Pele vs Maradona

Discussion in 'The Beautiful Game' started by Bavarian14, Sep 24, 2017.

  1. SambaFootball

    SambaFootball Member

    santos
    Brazil
    May 28, 2018
    #26 SambaFootball, Jun 5, 2018
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2018
    More than 10 good assists in World Cup - BUT NO GOALS by Pele. Many style of Assist in only 14 games.


    12 goals , 10 assists to Goal , so many other assists - Who can compare with him ?
     
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  2. SambaFootball

    SambaFootball Member

    santos
    Brazil
    May 28, 2018
    Pele's performation at 1962 World Cup.
    More than 120 minutes but he show how beast he was. This time he was much better than 1958 or 1970.

     
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  3. SambaFootball

    SambaFootball Member

    santos
    Brazil
    May 28, 2018
    Sorry,my english is bad. Performance.
     
  4. Caspian

    Caspian Member

    Sep 15, 2016
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Great videos bro.Truly enjoyed them. Hope you would make more.
    Pele is indeed incomparable.
     
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  5. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    so i am the only one whose eyes are hurt watching how ridiculous football was in 60s?
     
  6. Gregoriak

    Gregoriak BigSoccer Supporter

    Feb 27, 2002
    Munich
    In 40-50 years looking back at today people will find an endless supply of defensive and tactical mistakes in current "state of the art" games. I see it every weekend in top level games, horrendous tactical mistakes, we will see it this coming world cup again. Football has never been perfectly executed, never been error-free, unforced errors are common today as they have always been. When an error is made today, people do not conclude "this era is ridiculous", no, they correctly link the error to that exact game, nothing more, they do not conclude that all games in this era "ridiculous" (doing that would be a highly ridiculous approach if you think about it). But modernists just love to do exactly that when they deal with past football. There's nothing modernists love more than to ridicule whole eras of football. They watch a few highlights or even complete games, are really really keen on noting the errors they see being made and then get almost hysterical about these errors, foaming with disgust "look how ridiculous this complete era was!" Basically, one could just as well say this current era is ridiculous because mistakes are being made today very frequently and if one is looking for a perfect game, where no mistakes are being made and the only decisive factor is pure high-class skill, then this era is not what you're looking for, either.
     
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  7. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    No, it wont becuase football cant evolve infinitely. There are finite ways in whcih we can improve tactically and i reckon, we are at the very edge of are capabilities (tho impossible to tell).
    With every year passing by we are less and less likely to encounter another tactical revolution. The last one was Peps Barca (not in the sense that he invented roles like false nine, etc. That's a misinterpretation, but in the sense that he incorporated various phylosphies into one unit that actually works. Now everybody is trying to imitate them in some sense).

    We hit a plateau now and nobody knows if its the end for tactical improvment or not.
    So your conclusion is that footballers were making mistakes back then, they are making mistakes now so it's the same thing not worth getting into it in more depth at all?

    That's actually even more ridiculous statement. None of 'modernists' claim that game reached the point of absence of mistakes, that's just wrong.

    There are essentially two types of mistakes players make:

    1. Executive mistakes - when you know what you should, youve practised for that thing you know you should do, but sometimes you just don perform, you fell short. Those are ever-present mistakes. Were, are and will be there forever due to humans imperfect nature.
    The simplest example is penalty taking. You know how you should do it but you just miss it.

    2. Conceptual mistakes - These are more fundamental mistakes and the ones that make all the difference between the eras. They occur when players just dont know what to do. No organization, no preparation or at least a significant lack of all those things.

    The thing about these mistakes is that they are fixable and they got rarer and rarer among top professionals.

    Now when you compare past and present football, whats the difference. The difference is quantity and frequency of exactly those type two mistakes. The number of mistakes is overwhelming and thats the reason why its unbearable to watch games of past.

    Now, you can ask me where is my proof of that. Fair question. And i dont have it. An eye test of fairly experienced football fan will spot an immidiate difference.
    I also know exactly the method to use to actually prove thypothesis but aint nobody got time to do that. The difference is so obvious just by lool of it, it's entirely unnecessary.


