What's the level of professional football now compared to 10-20 years ago?
Posted by Mikey463@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 137 comments
Not an expert on football at all. Was just watching a YouTube video with retired players in a legends match. Becks, Scholes, Ronaldinho and so on.. They all look so bloody good even now. Don't watch any football these days really so wanted to know what people thought of the level now compared to then? Cheers all.
Voodoopulse@reddit
Football is much more of a system and tactical game than it was 20 years ago generally because of pep.
Footballers are drilled within an inch of their lives so they know exactly where to go when they don't have the ball.
These days you find less individual brilliance than you did back then.
Nandor1262@reddit
Not just because of Pep. Mourinho came first, he introduced 4-3-3 to the Premier League and it blew everyone away
Mc_and_SP@reddit
Can't ignore Wenger's contributions either.
He was one of the first to take sport science more seriously.
discoveredunknown@reddit
That and the players are way more athletic, strong and fitter. You could probably rely on some fitness and natural ability alone 20-30 years ago. Won’t get you far now. A lot of top level players are covering 8-18km in games alone playing 60+ games a year at the top level. Crazy.
Voodoopulse@reddit
20 years ago I didn't think the difference in fitness was as massive? Go back 40 to the mid 80s and I'd take your point but 20 years ago we're talking about mourinhos great Chelsea side, the start of Messi and Ronaldo and istanbul
hdhxuxufxufufiffif@reddit
According to the stats, the distance covered by the average player is roughly the same as twenty years ago, but the amount of high intensity running/sprinting has gone up by 80%.
washingtoncv3@reddit
In the early 2000s you definitely still had a few fat ballers in the prem. I'm a spurs fan so Andy Reid comes to mind. I remember Mido carrying a little too.
Even Anderson at Utd put on weight during periods. I think that would be unthinkable today.
Wenger only joined the prem in late 90s and is credited with bringing increased levels of fitness, proffesinalism and sports science to the league. That probably took a decade or so to filter through to every club
ukrepman@reddit
I went to Egypt in 2006. Was from the north but pretended I was from Tottenham because everyone loved Mido. Got so many free drinks, people were just running around going 'Midooooo'
rcgl2@reddit
Eden Hazard notoriously turned up 'overweight' at Madrid... Although that's relative.
Dynamite_Shovels@reddit
I think the big changes from 20 years ago would be the level of pressing involved and the amount of running from players on the flanks as well. Everyone on the pitch is largely expected to press when off the ball, and full backs in particular (but also wingers to an extent) are required to run like fuck up and down the pitch depending on transition. Feel like back in the mid 2000s as well the idea of a centre forward pressing and trying to win the ball was completely alien, but these days it's quite rare to find a striker who would've thrived back then - someone who sits on the last man and just makes runs. Usually they're expected to contribute to the press.
There is a significant difference IMO. It's definitely not as much as the jump from the 80s to the 00s but it's still very notable when you take the game as a whole and not just the players who are currently running to the end of their career. Messi and Ronaldo are also monstrous outliers in the world of football too in terms of their longevity and level of play. Even today I don't think there's anyone playing right now or breaking through that reaches their level (which I think is rare for football as a whole where there usually tends to be an easily phenomenal player at the top of the tree at all times). Players like Haaland are amazing but I think it's fair to say they're not at the level Messi and Ronaldo got to.
Mikey463@reddit (OP)
Wow 18KM that's nearly a half marathon!
hodge91@reddit
Assume its a mistype as no ones doing 18k, the biggest distance by someone in the big 5 leagues last season was just under 15k which is still seriously impressive
tegularius00@reddit
I'm sure I've seen the odd 20k distance, but it tends to be cup games going into extra time, not in 90mins. Still absolutely mad though, especially considering so much of it is high speed sprints.
Mikey463@reddit (OP)
Also Pep? What's that?
moofacemoo@reddit
Pep the manager of man City.
Dodgely@reddit
Ex manager of man city
Mikey463@reddit (OP)
Ohh haha. Yeah I don't know nothing. I thought it was something like VAR he was talking about.
Marsmanic@reddit
Pep Guardiola - for more context! A former player at Barcelona, he went onto the manage Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Man City (power house teams)....
He's just left Man City at the end of this season, to go onto a more advisory role for Man City group.
Renound for his tactical knowledge, he asks a lot of players when they are not on the ball - to know where they should be at all times to maintain shape and control.
