The state of Football

Don
Joined
23 Oct 2005
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43,973
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North Yorkshire
I must admit, I didn't think I would create this thread this season considering how the season started, goals, exciting end to end football, entertainment!

But over the past weeks it's gone back to team's mentality of not wanting to lose, resulting in boring, zero ambition, lack of passion and the will to put the ball in the back of the net.

It all goes back to grass roots and coaching, do you think we will have any players that are allowed to play with freedom and express themselves in the future? Beating a man, doing the odd tricks and naturally entertaining in the future? The young players we are getting excited by or the lads who can pass sideways and can read the game, what has happened?

I was having a lengthy discussion with my father in law who came in whilst i was watching WPR vs Stoke last night, (I know) that obviously finished 0-0. But I watched the Manchester derby, it had no passion, ambition and both teams failed in their objective, to put the ball int he back of the net.

So how can this be addressed? Should there be some kind of penalty if a team fails to score? Should a 0-0 result in teams be docked points rather than gain them?

I think football is generally terrible nowadays, there are no 'Super Sundays', the games you think will be crap are usually better than the top teams playing each other. The mentality is to not lose and that just results in a boring spectacle for the paying customer.

Anyone share my thoughts or actually excited by games on the TV or going to matches?
 
Caporegime
Joined
23 Apr 2014
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29,257
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Dominating rooms with symmetry
I still love watching games, to be honest, but the introduction of VAR and the lack of fans has killed a lot of the excitement.

The best era for me was the mid to late 90's, early 2000's. Not because of any particular teams success, there just seemed to be a different energy back then and players doing their own thing. When was the last time someone tried a rainbow flick :p

Daft stuff as well like Rene Higuita's scorpion kick save :D I think social media has changed the players mentality as well. They get hammered on there for the slightest mistakes so I think it's made them much more conservative.
 
Soldato
Joined
7 Nov 2002
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7,496
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pantyhose factory
parking the bus is a valid tactic because teams (managers) are worried about losing and worried about either not qualifying for CL or getting relegated and or getting sacked. This has been brought around because of the the insane amounts of money being thrown around by Sky / BT / Amazon to buy TV rights for games, and clubs needing to effectively get more and more as they pay ever increasingly eye watering amounts for average players.

Trying to fix this by punishing teams for using valid tactics like parking the bus to secure points doesn't address the core problem.
 
Caporegime
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
27,635
Location
Lancs/London
I do still watch football but not as much as I used to, the general play acting, diving, time wasting, cheating that goes on along with the inclusion of ridiculous rule changes from people that have clearly never played the game are slowly eroding my love of the game. Most of my enjoyment now comes from pundits like Keane having a huge melt down.

Genuine excitement died the day the Venkys took over at Blackburn as that was the end of my long season ticket reign. As such i'm mostly a TV watching neutral now, unless it's Liverpool then i'm supporting whoever they're playing ;) (Except Burnley).

It's a shame as I used to love going on the game, the whole day, meeting friends for a pint etc. Those days are long gone.
 

fez

fez

Caporegime
Joined
22 Aug 2008
Posts
25,023
Location
Tunbridge Wells
Honestly, when I watch highlights from ever 15 years ago the quality of football has massively come on. How anyone can say it hasn't is beyond me. I think that is the problem. You have 11 very fit players on both sides and managers who are tactically astute (apart from Ole :p) and goals are usually scored based on mistakes rather than exquisite football. I think goals used to be scored from mistakes but because there were so many mistakes defensively, it had to be a massive one for anyone to really notice.

Essentially the margins now are much finer so the games are usually not as open.

The biggest thing turning me off football at the moment is VAR and the rampant cheating that is being encouraged more and more. The question being asked is not "was that a foul and was there enough contact for a foul" but "did he make any contact with the striker".

Sterling and Kane are prime examples of players that wins bucketloads of penalties by essentially either:

Forcing contact by leaving a leg stuck out unnaturally or generally blocking off a tackle by sticking a leg out to force the contact
1. Getting a toe to the ball a split second before the defender and then going down no matter how 2. soft the contact or how out of control the ball is after they make contact.

They are then rewarded for their cheating.