    There is also an indirect proof of the hypothesis: It's the only way it makes ********ing sense:
    If you have an incresingly large group of people in any domain of activity and you let them do their thing over time, what do you expect will happen to their collective knowledge of the set activity? Will they now less or more about it after 10 years of trial and error? After 20, 30, 50 years of doing it?
    Logic tells you that after so many years only outcome is that they know more. So do you believe football is known better today (and that way eliminated large number of mistakes) or not?

    Anything other than concluding that football is at way higher level after 50 years is ridiculous.
    Its not "modernists", its logic and the same pattern is seen in science, any other sport or activity.. there is no reason for football to be an exception.
     
  8. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    #33 Sexy Beast, Jun 8, 2018
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2018
    There is actually still a single case that you can make in favor of 60s football and thats that we are in pleteau ever since then (as i mentioned, at one point we will learn everything there is to learn so our growth will stop. You might argue we reached that before Pele's era.)
    But again that is easily disputed. If it was the case then there would be no revolutions afterwards because by definition, revolution is "different than past" and in the case of football, revolution is only in positive spectrum. Immidiately after Pele, Cruyff came and completely shifted our perspective of football (analogously Einstein in science) and then he did it again as a coach, etc. That proves that we are not in pleteau ever since Pele days, therefore football is at way higher level than then.
     
  9. Sir_Artur

    Sir_Artur Member

    Nov 21, 2014
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    for example? What is ridiculous there that is not present anymore? Do they make mistakes like the ones we have watched in the last champions league final? Or is there a referee like Ovrebo who ignored at least 4 penalties in a game?Or Is there a Golden ball winner like the world cup 2014 Golden Ball winner?

    Current football can be a comedy at best, you can just laugh at it compared to the old. Not to mention it has been the monopoly of the rich.

    No contest, football has never been as ridiculous as it is. Current football is football of kids when compared to the old.

    One more absurdity that is regularly raised against Pele in favour of Messi is "Pele played in sh.t tournaments."

    Whose tournament was sh.ttier?
    La Liga 2017 - 18: Messi's team Barcha became champion with a margin of 14 points.
    16-17 : Real Madrid became champion with 3 point margin.
    15-16: Barcha champion, the gap is 11 points.
    14 - 15: Barcha champion, with 12 points difference
    13-14: Atletico Madrid champion, 3 points of difference.
    12-13: Barcha champion, 15 points ahead.
    11-12: Real madrid champion, 9 points ahead.
    10-11: Barcha, 4 points ahead.
    09 - 10: Barcha champion, 3 points ahead.
    08-09: Barcha champion, 9 points ahead.
    In the last 10 La liga seasons, Messi's team became champion 6 times. And only once Messi's rivals became champion with ease (9 points ahead Real Madrid.) Actually, it did not come with ease, either. Had Real not been able to defeat Barcha in Camp Nou, the gap would be 1 point and Barcha would not give up the chase. Fortunately, they won. In other 3 times Messi's team failed to be champion the opponent hardly became a champion.

    Not to mention Messi's and Ronaldo's team was equalled in terms of quality only for 1 season in the last 9 years, that was by Bayern Munich 2013. Messi's and Ronaldo's teams bought the best players of their era like signing Suarez for 88 million, like signing Bale for 90 millions.

    Messi and Ronaldo plays in probably the sh.ttiest league ever and the sh.ttest era of football. Their teams can just buy any player who may challenge their teams' dominance. Not to mention Messi and Ronaldo plays in the most comfortable era of football and yet despite all of these advancements current football is just a joke, biggest blunders in champions league final, not in an unimportant league match.

    That is the football Messi and Ronaldo dominates. They would not stand a chance if the tackles were as hard as they were back in 60s or even 80s.
     
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  10. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    #35 Sexy Beast, Jun 8, 2018
    Last edited: Jun 8, 2018
    those were clearly type one mistake (as i labeled them).

    I am not up for long, raging, uninteligent discussions. You are clearly emotionally involved.

