4 Common Misconceptions About Modern Football

1. Football Before 1992 Wasn't Rubbish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTinFpW2XU4 Having been born in 1988, there isn't a great deal that I remember about anything before 1992 myself, so I too am of the generation of televised football; in order to learn more about great players of the past, I have had to make do with TV shows, internet videos and stories of their skills and achievements. However, there is a worrying assumption that an alarming number of people seem to make regarding 'modern' football when compared with the game of the 1980's, '70's and so on: that players back then weren't as good as they are now, or even that they were generally rubbish. The counter-argument often given by the same people is that nostalgia is clouding the judgement of, say, Preston fans waxing lyrical over the great Tom Finney, Stoke supporters reminiscing about Stanley Matthews, and even football followers who salivate over the Brazil side that trounced Italy 4-1 in the 1970 World Cup Final in Mexico. Tell that to Sir Bobby Charlton, who is widely considered England's greatest-ever player, and one of Manchester United's. Throughout his long and distinguished career, he played against some of the greatest that the game had to offer, but there was only one man who, in Sir Bobby's own words, made him feel inferior: Duncan Edwards. Unfortunately, like many players of yore, there is precious little footage of him in action, so my knowledge of him was gleaned primarily from anecdotes. Therefore, I can't really vouch for how good he was (even though all of the anecdotes suggest that he was up there with the best players of all time). Fortunately, there is at least a decent amount of footage of many of history's greatest players, such as Best, Cruyff, Pele and Maradona. Many hours have I spent gazing wide-eyed and open-mouthed at YouTube clips of these luminaries of the beautiful game as they dazzled and delighted with their sublime skills. I suppose what I am trying to get at is that I am amazed whenever someone tells me that players back then were not as good as they are now - that Messi is definitely the greatest ever because the game is harder nowadays. It has to be said that the conditioning of players, and the rigour with which they are trained and honed into top-class athletes is getting better by the day, with developments in sports science coming on leaps and bounds over the past sixty years or so. But I wonder: will they be saying fifty years from now, when my generation is old and tired, that Messi, Ronaldo and co are nothing compared to the superstars of that age, because the game is easier now?