I mean, why is it a penalty when a striker makes it to the ball just before the defender and boots it off the back line only to have the defender touch his foot. Its BS
 

fez

fez

Caporegime
Joined
22 Aug 2008
Posts
25,023
Location
Tunbridge Wells
0.5 pts for a 0-0, 1.5 pts for a score draw. Sorted :p

I wouldn't necessarily be against a rugby style system. Would completely screw peoples ability to reason points totals for a few years but...


4 pts for a win
2 pts for a draw

bonus point for scoring 3 goals in a game.
bonus point for only losing by one goal.

Obviously you can't get 2 bonus points for losing a game 4-3.
 
Associate
Joined
13 Mar 2012
Posts
681
Location
Tampere Finland
I must admit, I didn't think I would create this thread this season considering how the season started, goals, exciting end to end football, entertainment!

But over the past weeks it's gone back to team's mentality of not wanting to lose, resulting in boring, zero ambition, lack of passion and the will to put the ball in the back of the net.

It all goes back to grass roots and coaching, do you think we will have any players that are allowed to play with freedom and express themselves in the future? Beating a man, doing the odd tricks and naturally entertaining in the future? The young players we are getting excited by or the lads who can pass sideways and can read the game, what has happened?

I was having a lengthy discussion with my father in law who came in whilst i was watching WPR vs Stoke last night, (I know) that obviously finished 0-0. But I watched the Manchester derby, it had no passion, ambition and both teams failed in their objective, to put the ball int he back of the net.

So how can this be addressed? Should there be some kind of penalty if a team fails to score? Should a 0-0 result in teams be docked points rather than gain them?

I think football is generally terrible nowadays, there are no 'Super Sundays', the games you think will be crap are usually better than the top teams playing each other. The mentality is to not lose and that just results in a boring spectacle for the paying customer.

Anyone share my thoughts or actually excited by games on the TV or going to matches?

Just for context, stoke have/had 13 injuries, many of whom may be considered key players. I do not know the state of QPR's injury list but nothing that I have experienced I'm my 28 years of watching football had come close to the sheer number of injuries sustained this season by Stoke. 0-0 was fine, the game a bit boring but championship teams are thread bare because if stupid ffp rules preventing sustained investment in addition to covid fixture build up with teams playing near 3 games per week (or 9 days)
 
Associate
Joined
6 Nov 2018
Posts
313
Location
UK
Being a Sheffield United fan makes enjoying football particularly difficult at the moment. :p

And it's only going to get worse in a few hours ;) Seriously 1 point in 12 games? how did you go from top 4 contenders last season to a complete collapse during project restart and beyond?

Then again, as a Man Utd fan I could ask the same of Ole.

The main problem with football is VAR and the poor use of it. Technology is great when used properly (goal line tech) but it isn't and it needs sorting sooner rather than later as it is ruining the passion of the game.

Also how football is run by old businessmen.
 
Soldato
Joined
3 Sep 2012
Posts
11,339
Location
P town
Never understood why showboating is frowned upon, who wouldn't want to see a young Cristiano or Ronaldinho gliding past players?

What I find disappointing is big games are no longer big and more about the result as it's trophies that matter. I guess that's a sacrifice you have to take but I'd rather see teams go out fighting or winning in style than playing for the counter attack.

I think no fans has had a massive impact of course less pressure on players etc.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
25 Oct 2002
Posts
31,707
Location
Hampshire
Don't take this personally but this reads a bit like rose-tinted spectacles for me. We all remember the classics, the Liverpool-Newcastle 4-3s from yesteryear, because they were classics. But can you remember every Liverpool-Newcastle game from the past 25 years? No, you can't. Because some of them were probably drab affairs.

I've watched football since the 80s and it is not noticeably any worse. Sure from my team's perspective it is different, in 2002-2005 teams were LITERALLY (c) Jamie Redknapp bricking themselves playing Arsenal, absolutely scared stiff because we'd be 4-0 up at halftime and then bring Henry off the bench for the second half. Nobody is scared of playing Arsenal these days, we'll go ballistic over a 1-1 at home to Saints as if we've just qualified for the CL final. But that's just my team, overall, standard of football is fine. The stakes are higher, the skill level is higher on average overall, teams are much better prepared, better organised, fitter etc etc which people might try and pass off as a bad thing but really it is just the natural direction of travel, you aren't going to get many 3-3s between top teams due to shoddy defending, weaknesses exposed in the squad or tiring legs like the old days.
 
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