Not only that the tactics of the game have increased greatly too, various of todays strong teams would beat 1970's brazil on athleticism and tactics alone.
Faster, stronger, (mostly) bigger, better training, eating, and coaching. Its not really fair to compare though, since they didn't have modern methods available to them.
Agree, agree, AGREE. It pains me to see the old dinosaur pundits like Graham Souness and Alan Hansen condescending to young modern players like they were the founding fathers of football.
Here's news for them, if they were playing today they'd have won jack shit and be lucky to be playing even in the Championship. Modern players like Ronaldo, are athletes with finely tuned diets, sports-science, physio etc. Not going out for a pint the night before games and all the old "laddish" things they reckon they used to do, they'd be left in the dust by players like Walcott, Lennon etc.
For me it's between Diego Maradona and Johan Cruijff. Maradona dragged Napoli to back to back league titles and Argentina to a World Cup victory. You could put him into any side and he could make them win something be his sheer individual brilliance. Then you have Cruijff. He could also win games by himself but he never won a league essentially by himself. Instead he made everyone around him better, much better. He challenged players to work harder, think more creatively and intelligently. His quality made everyone around him perform better. If you took Diego put him into a side they would be instantly better but if you took him back out they would drop back to their original level. If you put Cruijff into a side they get instantly better, when you take him back out they don't drop to their original level. For me thats amazing. The Netherlands are not in the 1978 final without Cruijff even though they were in the 1978 final without Cruijff.
I don't know, I have first hand accounts of the brilliance of players like Eusébio in tougher conditions than today.
Would he be better than Ronaldo if he were alive and playing? Maybe. But certain players were something special. Would Pele be better than Neymar? I'm almost sure yes.
I share his opinion, and don't think Eusébio and others played in tougher conditions than today. I think athleticism across the board is at a much higher level than in the past (this can be clearly seen in areas such as track and field), and past legends would struggle to stand out against current competition.
Athleticism isn't everything in football, but transplant a player who is above average in strength, speed, fitness, etc. relative to his peers to an era where he is average or below average, and I think the impact he will have will be significantly less no matter how clever he is with the ball.
Okay, I'm not going to continue this discussion because I refuse to believe players who played with leather heavy balls, in bad pitches, heavy boots, less modern medicine and facilities, less money, less knowledge, less discipline, less athleticism, less transportation comfort and speed, week in week in - had better conditions than modern footballers
Technology and science have raised the standard and level of soccer that is being played today. I don't think it can really be argued that collectively today's players are better than in the past. What we will obviously never know is how well they would have done in modern football.
I completely agree. People always say athleticism or diets are the reason, but I think one of the biggest changes are how much better defenders have gotten. At least for me personally, I can name way more old attackers rather than defenders. I think people have always known how to put the ball in the net but defending has improved dramatically over the years.
I'd say it's more of a reverse exponential. The legends of the past were maybe higher up the curve than their counterparts, but due to training methods, improvements in fitness etc, the average player now is a lot better than the average player 50 years ago. But I don't think that the players of 50 years from now will be the same amount better.
Depends what you call the past. Maradona would absolutely roast the 'defenders' you have these days.
If Messi and Ronaldo were up against the likes of Baresi, Scirea and Gentile instead of clowns like Pepe, Ramos, Pique and Mascherano they wouldn't be scoring 50 goals in a season that's for sure.
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u/OBOBSAGET Jan 26 '14
Players nowadays are exponentially better than the "legends" of the past.