TheShakyHandsMan@reddit
He learned from the master.
Mikey463@reddit (OP)
So would you say you get more bored with football these days?
intergalacticscooter@reddit
Yes
Glum_Ad8801@reddit
I don’t like watching modern day premier league football. Firstly there seems to be poor atmospheres across stadiums. Fans used to feel very much part of the match, not so much now. Lack of creativity, pressing and pure grit has been replaced by technical and tactical play.
hdhxuxufxufufiffif@reddit
I think the standard as a whole is higher now. If you go on the Premier League Archive and watch some of the games from the 1990s, the standard is genuinely lower: the players are less fit, the pitches are worse, the tactics aren't as evolved.
I think that goes down the pyramid as well. I used to go to Vauxhall Conference games in the 90s as a kid and I went back to watch the same team in the National League last year with a mate and it was like night and day. A much higher standard with more passing rather than just hit and hope, and also higher crowds - 2500-odd rather than the sub-1000 they got 30 years ago.
opopkl@reddit
Sidelines, the Premier League is too fast for me to fully take in what's going on. There seem to be hardly any gaps in play.
Awesomepwnag@reddit
You go and watch 9th tier and realise you never had a chance of making it from the way even those lads will move with the ball
GourangaPlusPlus@reddit
9th tier is that one lad in school that would beat everyone score a goal and had trials for Leicester and Southampton
Highelf04@reddit
Saw a quote somewhere a while ago, commenting that the building sites of the UK are full of ex-academy players and the like.
Also, on Twitter, people going on about being paid £200 a game for step 5/6 football (5-6 tiers below professional).
Colleague of mine told me his cousin earns around 50k a year from non league football with a step 2/3 team (which is crazy money for semi professional football), alongside being a brickie.
North-Astronaut-3731@reddit
Yeah, 50k is not happening. Everyone ‘knows someone’ who has something like this.
william_h_bonney_@reddit
Chat shit get banged.
ParticularOk2156@reddit
My friends cousin played the lowest level of semi pro and played for our decent amateur team for a few games. It was like playing with luca modric in midfield. Every pass he gave you was perfectly weighted. Never panic'd never lost the ball. And when we went one down he just took the ball beat 4 players and slammed one top corner. He could have done that anytime but he was only playing to get a run about as he didn't have any game for a few weeks. The difference between even a handy amateur and a low level semi pro is levels.
space_guy95@reddit
Yeah people really underestimate the gap in skill between an amateur and a skilled sportsperson, and that goes for almost any sport. A pro or semi pro boxer could run rings round any local hard man and toy with them like a cat toying with their prey, and a racing driver could get a hot hatch round a track faster than you or I could in a super car.
If you think about how good you are at your job compared to someone who is just starting out, imagine that gap x10 because the professional athlete has dedicated their entire life, career and free time to being the best they can possibly be at it.
ukrepman@reddit
I knew a couple of pro footballers growing up (Kyle Walker and Dom Calvert Lewin) and a lad that never made it pro. The standard is absolutely crazy for pros because the lad who didn't make it (he ended up at some conference team part time before quitting) was absolutely incredible
Bigtallanddopey@reddit
I knew a lad at school that played in the academy for a year or two with Walker. I was a bang average player and compared to me, I thought he was premier league quality. But he was let go at 14 and never went anywhere else to try and be professional.
That guy was probably in the 0.01% of. Footballers must be in the 0.0001% of people.
Nominal_selection@reddit
Someone I went to school with played against Ashley Young as a teenager and didn't rate his skills that highly, but I think the main difference with pros is the complete commitment to training, constantly developing and playing consistently at the same level every week. There are probably plenty with the talent who don't get to academy level or beyond because they decide their chances of success are slim and/or they'd rather spend their youth chasing girls and partying with their mates.
hdhxuxufxufufiffif@reddit
The lad I went to school with who made it to the top level (Premier League and international) wasn't rated by everyone as the best player on our school team, but he was the fastest and most athletic and had the best attitude and dedication to training.
JonTonyJim@reddit
who was that
It_is_not_enough@reddit
Funny anecdote for you - Walker's coach at Sheff Utd academy was the guy who went viral during the 2018 World Cup for celebrating in a bar full of Colombians...
Bigtallanddopey@reddit
Legend.
TentativeGosling@reddit
I played Sunday League until a few years ago. One year, we won a few cup games in a local county competition, and came up against a team made up of players who didn't make it for a league two professional team. That was an eye opening match, and we got absolutely smashed, and these guys weren't deemed good enough for even a league two team...
