How Soccer Is Not The Game It Was
When I was growing up football was a tough man’s game and it took true skill to become the greatest but all that has changed in recent times
Billions of people love football and so it has to be considered a great sport.
Because there are over 7 billion people in the world and I bet if you asked any of them what the sport of football was all about each one of them would be able to tell one positive thing.
Sure, half of them would explain to you that there are negatives too in the game and they’d be right. But, if they were put to the pin of their collar to think intently about what football does for people they’d see that the positives outweigh the negatives. But at the same time, the game could soon be ruined forever if things don’t change.
Firstly, football was a great game when I was growing up.
I loved the fact that you could watch the star-studded Liverpool team pass the ball over and back like a well-oiled machine. They kept possession of the ball and it was as if they knew what each of their teammates were thinking all of the time.
The ball went forward, then back, then to the left and the right.
All in a second or two. Two touches at most and at times only the one.
It was real teamwork.
Now and then the ball would bounce forward and Ian Rush, John Aldridge, or Peter Beardsley would dink it, drill it, side foot it, or pass it into the net.
Great football. Better memories.
Of course, that’s the team that I followed so I`m biased. But with that said, I admired other teams and players too. Although Manchester United were their rivals a few years later I couldn’t help but admire the ability of David Beckham and how he could consistently cross the ball into the box.
And Ryan Giggs’s dribbling runs down the left-wing were great, and how Paul Scholes could forage for a ball deep in his half and play a pinpoint pass up the field to a fellow teammate was class too.
And then there was their captain Roy Keane who would make a crunching tackle and let everyone know who was the real boss.
If you asked anyone nowadays who likes sport what they hated about football they’d probably say that it’s gone too soft. Because the players don’t get tackled anymore. And I`d have to agree.
Without trying to sound like an old man who believes their youth was better than the present day, I`d still make a case for the sport of football being a better game when the sliding tackle was allowed in the game.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to watch a skillful player and I think that a skillful player should be protected by a referee because he’s the type of player who has mastered the skills of the game.
But when I see players waltzing past defenders like they aren’t there and the defenders don’t so much as make a tackle and avoid all physical contact I can’t accept that the goal the forward scores is as good as one from decades before it. After all, if you’re to compare like with like you’re going to have to have the same level of aggression and physical contact between the two situations to make it a fair comparison.
There’s no doubt that when football outlawed the sliding tackle they changed the game for the worse.
When once you had players who would evade sets of outstretched legs and then be forced to the ground from a sliding tackle then they’d pop up and control the ball again and make a pass or shoot it. That was better play to watch. And that has been replaced by a player of limited ability approaching a defending player and knowing they don’t have enough skill or guile to get past them so they dive to the ground to fake a foul.
And when it’s watched back on the reply it looks horrible to see.
Paris Saint-Germain’s Neymar is one such player who often decides to deceive referees and hit the deck even though he’s not been touched by anyone.
When he first came on the scene I was excited about him as I could see that he was an elusive player with bags of skill. Having admired Brazilian players like Ronaldo, Romario, and Ronaldinho over the years I thought I was in for a decade or more of excitement to watch his skills dictate football games.
But I stopped watching him after a couple of games once I saw that he was a diver.
For me, I wanted to see Neymar use his ability to get out of tricky and pressurized situations.
And I wanted him to do it fairly.
Because that’s why I love watching football and sport in general as it inspires people to know that if you have enough ability at something and you work at it then more often than not you’ll be rewarded.
But I never saw that with Neymar.
And there are too many other players in football that have followed on in doing the same.
Football originated as a working-class sport and the beauty of it was that it connected people. Stopping players who lack silky skills with a ball but who can tackle properly and fairly shuts the door on all types of ability and entertainment values. Replacing it with overpaid players trying to continuously cheat by diving has become the norm and needs to be stopped for the future of football.
After all it’s supposed to be the beautiful game and not the one for those who want to show its ugly side.
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