NAMING RIGHTS THREAD: Liverpool really won't win the Premiership 2010-2011

with jenas it's just my sheer bad luck i guess

The speediest and most agile players tend to attract the crudest tackles as well.

i'd hazard that most recurring injuries are non-contact tbh

More games, faster games, more off-the-ball work for the modern player imo. Old games look laughably pedestrian nowadays. Plus greater travel, media work, etc. Basically, it's a much harder job now.

Also, you can walk 6km in 90 mins ffs - of all the fashion for stats, 'distance covered' has got to be the stupidest.

More games

Do they play more games? It used to be 42 league games a season, now it's 38. There used to be a lot more FA Cup replays. If a team goes a long way in the Champions League then that would probably mean more games in total than in the past, but most teams aren't even in the Champions League in the first place, never mind the semi-finals.

no such things as squads in my day neither

Yeah, this too ^

Also, a more demanding game means players have to pull out if they have a knock - can't nurse a strain by pacing around doing nothing most of the time (gag goes here)

Thanks for the replies people. I've been out so am only just catching up on this now - interesting stuff. I've also read that pressing didn't really become commonplace until the 80s - apparently the famous World Cup Final of 1970 between Brazil and Italy is actually pretty dull; there's hardly any running, and players are literally moving up and down the pitch at walking pace. Of course plenty of finals since then have been boring, but perhaps for different reasons.

doesn't help that italy were absolutely shit on the day to the point where brazil literally could walk through them.

Pressing was an invention of 60s Ajax aiui, their innovation being to use that and offside to constantly change and control the space within which the game is played. That seems to be the great schism between old and modern footy. I bet the 70 & 74 world cups are like watching two different sports. Sacchi's Milan perfected the art I think, and I suppose Barca/Spain are its pinnacle even if we think they're actually doing something else.

Barca is all about ball retention, giving players time to rest for uber-pressing when they don't have it, right?

It's almost like pressing by keeping possession, creating so many options that have to be covered that it wears the other side out e.g. all Spain's late goals.

fyi Graham Taylor invented pressing

Thanks for the replies people. I've been out so am only just catching up on this now - interesting stuff. I've also read that pressing didn't really become commonplace until the 80s - apparently the famous World Cup Final of 1970 between Brazil and Italy is actually pretty dull; there's hardly any running, and players are literally moving up and down the pitch at walking pace. Of course plenty of finals since then have been boring, but perhaps for different reasons.

― territory of the magic wand (Chris), Wednesday, April 6, 2011 5:43 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the 'legendary' england v brazil game at the same tournament is similar. might have been the altitude, but yes there were times when bobby moore could have sparked one up and shared it with gordon banks while the game was ongoing.

Lolbron James will never walk alone.

recurring injuries tend to hit the speediest/most agile players more often, or so it seems to me- because of their tendency to be slighter of build or whatever?

― the salmon of procrastination (darraghmac), Wednesday, 6 April 2011 16:41 (4 hours ago)

in American Football running backs often have to retire in their late 20s because all of the quick bursts of pace and deft twists and such ruin their legs over time. I guess it's a style of play that puts your body under all sorts of stress. (And maybe one that didn't really exist in the same way until recently?)

i think that has more to do with being clattered into by 250lb psychos every two minutes

Re the slowness of the game. Looking back it seems kinda incredible to me that goalie's were ever allowed to pick up back passes. I watched football back then and thought nothing of it but now I wonder how any team leading going into the final few minutes ever conceded a goal.

On the other hand, I don't recall teams trying to play it out of defence at all in the 80s. If the goalkeeper had the ball in their hands they just humped it as far upfield as they could every time.

"Bobby's got a cigar on" -- Lawro version

http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2011/Apr/Week1/15967708.jpg

the Mirror's free book pitched at the right literacy level then

apparently the famous World Cup Final of 1970 between Brazil and Italy is actually pretty dull; there's hardly any running, and players are literally moving up and down the pitch at walking pace

To be fair, it was Mexico City (7000ft?) in June

soft talk, these days they'd just get on with it

I'm really keen to see an old game and a modern game playing side-by-side now: single camera, fixed position, full match no highlights or commentary. Just watch what was happening off-the-ball - perpetual motion in the modern game, lots of standing about for ye olde timers it sounds like.