    You are so off with everything you say. Barcelona winning with huge margin is not an indicator of league's quality in broader sense. You are connecting two unrelated things (qualitative distinction between the best team and the rest, with quality of average league team across time).

    Analogy would be:
    The fastest production car today is at 400 km/h top speed, while average production car's top speed is 200 km/h (rough numbers). Which makes the margin of 200.
    80 years ago it was something like: Top speed of the fastest car is 120 km/h, of average 80 km/h, making the difference of 40.

    (that's what football is like, except we don't have an actual measurement of speeds, but we do have a relative difference between the fastest car of an era and an average one) Now your conclusion is that, based on the fact the fastest car today is so much faster than an average one that the average one has to be super slow, slower than all cars from 80 years ago (which differ a lot less in their era). Reality is that average car today is much faster than any of that time in past (200 km/h >120 km/h >80 km/h), but not as fast as the fastest one today. Analogously, an average Spanish team is much better than any of the team in past, it's just that Barca is even better, hence the margin (that you find confusing)
    Now how big of a difference is, is debatable, but the point is that your argument is completely wrong in its very core. You are not looking at the right thing at all.

    I could go on but rather than wasting time, let me just offer you hints on what the hell is the thing that confuses you:
    - money -> superteams -> inevitable dominance
    - popularity (more players), investments (better facilities = better players), money (even more players, higher professionalism)
    - dominance not equal to poor quality (see the analogy above)

    Ponder on these hints and you will answer all of your questions.

    PS, you have a really hard time conceptualizing what's relative to a specific era therefore irrelevant in this very debate and what is an actual clue that helps
     
  11. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
  12. ko242

    ko242 Member+

    Jul 9, 2015
    I would have to disagree with you as well @Sexy Beast. And @Gregoriak made some good points considering the mistakes that are commonly made today at the highest level. Coming straight to my mind is how arsenal fans have relentlessly bashed their defenders this season and regarded to it as school boy defending. Whereas the hard and steady defense in the early 2000s and late 90s where common place for arsenal. Why haven't the defenders improved. It's the same exact team, the same exact coach, same philosophy yet the team has become worse with time. I know you speak of the average team as opposed to one particular team but there are too many examples of poor goalkeeping and giving balls away which helped lead to Real Madrids champions league title in 2018 from the semifinals and finals. I can't imagine what people with your stance will say about today's football after seeing such mistakes at the highest level of club football.

    National teams like Brazil have gone backwards. And it is embarrassing and sad to see how a team as Brazil with so much success in the 50s-70 could result in modern day Brazil. I thought we were supposed to get smarter with time. It's the same reason why Germany in 2002 was so bad that they had to back to the fundamentals of the past that made them great.
    As I see it, there is no linear equation as to football getting better gradually as I'm eating goes by. It's a flux, constantly going up and down.
     
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  13. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    Neither Brazil or Germany have exclusively gone "back to their roots".

    Brazil (i.e. people on behalf of the CBF) has taken an inside look at places as Arsenal and Real Madrid. Also their current coach Tite did, with Ancelotti and the sporting director even making plenty of time for him. Brazil has a leverage and this helps a lot in gaining this access and connections to all the places and persons they need.

    Germany shipped in a bunch of Americans for the fitness part and also a dozen of Dutch and Belgian figures (for ex. the 'DoublePass' organization), for a start. That malicious clown Honigstein is keen on not mentioning the nationalities and downgrades them to consultants ("external expert") without formal authority (not true in fact) is typical for the whitewash media of today.

    This is actually a tragedy for 'Holland' itself, and also Belgium since they have entered the radar. Many of the most competent guys for youth formation and general development (Lijnders, Lucassen to name two examples) are working abroad. It's difficult to build stable organizations these days and there isn't an ocean or another natural barrier to mitigate the migration a bit. Many with ambition leave before they can make a name as head coach, and then they never become one when abroad (while still being important).
    London to Amsterdam can be traveled within one hour and that is sad. It becomes even sadder when the media megaphones are keen on leaving out the nationalities (but mention the fitness gurus were Americans, i.e. "the American physiologist...").
     