SlightlyIncandescent@reddit
Surprising how much the right build and attitude goes as well though. Knew a lad in my year at school who was a good player but like top 10 in the school or something, nothing crazy.
But big, athletic lad and good attitude on top of that so he has had a full career from 3-5th tier in English football. Was earning something like 300-500k/year at one point.
MissionLet7301@reddit
Yeah, players today are a lot better overall, a mid table premier league team today would beat the best teams of 20 years ago more often than not imo
What’s changed that makes people nostalgic for how it used to be is that there’s less room now for individual players to shine - part of that is quite literally that players are allowed less space on the pitch with how much focus teams put on pressing and closing down players nowadays, but it’s also drilled into players at youth levels that they need to be scanning the pitch and making high percentage plays rather than trying to go for individual runs.
william_h_bonney_@reddit
2006 vintage Man Utd and Chelsea would give anyone a game today. As fit, as technical then as they are today.
Wentzina_lifetime@reddit
Not really. That era of teams the attackers were encouraged to run at defenders and if they gave the ball away 9/10 times it was fine. Nowadays if you give the ball 9/10 your benched and your team is 3-0 down. Thats why teams will have wingers pass the ball back when 1v1 versus a fullback they don't know they can beat because losing the ball in a position like that could lead to a counter and that's where you lose games. Football is a lot more risky averse now. It's a game of numbers and superiority. Why risk getting caught on the counter when you can suffocate the opposition tire them out and then when they are tired use your advantage technically
william_h_bonney_@reddit
This isn’t new haha. Risk averse? Italian defending killing a game, or a team playing backs to the wall against Barca. It’s just football.
Meeple_person@reddit
In a game where at the top there are small margins the fitter better drilled technical team will win. Sad as that sentence is to type....
Wentzina_lifetime@reddit
The thing is that everyone does it now. The premier league champions for example would play park the bus against teams would look to come out and play against them
Single-Position-4194@reddit
That's a good point. It's undeniable though that given the choice, a lot of people now would much rather see the old style football where the likes of George Best would dribble past several defenders before putting the ball in the back of the net.
rcgl2@reddit
And yet despite all that, it was a better watch back then
Infernode5@reddit
It depends on the era. A lot of games around the early-mid 2000s were just hoof it and try to win the second ball.
2008-2015 or so was the best era entertainment wise imo.
BDbs1@reddit
Barely anyone would dispute that
14JRJ@reddit
Far superior athletically. Far inferior aesthetically
Aggravating-Sir-242@reddit
Just to add Bournemouth FC fitness test includes being able to run 1mile in 5m35 seconds as a minimum standard. That is on pace for a parkrun in 17m 30 ish! You will probably find that peak Becks could do that, but probably more like 10-20% of the players from that era rather than 90-95 % of the player in the premierleague now!
Silly-Industry1527@reddit
I could run a 5 minute mile when I was in high school tbf.
MooMorris@reddit
It won't be to run a mile in 1m 53, the world record is 3.43.
CrossCityLine@reddit
This is why the Championship is definitely the most entertaining league in England, and arguably the world.
Less athletic ability of course but genuine competition top to bottom.
ant1990@reddit
100% agree. Really unpredictable. Good scouting and good player development is essential. Less about buying the league. Plus you can actually celebrate goals because there’s no VAR
CrossCityLine@reddit
I don’t buy this not celebrating because of VAR thing. I watch MOTD every week and absolutely every single goal is still celebrated with vigour.
Whulad@reddit
I keep telling myself this
mrmazola@reddit
It's an exciting new chapter 😐
CrossCityLine@reddit
Because it’s true.
willjp1234@reddit
Awful standard
CrossCityLine@reddit
It really isn’t. Overall it’s probably the 5th or 6th best in Europe.
EffBee93@reddit
I think that's a bit of a stretch. I think people who don't follow championship/EFL teams romanticise it a bit (I'm not saying you don't support an EFL club). Some of the games are a lot more entertaining to watch, but my god the bad games are so much worse. Sitting through a mid week 0-0 between Reading and Rotherham is a true low point of my football memories.
im_noided_tbh@reddit
Many different styles of play too, high press, low block, possession based, set up counter attacking, set piece specialists, the pass it to the best player and hope for the best tactic
Makes for incredibly competitive games, as they say styles make fights
WotanMjolnir@reddit
Found the Southampton fan.
