I find myself very often thinking is it just me or the whole sport has become so boring, oneside and predictable…
For years almost trying to force myself trying to enjoy football but it doesn’t work. Teams like monaco 2017, ajax last year, or leicester when they won it bring some excitment but it’s just bot nearly enough.
As I somewhat said I’m still not sure whether I just got oversuffed with it or what… or is it about the game… but it’s just so hard to enjoy it nowadays.
And talking about PL specifically… I’m especially tired of fans talking how the league is at it’s best in the last decade… no way. It was way more open and incomparably more entertaining in the decade before…Haven’t watched the 90’s but they look good too, looking at the clips.
Used to enjoy all the PL matches back in the day (bundesliga too, everyting I would bump into basically), no matter who played… now I have to force myself to watch arsenal, not to mention the other teams. I think all the teams are more focused on the sheere result and trying not to lose a game, the teams who actually play to win are to rare. The whole mentality in the league changed.
It kinda reminds me of serie A a bit, before the scandal in 2006. Most people were saying how it was the best league back then (not to mention the 90’s, but I’m talking about the period between 2002, when I started watching, and 2006), and there were brilliant big teams who were the main candidates for the Champions League every years, big stars… I would watch the games regularly but I could never enjoy them, even the biggest games with a lot of goals… only exception was the roma team.
The league was living on past glory at that time, and the Premier League feels literally the same nowadays.
Looks as a severe case of “everything were better back in the old days” kinda situation. When we are younger, we react so much more intensely to stimuli. I dont think football is that bad nowadays as some are trying to showcase.
I’m going to be biased and say that in 2004, football reached a weird sort of pinnacle.
We won the league, of course, but the likes of Villa, Newcastle, Chelsea- all of these teams were playing exciting, expansive football. Even the teams that got relegated (Leicester, Leeds, Wolves)- I don’t recall them being mauled by other teams. They were trying to play their way out of trouble.
Ironically, the one team that could easily play open, attractive football that could potentially outdo ours was Manchester United but they went 12 men behind the ball in the Cup semi final. Perhaps set a bit of a trend for the following seasons (as Alan Hansen used to say in every MOTD analysis- “Arsenal have been sussed”)
I’ve been to all of our FA Cup Finals and despite the dire football we served up for 120 minutes, it’s still my favourite of the bunch. Felt so good fucking robbing United.
Also, that was the best penalty shootout I’ve seen, 5-4 to us, each of our penalties were excellent. United were good too, I believe the one that got saved was from Scholes, and even that wasn’t bad. I’m usually incredibly pessimistic, but I went into that certain we’d win the shootout, it just felt destined to happen after the shite we offered. Our best chance was an Ashley Cole shot from outside the box that went about five yards wide.
I think the peak of the quality of the premier league, comparing it to other leagues, was in 2005-2010. The results in europe at that time confirm that firmly, but not just that, the quality of all teams, the way they played etc…
When it comes to attractiveness/expansiveness of football I think it started to go down even back with the arrival of mourinho. I kinda felt a lot of midtable and relegation teams managers tried to emulate his way and mentality. It was still much more open compared to these days, it was just the start, but I kinda felt/noticed the number of teams who were happy sitting behind the ball waiting for the counter/a set piece startet to grow unlike just a couple of years before where basically every team attacked as much as they could with the quality they had, and it was a constant goal to goal action. The league definitely became more tactical after mourinho compared to earlier more direct and simple way of playing. And afterwards everything became more result focused/driven with all the money, attention and pressure that came with it.
Exactly that. You’re spot on. We had an awful away record in 05/06 as a result of that. Wenger, frustratingly, didn’t change his game plan.
There was a game at Reading in 06/07 which we won 0-4, which you might remember, which inspired memories of the Invincibles. Other than that, there weren’t many “throwbacks”, so to speak
Well it won’t improve as the money gap gets bigger because survival becomes more important for clubs.
Next television deal is huge factor for the sport going forward in this country.
If the six get their way and receive more money it’s pretty much done as a product.
It’s not like these are just subjective emotional opinions.
It’s a fact that leagues are less competitive than they were.
It’s a fact that European competitions now have more teams from the same country, there is less diversity in the countries that make up the competition, more matchups repeat every year…
Now I guess the interpretation of that is that football is a bit more boring, and that may be subjective, which is fair enough.
Factor in the top four cup and sacrifice of cup football and watering down of the UEFA to the Europa and I think this has had an effect on everyone’s outlook.
For me the beauty of the game is all about the quality of the football at display. Football is evolving at a rapid pace atm thanks to the huge investements made. Im glad that we live in a world were football and sport in general still is one of the greatest entertainment sources for mankind. We shouldnt take it for granted when kids worldwide still plays football all day till the sun goes down. Especially considering todays modern society were people stare more at their phones than on eachother.
Football is a reflection of the world we are living in. And the increased interconnection in the world coupled with the technological revolution all makes for a totally different footballing perspective.
For me. Football has never been more exciting and thrilling to watch. The base quality of proffesional football has increased dramatically and it feels as though the individual quality of the players(physically and technically) goes up and up for every single season that goes by. Vivala Fussball !
papa was proud that night methinks.