I was just wondering what everyone thinks about the standard of football today in comparison with the past. I look into the past and see the quality of team some European Cup winners had and it is shocking. Yet virtually no attackers of the past decade are considered all time greats. Are people fair in their comparisons with the past or do we view old players as automatically better than the present?
No attacker? I would rank Romario, Batistuta, Baggio and Klinsmann very high on my all-time list of great forwards.
Well I agree although i don't rate Klinsmann quite as highly, despite his work at Spurs. Personally I think we are in a golden age at the moment, where the strength of clubs has never been higher. The vast amounts of moey have ennabled teams to amass squads with more ability than ever before.
How far back do you want to go? I can remember Peter Osgood playing for Chelsea in the 70's.Great player, although he was never the same after he was done in by Hughes. He should have had more caps for England. The standard of football in his day was a little bit slower of pace and ..how to say it?..more direct.Of course the amount of rough play that was allowed was quite high compared to today.The likes of Harris and Bremner for instance would never make it to the final whistle in todays game. Then in the 80's there was the Kerry Dixon era...he he he he...or if you want the Robson/Lineaker/Hoddle era. Less direct i suppose and generally more pleasing to watch.Some great sides and English football (club wise) dominated untill....well, thats another story. Todays players though would in my opinion beat any of the teams from those eras 7/8 times out of 10...if played by todays rules. Footballers today are generally softer than in yesteryear and ref's are a lot quicker with the whistle.The art of the "shoulder charge" has been lost and god forbid anybody breath hard on somebody inside the box. Drinking and going out was an accepted part of the culture of the game in the 70's and up to a litle bit in the 80's. Not tolerated today at all. The fitness levels of todays players is far above the past generations. Each to their own i suppose though. I would say that today there are more superstars than in years gone by and they are-generally speaking-of a higher caliber than before.
Like either of the Forest teams, Villa, Hamburg, PSV, Steau Bucharest, Porto. If you compare them to the teams of today, they are lacking.
People generally tend to only truly rate players when they retire. That's when they are truly appreciated. As the saying goes "you don't know what you've got till it's gone" and that is definitely true regarding footballers. Over time players from the past have their legacies blown out of all proportion. Whilst they wer eplaying they were good but then when they retire they become greatttt lol. When Zidane, Romario and Batistuta retire watch their stock go through the roof in the next ten years as people all of a sudden call them all-timers and not place them beneath stars of yesteryear but alongside them. Human nature makes a great player a legend for the most part - people even call Di Stefano and Puskas the greatest ever off what others tell them lol.. that's what makes a legend - word of mouth and amplification from past generations. The question i always ask is how great would the 'greats' from the past be in todays football? where a bad player in a team is light years ahead of a bad player from a team of yesteryear simply from football education, training and coaching. It's so easy for past legends to state how rubbish today's football is ala Beckenbaur et al becuase in their day things were very easily defined. you had elite players then good players then after that just a pile of **** lol todays piles of **** are a whole lot better then piles of **** from the past as will the piles of **** from the future alot better then todays piles of **** of todays game.
What do you mean? Just because those clubs aren't Top 5 in Europe today doesn't mean they weren't great at the time they won the European Cup.
I mean compare those the players of those at the time to players of Real, Milan, United, Arsenal, Juve, Inter etc today.
And there's your problem. You're premise is that a player today (as opposed to a team) is better now than his counterpart in the past. Which is a) unsubstantiable and, as such b) in no way a given. Inate talent does not have anything to do with otherwise valid considerations about training, conditioning and health. Unless your argument is that a Maradona or a Cruyff were skilled, but not as skilled as a Ronaldo or a Zidane. Which would be utter arse. The only thing you can do is look at the players of those days and how they matched yo against the true greats of the game. Who would have been true greats in any era. If you levelled off issues of conditioning and fitness, are you seriously saying that a Platini or a Zico could not now also be the world's very best? Forest, for instance, beat the reigning champions Liverpool in the first round of the 1978/79 European Cup and did so deservedly, because the team with Shilton, O'Neill, Robertson, Clark, Francis and Woodcock were competitive with the best team in Europe at that time. Likewise, the Hamburg team that won in 1983, to use one of your own examples, had the likes of Kaltz, Magath, Batrup and Hrubesch and they beat a fantastically strong Dinamo Kyiv side before defeating the Juventus of Platini, Boniek, Zoff, Rossi and Scirea in the final. To cut a long story short, your initial premise is woefully wrong.
I'm not saying that players such as Zico or Platini would not be quality now. I'm saying that the strength of the top clubs is exceptional. Inter Milan have about 25 internationals, most teams have a full team. The top clubs now have all the top players.
But they did back then too. Back when Nottingham Forest were European Champions twice on the trot, they were a top club and had top players. Nothing, in other words, has changed in that respect. The clubs at the top have the top players. Rocket science ...
Forest 79 Shilton, Anderson, Lloyd, Burns, clark, Francis, McGovern, Bowyer, Robertson, Woodcock, Birtles A match for Casillas, Salgado, Carlos, Hierro, Helguera, Figo, Zidane,Makalele, McManaman, Raul, Ronaldo?