Mikey463@reddit (OP)
This is the vibe I am getting already from the comments. Very interesting. Would you prefer it to go back to superior aesthetically and inferior athletically?
Divide_Rule@reddit
Yes
im_noided_tbh@reddit
Absolutely, the lack of the “flair player” is one of the worst things in modern football
RaynbowZFTW@reddit
I was gonna say this is a very nostalgia minded point, but I can see where u are coming from, a lot of pro sports are very optimised now to succeed so there’s not as much chaos or flair
im_noided_tbh@reddit
There’s just not a lot of “bums of seats” players anymore, 20 years ago individual brilliance was common place, i mean some of the goals of the months highlights put entire seasons to shame
I love the game still but I think it’s went too far in the other direction, no doubt it will come back around again once a few special talents come and inspire the next generation of players
Tonight for example, Kvarastkhelia for PSG, an unbelievable footballer but just feels a bit too clinical, he’s not as exciting to watch as say, Yamal
intergalacticscooter@reddit
Yes
Divide_Rule@reddit
Nailed it, for the elite level anyway
Agreeable-Phrase1128@reddit
A lot of the "joy" seems to have been coached out of the game now. Imagine how much fun Jack Grealish would have been in an early 2000s team.
MisterIndecisive@reddit
I mean just look at his villa days, he was a free spirit then
MisterIndecisive@reddit
Technically the majority are apart from few are robots. Most rivalrys are gone, united and liverpool players hug post game ffs.
ddbbaarrtt@reddit
Part of the reason people like Scholes and Beckham looked so good on the ball is because they were given loads of space as players were worse and team pressing was quite basic
cryamiga@reddit
i parsed this as "fitter but uglier"
MountainMuffin1980@reddit
Can you explain this more?
dhandes@reddit
Athletic ability is higher, individual flair is lower.
given2fly_@reddit
I think in general players across the PL and the next couple of tiers are more technically skilled as well.
You always had your superstars who had great technique and today's stars are no better or worse, but every team had some limited players who were there to do specific jobs (no-nonsense defender, target man, midfield enforcer). Now every player has to be more comfortable on the ball, especially since they play on pitches that are a carpet compared to 20 years ago.
MountainMuffin1980@reddit
Ah I see what you mean. It's like players are basically trained where to go/be when they don't have a ball, so it ends up being quite formulaic and efficient. Yeah I can see how that might impacr enjoyment.
14JRJ@reddit
The one that stood out for me was Henry scoring for Barca after disobeying Pep’s instructions and being benched next game
PaulaDeen21@reddit
The quality across the board is so much higher. But clearly some don’t enjoy watching it as much, although I personally suspect nostalgia plays a bigger part in that than many realise.
Lando7373@reddit
Every month in the late 90s and 00s, goal of the month was full of long range bangers and individual dribbles etc. I remember pundits wanking off in the 2002 World Cup Because Argentina scored a goal with 17 consecutive passes. Now that is normal for teams like Bournemouth. It’s just not as fun to watch. Flair has been coached out of players.
Awesomepwnag@reddit
It’s selective memory. Everyone remembers the memorable moments from 20 years ago, because they are, by default, memorable! And then we filter out all the dross, of which there was a huge amount
PaulaDeen21@reddit
I totally agree!
I’d wager anyone go and watch a season of your favourite sport, every match/race/slam, whatever it is and genuinely come back and tell me it was as great as you remember it.
Survivorship bias and nostalgia is a very real thing.
Lower_Condition_196@reddit
I would say the average player is better today, but the top players are few and far between these days and we’re much better 15-20 years ago, just go back and look at the ‘06 WC there will be never be a WC with as many top players as there were at that WC
tobiasfunkgay@reddit
I think it's easy to confuse relative vs absolute skill too though. There was a bigger delta in abilities in the past leading to top players that were very skilled, very professional or both being miles beyond their peers and standing out so much more. Today pretty much every top player uses every advancement in training, recovery and prep so from an absolute point of view I'd imagine they're miles beyond players from 20 years ago.
Take someone like a Doku for example, he's pretty good in the PL but transport him 20 years into the past and I wouldn't be shocked to see him being better than an Henry for example. That said I think the only reasonable way to compare players is compared to the peers available at the time, go beyond that and theres so many factors to consider it becomes almost impossible to decide anything.
