade: ________Eusebio Best______________Garrincha _________Pelé ___Beckenbauer__Charlton N. Santos________D. Santos ______Moore___Figueroa ________Yashín Substitutes: Banks; Facchetti, Schnellinger, Chumpitaz, C. Alberto; Didí, Gerson, L. Suárez; Joya, L. Cubilla, Spencer.