About defenders there is for sure lesser individuals but teams compensate , maybe as a reaction , that by adopting to a team defensive approach.
And SPL defense was always like that , I mean come one , an Italian team with a mediocre striker scored four against a huge Barca in a CL final.
A one off. Has never happened since.
No one gave us a chance. Neutrals I mean. And not even Milan fans expected us to score 4 goals.
And you say maybe as a reaction the teams adopt a 'team defensive' approach. How many teams can you actually name right now that do this well?
I think the older teams had a combination of the two. Superb individual defenders who excelled as part of a defensive unit.
Also Brazilian national team's defense is & always was a joke yet they have more world cups than any other country ---- > in your face
Which was the last WC they won before 1994?
1970.
And the 94 team was one of the most defensive teams I've ever seen win a World Cup.
Plus Messi has been pretty mediocre to average in the world cups anyway so i don't even know why you are including this tournament
Now talking about Milan , our Milan not the current one , I dont think our amazing defense was related to our great defenders that to be honest we did had & a bunch (Baresi-Maldini-Costa-Massa-Des....)
I think our legendary defensive approach was due to the system rather than individuals & again I give example of that CL final with Barca when the one of the best attacking system of all time didnt score one past us despite the fact we missed our two best defenders of all time in Baresi & Costacurta.
As mentioned above, it was clearly a combination of both.
Take the recent game against Barca for example. Under Allegri.
We defended amazingly as a unit. However Nesta singlehandedly (on many occasions) shut Messi up with his individual defensive skills.
Which brings me to another point...
Is it just me or does Man marking Messi with a good defensive player almost completely shut him off?
From recent memory I can think of Nesta, Pepe (to an extent), Sokratis

lol

and Koscielny. I'm sure there were others. I mean when they chase him down like a rabid dog every time he has the ball.
Too bad there aren't many teams that do that anymore or even have the players capable of doing it.