Lando7373@reddit
I understand what you’re saying but Henry is possibly the greatest PL player of all time. If you put Doku in this current spurs team he wouldn’t do shit. Henry would’ve carried my beloved spurs to at least 12th
nobodyspecialuk24@reddit
If the average player is better, that’s likely also why the top players do not stand out so much any more, as they would need to have improved by a similar degree.
Top players are probably as good as ever, they just don’t stand out so much.
I’d also add that football as a whole has been isolated on pay to watch TV for long enough now for football to not be as big a part of the average person’s day to day life.
Ironically, there’s far more football available on TV for my son to watch Vs what I had available to me at a similar age in the 80s, yet he’s never watched a match on TV on his life while I had watched every FA Cup and League Cup match possible.
SlightlyIncandescent@reddit
A good player performance wise won't necessarily stand out either because being an athlete is more important than skill with the ball these days. Jordan Henderson had a poty season for Liverpool when they finally won the league first time and noone talks about it because there wasn't anything eye catching.
Mikey463@reddit (OP)
Just googled that squad. I know 90% of the players. I remember them. They were awesome.
BLightyear67@reddit
You can't compare. 20 years ago football was a contact sport. Now it isn't.
raquille-@reddit
Level was professional.
Glass_House_555@reddit
An 11 from the last 20 years is a fun challenge. Buffon, Lahm-Maldini-VVD-Marcelo, Zidane-Kante-Pirlo, Messi-Lewandowski-CR7
Nosworthy@reddit
It's a difficult one to answer and there isn't really a right or wrong answer, more a case of explaining how things have evolved in that period.
Over the past 10-20 years there has been a huge rise in data and analytics. Clubs have invested heavily in analysis to enable them pinpoint the supposed 'optimal play' in various situations, exactly where each player needs to be when they / the opposition have the ball in a particular area of the pitch and drill it in to players through coaching and repetition.
10-20 years ago that didn't happen, and while it was certainly far from 'go out and do what you want', there was more of an emphasis on utilising individual skill and talent and hard work than tactical instruction.
Also, Pep Guardiola became Barcelona manager in 2008 and built on the philosophies of past coaches like Johan Cruyff to drill the idea of 'positional play', essentially turning the game into more of a chess match where every pass and every movement is deliberately made with the purpose of drawing the opposition into certain areas of the pitch and opening up space to progress the ball up the pitch. Whereas the more older school mentality was more like 'our right back and right winger need to work together to get the better of their left back and left winger, our centre backs try to get the better of rhetorical strikers, our strikers try to get the better of their centre backs and if we win as many individual battles as possible we have a better chance of winning'. Pep took over Man City in 2016 and many managers down to lower league level have tried to emulate that.
So going back to the original question - there is far less of an emphasis of individual talents and more of an emphasis on tactics and teamwork. Players like Ronaldinho, Scholes and Beckham would still be brilliant today - though the first thing Pep did at Barcelona was sell Ronaldinho as he didn't work hard enough and had too much of a party lifestyle - but the real flair players who had bags of talent but didn't work hard wouldn't be tolerated. Teams are more tactical now and there's an argument that some modern teams would beat older teams through superior tactical knowledge and coaching. But there's an equally strong argument that they'd struggle to cope with the individual brilliance of those players and that the game is less exciting as a result.
Mikey463@reddit (OP)
That was explained really well and very interesting to read so thank for that.
I have a question you might not be able to answer.
If you had to choose 11 players from the last 20 years who would you choose?
Nosworthy@reddit
In terms of the best 11 players, something like:
Buffon
Lahm, Ramos, Chiellini, Cole
Xavi, Busquets, Iniesta
Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Ronaldinho
Probably missing some obvious shouts there. If extended back a little further I'd include Maldini, Zidane, R9 Ronaldo, Cafu etc.
Not sure how that would fare in the modern game as the front 3 would do no defensive work whatsoever. Midfield is the area where there is absolutely tonnes of choice - Modric, Gerrard, Scholes, Kaka, Kroos are all fair shouts, and you could probably make a case for Yaya Toure, De Bruyne, Lampard, Rodri - but Xavi, Busquets and Iniesta were all individually brilliant but also part of the great Barcelona and Spain teams from 2008-2015 that dominated everyone.