The Italy-Germany semis from 1970 and 2006 would do nicely. Would visit the Tate Modern if they put that on.

Also in them olden days the ball was heavier, kit was heavier, boots less well designed etc, and the playing surfaces were worse

and all the players smoked 40 Rothmans a day

... players also boozed up and on fags and lard 24/7 of course

xp!!!!!!!!

saw an England game from 1982 a while back and it was almost like a different sport, one lone striker getting the ball hoofed up to him by an immobile midfield and then fannying about for 5 minutes while somebody lumbered up pitch to give him a passing option. most of the time he just tried to run round 6 opposition players. and failed. and they hoofed it back down the pitch to us and the sorry charade started again.

mind, this was England.

Indeed, but tactics were successful year after year against the hungover midgets that consituted the Scottish national team in those days

see some spurs matches from the same period and there's some mindblowingly good stuff tho.

I think it might be most like watching women's tennis as opposed to the men's game.

Hoddle was a revelation for England and Spurs, pinpoint Hollywood pass after pinpoint Hollywood pass. But it was only in 86 when there were finally some players capable of using those passes that England made real use of him. I naturally assume the clubs were mostly more tactically advanced than the national side tbh

I dunno, ITV4 (or something) occasionally used to show old league matches and they weren't that bad

I naturally assume the clubs were mostly more tactically advanced than the national side tbh

Always seemed like Scotland had better footballers than England - because there seemed to be a policy for England not to pick footballers because they'd won the World Cup with a bunch of cloggers and hard workers and thought there was no need for more than one or two skillful players a side

club football from the era looks much better than most of the international stuff I think, even tho tactically a lot of it is still fairly unrecognisable and the spend 2 months playing on a fucking skating rink and 2 months playing on the Somme.

xp aye I think coaching in Scotland must've been in advance of England for years

http://img167.imagevenue.com/loc885/th_91554_The_Original_AthenaTennis_Girl_poster-tjj-06_122_885lo.jpg vs http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_RYHm3lihObA/SJuVvu66NDI/AAAAAAAAAHE/ls7uscbjUvk/s200/Fowler.jpg xp

I think coaching in Scotland must've been in advance of England for years

It still is apparently, not at producing footballers but coaches

yet again it's time for me to lament the loaning of my motd box set to my ex's dad the week before she booted me out.

Leeds in the mid-70's, spurs in the early eighties, chelsea with osgood, some of the clips show teams that would prob be decried as super-wenger in terms of flamboyance today.

Except for employing actual murderers at centre half, obviously

I watched the famous World Cup final between England and Germany in 1966 recently, and I was actually surprised by how similar it was to the modern game. Sure, there was a bit less athleticism but it was quite recognizable (to my relatively untrained eyes).

Two pretty athletic teams there

yeah, my Dad tells a story about Alan Ball going up to Ramsey after one game and complaining that all he'd done was run up and down the pitch without seeing the ball all game. Ramsey told him if he didn't like it he didn't have to play.

Rooney's ban has been upheld. Thinking Mick McCarthy shd try and stand a bit further away from the pitchside mics otherwise he could be out for a season.

mcateer, ah'll fookin DO eUUUU

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/apr/07/lebron-james-liverpool

lebron and andy carroll up front

Very interesting
about periods of footy.

I have watched 1981 cup final a couple of times.
It's slower etc
but Hoddle (who plays a lot on the flank I seem to recall) plays far more fine passes than people remember
(including one for Crooksy goal)
but you'd expect me to say that.

i've caught everything i can on hoddle, and as far as i can see england haven't had a player of his consistent ability since. Gazza and le tissier come closest in terms of natural gifts, maybe?

Would be interested in pov of our aged constituents on that one.