Yeah, why not? Bayer Leverkusen got to the final last season with not too many "big name" players. You could take the Juventus '83 runner-up team as Matt Clark mentioned: Zoff; Gentile, Brio, Scirea, Cabrini; Bonini, Tardelli, Bettega; Platini, Rossi (Marocchino), Boniek. That's 6 World Cup winners in addition to Platini and Boniek both among the absolute best players in the world at the time. Bayern Munich won the CL in 2001 with this team: Oliver Kahn, Samuel Kuffour, Patrick Andersson, Thomas Linke, Willy Sagnol (Carsten Jancker 46), Owen Hargreaves, Stefan Effenberg, Bixente Lizarazu, Mehmet Scholl (Paulo Sérgio 108), Giovane Élber (Alexander Zickler 100), Hasan Salihamidzic. You can find more impressive line-ups player by player from the past 20-30 years.
And this is where Matt and others points come in. It's like asking whether Yankees teams of the past would beat Yankees teams of today or any sport for that matter. It's highly unlikely because things have changed so much. Who's rules are we playing by? What fitness regime? If Burns got within range of Ronaldo he'd cut him in half if the standard of ruling/officiating was the same as it was then. You may talk of your 'golden age' but it doesn't look much like it from where I'm standing. True, the quality of play is outstanding and many clubs are full of quality. But go a little deeper and the state of world football isn't all that great. It's fine for the fans of 'glamour' clubs to witter on about how great it is nowadays but the gulf between teams is widening and it's sad to see the Premiership consist of four or five teams actually competing for the title/Europe and the others just battling against relegation/hoping for mid-table obscurity. Not to mention the fact that your post is exceptionally condescending, actually watch the Forest run from 77-80 and then tell me they were rubbish. And how you can omit Gemmill is beyond me.
Thats why i was asking the question of what others think. I was only giving my opinion of the state of the game today and wanted to see what others think. The achievements of Forest in gaining promotion, a league title and then two european cups was incredible and I wonder if it would happen again. The only reason that gemmil wasn't in is because he didn't appear in the final. Who knows what ronaldo might do against Burns? We can only guess.
Re: Re: Past and present I don't want to pull a Wildman here, but in 1980-81, somewhere around there, Blackpool Tower (old 3rd Division at the time, if memory serves) did some pre-season training in the American midwest, playing college teams and my league's select team (the not-exactly dominating Central Illinois Soccer League). I played against them with my league select team and my college team. They waxed both sides by something like 10-12 to nil. They were savagely hungover, and reaked of linament. Their warm-up seemed to consist of rubbing Atomic Balm on their legs and lower backs, and then jogging two laps, the first really slow so their cigerettes wouldn't go out (okay, I exaggerate a bit there). Anyway: one of their wives or girlfriends explained after we asked "why do these guys want to play stiffs like us" that that was their training methodology: during the season, they wouldn't be hung over when they played. Theoretically.
As for Bauser's point the Juventus team you show is a good excetion as that side had bags of class and quality players and I'm sure would do well in any era, and demonstates (as do forest) the importance of team spirit and shrewd tactics against star players. The Bayern team although not full of superstars were hardly lacking. Kahn, Kuffour, Effenburg, Lizarazu, Scholl are all world class players and Hargreaves and Sagnol might well become them. Aa for leverkusen it is probably too early to judge how they will rate in history but Lucio, Placente, Ze Roberto, Ballack, Neuville, Basturk aren't bad players.
Re: Re: Re: Past and present Funny stuff. There were many rumours of Sexton doing the rounds of known night clubs in the 70's to round up "the lads" from a night on the town. Back then it wasn't considered a big thing really. Look at the George Best fiasco.More was made of his drinking later in life than at the time. One of the reasons that the players are so much fitter now. Oh, and you couldn't possibly do a wildman, i mean there can only be one "missing link"
Yeah, the superstar term is an interesting one - and certainly overused. What is a superstar or world class player? Placente? Memory fades with time and many members of European Cup winning sides from 20-30 years ago are overshadowed by stars stealing the headlines in those days like Platini, Rummenigge and Keegan. How many people will brand the Neuvilles, Sagnols and Bastürks as world class in 2023? They are considered great players today because they are active. I predict, 20 years from now they will be remembered by the general football fan only when looking back at old statistics and "world class/superstars" will not be much used descriptions on these players. The Leverkusen '02 line-up will look just as pale in 2023 as the Nottingham Forest late 70s does to many people today. The Placentes and Scholls will drown in the wake of Zidane, Figo, Batistuta and Ronaldo.
I'm sure they will although it is the exception of leverkusen that proves the rule. I don't think people will look back at basturk or sagnol as alltime greats (depending how they do). But alot of it is how you do in competitions. You can say that Juventus were quality (which they were) and say they had 6 World cup winners, or look at Italy and say they had 6 European cup finalists. It goes both ways In terms of individuals Leverkusen were probably the worst side in the last 10 or more years to be finalists.
I could also list Valencia's two CL runner-up line-ups. They weren't packed with big stars either. There are more teams if you dig a little deeper into the archives.
That's what I'm talking about. Solid names, but no stars who will sparkle after their retirement. Aimar is too young to fully rule out though. Not superior to Forest late 70s for sure.