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  14. Estel

    Estel Member+

    May 5, 2010
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    #39 Estel, Jun 9, 2018
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2018
    It might not be as simple as you make it out to be,

    1) Changes in laws often take longer time to take effect on football quality - prior to Bosman, only 3 foreigners (non-nationals, irrespective of their UEFA status) were allowed per team so even teams with a relatively massive monetary edge could not hoard talent like they can today.

    2) However, even a super team who is bent on hoarding talent can only have a limited number of players in its roster for a particular season. Thus for it to be able to make an impact, the talent pool available needs to be small enough to fill up these super teams and then not leave enough quality for the rest of the big teams to make use of and remain highly competitive.

    3) Wherein comes the question of incentive. Do non big-5 league based teams or even lower division teams in big-5 leagues have the incentive to develop quality players now as much as they did earlier? Considering that prior to Bosman, such quality players could not all be poached from them, thus allowing them to make use of this talent to win trophies at the highest national or even continental level, there definitely was a lot of incentive for these teams to develop such talent. Today such players are poached by the superclubs or big clubs for their own youth teams and it is entirely possible for such not-fully-developed players to never even reach their potential considering that they wouldn't get the same attention at a bigger club wherein they would be competing with multiple other similarly talented youngsters.

    4) On top of all of the above, rule changes to protect attacking players have essentially made defenders and coaches extremely wary in wanting/asking to commit to serious challenges for the ball as often as they would do earlier. This has a domino effect of such plays becoming less and less practiced thus reducing the experience level of defenders in being able to make good sliding tackles or last minute interceptions, thus essentially turning individual defending into a dying art. This benefits attackers, who not only have weaker defenders to play against but also have lesser fear of or even actual injuries to worry about, thus allowing them to improve stats and have more chances to get some of the more coveted prizes and trophies, while still playing with relatively healthy bodies.

    All in all, it is not so easy as saying that the overall average level of football has gone up, but the level of the super teams has gone up significantly more, thus resulting in their dominance. There are a lot more factors to be accounted for and some of them definitely point to a trend of lowered quality and especially a more limited talent pool in top level football, for a few years now.
     
  15. Gregoriak

    Gregoriak BigSoccer Supporter

    Feb 27, 2002
    Munich
    I am often baffled at the sheer arrogance of modernists when it comes to football history. It was this ancient football that so easily gets dismissed and ridiculed that conquered the world in the 20th century, it was this dismissed and ridiculed version of football that millions of people around the world fell in love with. It was this ridiculed version of football that laid down the foundations for everything of today’s football. For this alone modernists should stop brushing aside 20th century football as ridiculous and whatnot. To label something „ridiculous“ that millions of people fell in love with shows a very high level of arrogance!

    Ko242 made some good points about Brazil and Germany. Other examples would be Hungary and Austria (the most striking ones) but also Poland, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands - all of them had far better national teams and club successes at various points in the past than what they accomplish today. If we’d have a somewhat linear increase in progress then all countries should get better with time instead of getting worse. So, I am not sure if the demanding tactics of today are actually an "improvement" on the great old sport of football. If it’s an improvement why do we notice soaring goal averages for the past 20 years? In the major European leagues, those with a long professional history (England, Spain, Italy), the lowest goal averages were noticed in the 70s/80s and since then it’s soaring again. If tactics got improved, shouldn’t less goals be scored every year? Because less mistakes = less goals scored.

    If football in the 1960s was littered with mistakes, how come the scoring rates were the same or lower than today in the aforementioned leagues.

    Regarding the evolving of football. Tactics get ever more sophisticated/demanding, which increases the probability of players making mistakes. Simple tactics = less mistake-prone, demanding tactics = more mistake-prone. So modernists are immensely proud of the scientific (americanized) approach football has taken in the recent 20 years but there are two sides to that coin. Also, this squeezes out the individualism of players. They act like robots that are programmed but you cannot programm individuals for every possible situation. Players are getting less adventurous and more cautious than in the past. Individualism of the average toplevel player is less than it was in the dismissed football of old. In my observation, players today look like they are passing by numbers and it all looks the same most of the time. The way they stop the ball and pass it on - it’s like they are doubles of each other. When I watch a game, say, from the 1970s, I noticed more individual playing style by most players. They don’t look like they're are doubling each other.