Jjuxi-Rides-Again@reddit
Xavi and Iniesta have a good case to be the first names in midfield for an all time world XI.
william_h_bonney_@reddit
Money and TV zillions is one thing, but I’ve noticed, and you highlight it here, the majority of world class players don’t play their peak years in England.
Tall-Nectarine-5982@reddit
Probably far better in most aspects, for me personally it’s unbearable. The 2000s and even 2010s were much better to watch and far more exciting.
tegularius00@reddit
Lots of people have spoken about the athleticism and speed differences, as well as system differences, but I've not seen as much in the comments so far about the difference in aggression and physicality.
I grew up watching football in the 90s, and the games between rival teams were *levels* more violent and combative than regular games. Even in the 90s it was normal for brawls to break out between players, and for players to try to kick their opponents out of the game.
Some of the most famous examples of this in the premier league were games between Man Utd and Arsenal, when they were both challenging for the title. Their captains, Roy Keane and Patrick Viera respectively, were notorious for how hard they would tackle each other and how fiercely they would compete for the ball.
The expectation back then was that football was a contact sport, that hard tackling was a normal and valuable strategy, and that scuffles between players should result in a mild telling-off or, at worst, a yellow card each.
The kinds of actions that were not considered worthy of punishment in the 90s would result in instant red cards these days. Players are protected far more now than before.
That's why I don't always buy the arguments that modern teams would easily beat the teams of the past. I can absolutely accept superior speed and fitness in the modern game, but the sheer aggression and combativeness that they would have faced back then (as well as not having super-smooth pitches to play on) would definitely even the contest in my mind.
Mithrandearyme@reddit
22 robotic athletes on the pitch now ever since Pep started to dominate the game. Very boring to watch now compared to 20 years ago.
MisterIndecisive@reddit
I miss the days of proper rivalries. Any got like classico now
jmuds@reddit
The general athleticism and of players has increased tremendously, but individual quality, showmanship and entertainment has decreased a lot.
Nominal_selection@reddit
The worst players have got a lot better (and fitter). The best have got a bit better. The tactics have got more rigid and because the range between talent levels is narrower, teams are less likely to have glaring weaknesses. So overall you see fewer standout performances or battles decided on talent.
blueblue_electric@reddit
I'm in my 50's athleism has almost taken over. I've grown up watching footballers rely on skill and intelligence, players like Hoddle, Gascoigne, Mattheus, Lam, Socrates and many more.
Would Hoddle and Gascoigne be the same type of player in today's game? No, they'd be moulded into runners with a end product, I've seen these guys dictate games from the middle of the park. Simply put, the subtlety and the skill is being eroded for physicality and playing to rigid tactics.
Infernode5@reddit
Watching Grealish turn into a machine when he moved to City was so sad to see as a Villa fan.
Mikey463@reddit (OP)
I am guessing we are talking about Glenn Hoddle? If so I only remember him as the England manager. What was he like on the field?
blueblue_electric@reddit
Slow, hardly ran, but he could do things with that ball you wouldn't see nowadays, his passing was superb, as well as his creativity. At his peak , he was often overlooked for England games, and he found great success playing abroad where it suited his style. England at the time , were very physical, very rigid in formations and the crowds wanted ot that way.
Get on YTube and look him up.
Mikey463@reddit (OP)
Yeah I am literally doing that right now. Looks incredible. Love the hair also.
snackingsnek@reddit
Ovwrall it's at a higher standard from the point of view of athleticism, but there are fewer quirky genius type players and its much less varied and interesting overall. I can't imagine a Matt Le Tissier fitting in now. Maybe an Eric Cantona would maybe not. We don't seem to produce those type of players anymore.
Mikey463@reddit (OP)
I remember Matt Le Tissier and Eric Cantona, would be difficult not to know Cantona. How about Dennis Bergkamp he was always one of my favourites.
Single-Position-4194@reddit
Yes I still remember Bergkamp's three touch goal against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup.
Eyup_Amigo@reddit
A lot more boring to watch now. I'd say the best time to watch football was the 2000s
Responsible-Charge31@reddit
2010s
Mikey463@reddit (OP)
I have never followed football properly but I remember the buzz growing up in the 90s and 2000s. It was something very different to these days.
postexitus@reddit
Arsenal is the pinnacle of modern football. A manager who solved the game like chess. Signed the right players. Doesn’t let them play as themselves - only as part of a tactic and team. Every move is calculated, practised, clinical - and incredibly effective. It is very hard to beat - bit it is incredibly boring to watch. Case in point, this year’s west ham away. Gosh these top players waiting everybody to be in their set piece positions. No random virtuoso moves no nothing. Just super calculated strategy.
