- Joined
- Aug 18, 2009
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Ask any player from the old days, they all say football is played in a much higher tempo now. I've heard a lot of ex-footballers who were considered good to great in their days, that they wouldn't be able to cope with today's tempo in football. Watch a high calibre game from 30-40 years back, compared to nowadays game, it looks like they're playing at walking speed.
If the game has changed in tempo from the last 10-15 years, it's harder to say than over a period of 30-40 years but i'm inclined to say yes. Talented ball players like say Isco/Sneijder etc, can't rely on talent only and disregard the dirty work nowadays, cause it will be punished. The trend is that football is getting faster, and getting harder for lazy 'magicians'. Whether you like that/think it's better football is up to you.
Ofcourse there is conjuncture of great/less great defenders, but it doesn't countervail the evolvement of football itself. Maybe because football is played in such a high tempo, it's harder for defenses to keep that image of WC defender going. I mean from Thiago Silva to Kompany, all of them have been schooled at least once, for me that's more (read; more, not all of it) down to the attacking prowess of the opposition than the inability of the defense.
In 10-20 years, football is going to have a lot of super-athletes a lá Yaya Toure and less lazy ball magicians like Dinho. When you look at this development in football, for me it makes Messi (with a not so impressive physique) as a player that much more impressive.
Read somewhere that in the 1970 WC players would run 5-6 km per game. In 2014, it was 10-12 km.
That's how far the physical aspect of the game has gone. You need a whole different skillset and maybe even body nowadays.
The space and time in the game has changed completely.
Of course the player with skills is still better than one without it. But can he use that skill while playing 60 games a season, running 11 km in game, with very little time and space, etc.
Messi is strong in his own way. He's fast and he has some unreal balance along whit ball control... You just can't beat him away from the ball. There's still space for little dribblers in football as long as they're fast

at that defending".