    I am not doubting that conceptual mistakes were higher in the past but I wouldn’t be surprised if executive mistakes are higher today (because tactics have become too demanding). In the end a mistake is a mistake, whichever way you slice it. In the end modernists put too much weight on the scientific/conceptual approach to the game which makes them think today's version of football is "superior". Football has always been a magnificent game, already in the 1920s it drew large crowds and fascinated millions of people. And all this with basic tactics and simpler concepts than today. Ergo, concepts are overrated when looking at the soul of this beautiful game. It is the cold-scientific approach of the modernist armchair tactical know-it-all that is ridiculous, not hundred years of great and fascinating football history!
     
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  16. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia


    Name a 6th place team of any league prior to 1990 that have played as good of footbal as Real Betis. This are the highlights that would have been on a repeat if done by Brazil 1970, Netherlands 1974, etc.

    Ulreich's, Karius' mistakes are of individual type, which will always be present in football, especially at the heighest level (great intensity and pressure). Btw, only reason why you would think mistakes are more often today is because your brain is filled with recent matches. You've probably seen 100 games in last 5 years for every match you watched thats older than 1980 so it's unsurprising you recall more mistakes of todays football. Go watch Italy vs West Germany in semis and tell me if players were mistake free....

    Anyhow, this is what i am refering to:


    Regular person sees Pele's dummy, i see how nobody is in 10 meters radius around Pele and this is supposed to be a world cup semi final.. that's unheared of in modern football unless it's the last minute of the match, which, frankly, could be the case with this dummy, but this is just a single case. I could literally be here all day breaking down plays like this from Pele and i wouldn't even had to use anything other than wc playoff clips... it's ridiculous quality of football

    i have no time to adress you all right now
     
  17. PuckVanHeel

    PuckVanHeel Member+

    Oct 4, 2011
    Club:
    Feyenoord
    Yeah, this is a valid point, especially after the recent changes that has lowered the mandatory 'training compensation'. This has hit Anderlecht hard, unquestionably, for example.

    What we do see though are significant state subsidy schemes (most notably Croatia, Belgium - on the risk of being struck down by EU) and also the solidarity payment thing. The likes of Sweden don't get a single penny but for example Portugal has received considerable sums (tied to the academies) of solidarity payments.
     
  18. Gregoriak

    Gregoriak BigSoccer Supporter

    Feb 27, 2002
    Munich
    That Pelé dummy from 1970 against Uruguay is indeed from the 90th minute of that game.

    There are comparable scenes in modern football, though, and not from the 90th minute but from the first half, like for example the 2010 World Cup Germany vs England. Right before England score their goal, the guy that crosses the ball is completely alone within a radius of 10 metres right outside the German penalty box.

    Watch from 3:16:

     
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  19. Sir_Artur

    Sir_Artur Member

    Nov 21, 2014
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Germany
    1. It is an indicator
    2. Ii is an indicator of how advantegous Messi has been throughout his career. The league he plays in is so far ahead of other leagues, the team he plays in in that league is so far ahead of the teams of the league.

    Is it still insufficient for you to realize how advantageous Messi is? Pele's team or Maradona's team or Luis Ronaldo's team or the team of many players of the past did not enjoy such an advantage.
    :)
    Analogy :) You are looking at the wrong point.
    When you are a driver: Which car is more difficult to handle? Which car is more difficult to exceed in? Which car is more difficult to control and which car is more difficult to be master of? Which car is more comfortable?

    Everything is currently easier than it was in 60s. You have more comfortable and easy-to-control tools, even some tools are automatic right now, some parts have artificial intelligence which do not need humans at all. Some cars even run without a human control.