Immediate-Cress-1117@reddit
Football is definitely inferior in this era than 20 years ago.
Yes its more system based and players are more athletic but the quality is for sure inferior. Less specialists in today's game.
I can name 10 world class or very good players in every position in a 433 system 10-20 years ago. Today l just can't.
Just look at the quality of national teams aswell.
threeleggedcats@reddit
Professional level I’d say.
ApprehensiveRun1382@reddit
Tactically, it’s the best it’s ever been.
BUT, it’s gotten sooo tactical that it’s no longer as enjoyable to watch.
Maverick flair players have been managed out of the game.
We have forgotten it is these characters that made football so fun to watch.
It’s supposed to be entertainment at the end of the day. You pay 2hrs of your life to watch it.
OneCheesecake1516@reddit
The women’s game has over taken the prima donnas/actors of men’s football
Global-Meringue1198@reddit
Such a bad take
SFButts@reddit
I'd say there's almost no chance 98/99 Man Utd would win the 25/26 prem, and a very small chance 25/26 Arsenal would win the 98/99 prem. Mostly due to rule changes and changes to refereeing, etc. So it's difficult to judge the better quality.
Competitive_Test6697@reddit
Now it's all the same. Boring runs, formations and robots trained to do one thing.
If you can run fast you can get a game.
Back then you had more freedom, better defenders and needed to have skill to break thru.
Awesomepwnag@reddit
Sure, but don’t let the tactical and athletic nature of the top level fool you; the players are unbelievably technically gifted
BowiesFixedPupil@reddit
Absolutely, it's just not expressed in the same way.
I think a fantastic example is someone like Jack Grealish, full of flair and individual skills who goes to Man City who operate in a "modern" manner and suddenly you wouldn't think it was the same player but he is, just operating differently.
gummibear853@reddit
Clubs all have a system and use data nerds to find the best players to fit that system. So new signings these days don’t have the same wow factor - fans want their teams to sign well-known superstars, even if they don’t fit the way the team plays.
For example Middlesbrough in the late 90s had genuine world class players like Ravenelli, Emerson and Juninho playing alongside Ben Roberts and Steve Vickers who, with all due deference, were not on the same level.
OnPointTip1@reddit
Personally I think the big difference now is tactical. Teams are managed to the nth degree. Less flair and freedom. Not saying it's better or worse.
HAH-PAH@reddit
The English game had been more physical - brutish, broader bodies. Now moved towards a more fluid, athletic "continental" style under the influence of systems brought in by European managers - Wenger, Guardiola, Mancini.
The rise of data science and AI used full stack to detect promising players right through to programming footballers' diets and recover to match analysis with pose detection and goal estimation.
Marsmanic@reddit
Teams play to not lose.
That's what I think the main difference is. The tactical 'restrictions' put on players makes for a more dull spectacle imo.
You get less magical moments, because the players are more pressured on stats, mistakes etc... where as in 2006 you'd have midfielders shooting from range more frequently, which led to more excitement and stunning goals.
The level of ability across the board has improved, if you took Premier League Mr Average from 20 years ago, and put him alongside Mr Average in 2026, there would be a gulf in quality.
AnalystAlex@reddit
Stats have ruined the game. As someone else mentioned, far more systematic.
Players are discouraged from taking low XG efforts, watch the 2010 World Cup highlights. Half of the goals would result in a bollocking from the technical staff these days.
Mc_and_SP@reddit
God, that 2010 World Cup ball was quite something...
Worth_Gap4226@reddit
I'd say it's improved, but it's largely subjective or hard to compare directly.
I would put money on a 3rd-6th placed team nowadays winning the league 20 years ago.
Comparing back slightly further, 20-25 years ago is really when footballers generally took the fitness side of things with the paramount seriousness as they do today. In the UK, it's largely down to Arsene Wenger earning an edge over other teams by being more professional physically.
Comparing back even further than that, a mid table team now would IMO win the league 40+ years ago.
Subject_Ad1286@reddit
The game has changed a lot in the way it’s played and that has a lot to do with higher levels of fitness and stamina. I was watching a Euro ‘96 game the other day and wondering why no one seemed to be pressing the midfield never mind the defence.
Derfel60@reddit
Its more athletic but less talent now.
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