    The current car will be far more difficult if you are the engineer of the cars, but you are a driver (footballer).
    yes, that is what football is like.
    Your conclusion is that, based on the fact the fastest car today is so much faster than the car of the past, then it is more difficult or more advanced.
    The reality is, cars of the past were far harder to be master of than the current cars.
    Who indeed is not looking at the right thing at all? You are confusing being a driver and being an engineer.
    Messi or Pele are 'drivers' not 'engineers.' They are 'driving the car' engineered by engineers.
    By the way, Pele was a better engineer as well, he is known for being very inventive. If you watch his games, you will realize him inventing gameplay that is still being used.
    All of them make it easier. I could elaborate it but I am gonna summarize it:
    A poor student will have far harder time in exceeding at his lessons while rich kids will have less problems. Rich kid will have a comfortable apartment, rich kid will have all the best tools for learning and studying, rich kid can buy all of his books, can even hire mentors or professors for additional lessons while poor student will have hard time in affording a room to stay.
    Who indeed needs to ponder on realizing the right points and who indeed has a really hard time conceptualizing what is relative?

    Rockets of current era are far easier to control compared to the Apollo mission rockets. More developed means easier to use, harder to manufacture or compose. Unfortunately for you, both Messi and Pele are pilots of those rockets, not engineers.
    You are confusing the work of pilots, pilots operate the already-prepared vehicles, they do not engineer it.
     
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  20. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    Cheating slightly, but an 8th placed team from 1991/92:

    Can an 8th placed team take on the league champions like that nowadays in any top league might be a contra question (as if they don't believe they play inferior football, or have inferior talent)?

    Just food for thought from the opposite perspective, as I guess you're genuinely open to re-considertion in theory and don't want to just win an argument (not being sarcastic, I mean that).
     
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  21. Estel

    Estel Member+

    May 5, 2010
    Club:
    Real Madrid
    Thanks. Yes Anderlecht is a great example of this, being a historically, relatively competitive club at a continental level.

    Agreed. Yet it is worth considering if only monetary incentives can always provide the necessary drive, as opposed to tangible sporting benefits which were available in pre-Bosman days for smaller clubs developing top talent. Assuming that football clubs still continue to have a relatively higher level of emotional attachment than other forms of business, success on a footballing level would be a more powerful lever.
     
  22. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    Fair enough, so that's a bad example, but as i said it doesn't matter cuze there are examples in abundance.

    This is completely something else and not as radical case at all. The thing is that England worked their way to that point and it's far from goal. That's the whole point of managers. Their job is to create a tactic that will in some way, somewhere give you an upper hand over oppositions. They've managed to outnumber them at the flank and their reward is a free cross. Those are the little things players work for on the pitch.

    You know what's worse than that? This:

    (1:00)
    A player 5 meters from goal marked by nobody (and that's in 90th minute when you have a 1-0 lead to advance in wc finals!!!). This was a common theme back then.
    Honestly tell me which one is worse?

    Look, the major difference between then and now is not a football in immidiate surrounding of a ball. If you crop out match and you watch only ball for 90 minutes you wont see any(much) difference in duels, dribblings, skills, etc, but if you zoom out and watch all those players off the ball (attackers, defenders, doesnt matter) at any point of the game, you'll notice just how lost they are. They are clueless and ignorant. They hardly ever anticipates anything, especially defenders.
    Now this is not me saying that that doesnt happen today as well (it does, it's mostly miscommunication at the highest level rather than plain ignorance), but just by a quick look youll see how much, much, much more common it was before.

    I am not making Messi> Pele case, so i will just ignore you..

    I am open for reconsideration, if necessarly, but let me tell you why this argument of yours is wrong in its approach to the problem. You are talking about competitvness rather than general quality of football. Let me explain: It's the same mistake epl fans make when they claim that better football is played in England compared to Spain.
    Their argument is (was) that because the bottom teams can (could) beat the best teams in the league, unlike in Spain, the bottom teams in epl are better than the ones in la liga. It's the "everyone can beat everyone" argument and it's right, is it? WRONG.
    The reason why the bottom teams in epl can beat the best ones is because the best ones in England are not as good as Barcelona and Real. If they were transfered to epl, the same kind of dominance as in la liga would occur in epl. Now, frankly, the either case could be true, so how am i so confident that's the case in this example and why did i put "was" and "could" in brackets above?.. well look what happened this season immidiately after City reached the level of Barcelona's and Real's football..something that has been thought to be impossible in England.

    The same logic applies to your example. You can't conclude anything based on the fact that 8th team beat the champions. We don't know how good that Arsenal team truely was and before you start, we can't find out how good it was based on their success at the time because it's all relative to the era. It's inconclusive in final analysis. That was the point of my car analogy. You can be closer to the best in your time, but yet so much more slower than some in different era which happen to be farther than theirs' best... food for thought.

    The only solution that i could think of that bridges that gap of no direct way of comparing eras is to compare quality of football with my own eyes hence all the talk about the type of mistakes, revolutionary tactics and other ways to indirectly compare them like money, popularity. That's as good and as objectively i can manage. If you have a better solution, let me hear it

    Btw, 92 is as far from Pele's era as from Messi's..
     
  23. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    Ok mate. Yes, although I see now you don't necessarily want to argue about Messi vs Pele (but of course Maradona's prime was also pre-1990), my intention was really to show that top sides (regardless of the reasons) probably faced more often teams that had ambition and belief (as well as playing with offside and foul play laws which weren't so harsh on defences) so it was less often (although not unheard of) the case compared to today that it would be attack (of the 'top' team) against defence (of the mid-table team) for most of the game, especially if the mid-table team was at home, but not exclusively. To be honest those highlights were meant to be more about approach to the game, but they weren't the best as the moves for goals started quite deep and involved many passes and forward runs and that isn't made clear on that video I posted. But the jist of the match was that Forest kept going forwards (and got into a 3-0 lead).

    For English games from Pele's era, there are some old Match of the Day episodes (no comment from me here, just providing the links):




    There are some prominent examples of 'lax' defending in the modern era though I feel, including when Messi scored what some claimed was the best goal ever in the Copa Del Rey Final IMHO.
     
    ko242 and Gregoriak repped this.
  24. PDG1978

    PDG1978 Member+

    Mar 8, 2009
    Club:
    Nottingham Forest FC
    For example this season Newcastle played at home to Manchester City and pretty much refused to play football, but just bunkered in the hope they kept the score down. Maybe partly that is down to tactics of the coach, but I think it also reflects that top teams often dominate mid-table teams now by default, and thus have a very big percentage of possession even in away games.

    Everton's manager (although famously a pragmatist I suppose) also seems to insist his team shouldn't be expected to come out and play against the best teams in the league, as he sees it as inevitably handing over the points it seems. Although managers of top teams, such as Mourinho, sometimes take that approach too, if they feel the opposition is better.
     
  25. Sexy Beast

    Sexy Beast Member+

    Dinamo Zagreb
    Croatia
    Aug 11, 2016
    Zagreb
    Club:
    --other--
    Nat'l Team:
    Croatia
    Undisputable. I would be insane to claim otherwise, but that's not quite what i am trying to say. "Lax" is more associated with an individual approach to the game and my claim is not that defenders were mentally in wrong frame of mind (that's a discussion of its own), not enough determined or anything, that's not what i claim, but i claim that they didn't know all the principles of defending and tricks that every professional footballer is inevitably confronted with today. Football is known better today which leads to more "educated" defenders with higher football inteligence, which finally leads to decrease in tactical mistakes made on the pitch (the type two mistakes, in my list)



    I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with their defending. Could they be more aggressive? Sure, but i think that's ungrateful argument. If Messi miscontroled it some point, you would be like well done being patient with your defending not rushing into challenges allowing him to make you look like fool, but as soon as he capitalizes on those few moments of hesitations with incredible footwork, it's like why didnt you tackle him harder?
    He makes you look like fool either way, Ramos knows:

    so really ungrateful criticism IMHO.

    Furthermore, i don't see much tactically wrong by defence there. Their defensive shape of 4-4-1-1 is pretty clear, their idea of double/triple marking Messi when on the flank is clear, it's just that he managed to dribble past 3 players this time and making a perfect finish.. not much wrong about it.
     

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