Why is the standard so bad?

comment by Cinciwolf-----JA606 NFL fantasy champ 2023 (U11551)
posted 1 hour, 3 minutes ago
Dunno what the argument here is to be honest.

It is fairly clear football is in a bit of a slump right now and national sides are not great. It happens things are cyclical. Not a single power house national side in this tournament is as good as recent editions of its own national side ffs, not one.
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Netherlands are
England are

France - by recent do you mean there side from 26 years ago up until 2006 ? I would argue that’s debatable. They won the WC in 98, euros in 2000, group stage exit in 2002, Quarters 2004 and then finalists 2006. The current lot since 2016 have had - 2016 finalists, 2018 WC winners, 2021 exit rd16, 2022 Finalists and 2024 worst case scenario they are semi finalists - results wise there is little in it, so your opinion has to be subjective on that.

I agree with Edin - lots of rose tinted spectacle schitt going on here.

comment by Nickasaurus (U9257)
posted 1 hour, 25 minutes ago
comment by Bãleș left boot anti Dutch since 2024 (U22081)
posted 24 minutes ago
There is no way to determine if the game is more exciting or less as a fact, so I wouldn't begin to say there was, or couldnt be bothered at least.
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Of course it's subjective, but TV audiences give you a good feel of the general impression. It's estimated 400m people watch the CL final. And a lot more watch the international competitions. If football were such a boring sport nowadays people would be turning off.

I think you're just old and have watched Chelsea too much
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Chelsea have been one of the best watches this season. So nothing to do with that. And obviously more people will be able to watch the CL with worldwide broadcasting increasing year on year and accessibility.
Theres also an increase in world population too.

Doesnt give you a "good feel" at all.
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You wot mate!!!

Chelsea? They’ve been great to follow from an off the pitch perspective, I’ve not enjoyed them much on TV. Then I have been spoiled by Ange’s Tottenham.

comment by Nickasaurus (U9257)
posted 2 hours, 43 minutes ago
comment by Striketeam7 - confident for Southgate’s nearly slaaaags (U18109)
posted 3 hours, 55 minutes ago
comment by Nickasaurus (U9257)
posted 33 minutes ago
comment by Striketeam7 - confident for Southgate’s nearly slaaaags (U18109)
posted 51 minutes ago
comment by Nickasaurus (U9257)
posted 21 minutes ago
I prefixed everything I said with its my opinion....what you on about you donut?
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You categorically stated:

The games more boring. Is what it is.

No prefix numb nuts
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dont think you know what a prefix is...
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Okay Nick, I will bite, where did you preface your matter of fact statement the game is more boring now. I will be waiting
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Footballs been on the downturn for a decade now in terms of quality and skill imo.

My very first sentence on this thread. Surely not that hard to find. Everything i have said on here is my opinion.

There is no way to determine if the game is more exciting or less as a fact, so I wouldn't begin to say there was, or couldnt be bothered at least.


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That’s a different comment you tiiit - you said you prefaced the Boring comment, that’s what I argued was subjective.

comment by it'sonlyagame (U6426)
posted 4 hours, 41 minutes ago
comment by Striketeam7 - confident for Southgate’s nearly slaaaags (U18109)
posted 32 minutes ago
comment by it'sonlyagame (U6426)
posted 52 minutes ago
comment by Striketeam7 - confident for Southgate’s nearly slaaaags (U18109)
posted 1 hour, 12 minutes ago

The game is more strategic, mostly borne out of teams trying to cope with the richer sides - there is no point trying to play Man City lite against Man City - you will win once in a hundred. Spurs bored the life out of City and killed them on the counter pre Ange - Wolves do similar to us.

You still get exceptional players producing things off the cuff though like Mbappe, Messi, Bellingham - those players are heavily compensated for.

It’s not even a new thing, back in 86 Argentina essentially employed 8 defensive players and put Canniggia up with Maradona to produce the goods - they then carried that onto Italia 90 which was the lowest scoring tournament ever - these things are cyclical
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Next time you want to try to sound like an expert, choose a topic you know something about.
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I’ve forgotten more about football than you have ever known laaa.

Very telling that you couldn’t refute any of it
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Two others already pointed it out to you. Your '8 defensive players with Canniggia and Maradona up top' claim shows you don't know what the fack you're talking about.

You obviously have no idea the hell of an attacking player Burruchaga was, or you would at least have made that 7 defensive players, but you'd still have been talking absolute bullshiiit, because that team wasn't characteristically defensive at all, you pretty much just plucked the idea out your erse stretching and twisting the old "Maradona won the cup single-handedly" lie into an imagined narrative to fit the argument you were making.

But as usual, your worst crime isn't that you've just imagined a fanciful parallel universe to suit a preconceived narrative, but that by now you'll probably have convinced yourself it's actually true.

As for your claim about the game being more 'strategic', what tf is that supposed to mean? Do you think the 1980s was the tail end of the Neolithic period?
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Fine I was getting Valdano and Canniggia mixed up in my head. The fact remains that the birth of the 5-3-2 or 352 depending on your take was at that tournament (initially experimented in prep)- don’t believe me, here is the link https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2008/nov/19/argentina-napoli

To write off my whole comment for getting the name of the striker wrong is ridiculous - you could have just pointed that out and I would have changed it.

As for my comment about games being more strategic these days - quite simple, the data analysis and level of research teams go into these days is off the charts, well above what has come before. We can no longer draw an unheralded Eastern European side and get surprised - we know everything about them - which way the winger likes to feint, the teams system, what they had for their lunch.

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Firstly, confusing Valdano and Caniggia, in and of itself, denotes that you don't know what you're talking about, because as strikers go, they were about as similar as chalk and cheese.

Secondly, switching the names wouldn't make your comment any more accurate in terms of how Argentina played. You argued that they basically played 8 defensive players and those two, which is blatantly untrue.

Your own link describes how the switch in formation moving the full backs up was precisely geared towards achieving superiority in midfield, not to become more solid defensively. You spuriously conflated 3-5-2 and 5-3-2 because it suited you purpose, but you would never have made that assertion if you'd actually seen that team play.

Argentina didn't play defensively, but very much bossed their games at the World Cup, as anyone who actually watched the England game, or indeed the semis and final, could tell you. It was only when Argentina went 2-0 up that they handed England the initiative. Your link even describes how the 3-5-2 against England was intended to create more space for Maradona to exploit - i.e., it very much had an attacking purpose. You would never have made that assertion if you'd actually seen that team play. Argentina didn't play defensively, but very much bossed their games at the World Cup.


On strategy, all you are really saying is that football has become much more analytical, sophisticated, and positional. It's been a progressive development, and its current iteration is mostly down to the amount of information and the analytical tools available to process it. The notion that it's borne out of lesser teams having to play Man City is stupidly Anglo-centric and just downright dumb.
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In possession they played with the full backs high up like wingers, out of possession it reverted to a back 5 with 3 deep lying midfielders - Argentina invented this to mask their weakness at the back - it was very much a defensive move and not a formation designed to aid the attackers with flying wing backs.

Jonathan Wilson goes into far greater detail on this in his excellent book “inverting the pyramid” or you could read zonal marking.

I was 5 when the tournament played - so yes I watched it live, but admittedly I was very young. However, just because you watched it live, it doesn’t mean you understood what you were watching - your comments clearly highlight you didn’t understand what was happening. So forgive me if I take the word of the experts over yours - it helped me watching back to understand what I could not comprehend at age 5 - you should watch back yourself, it’s all on YouTube - you may then comprehend.

Not even sure what you are trying to argue in the last paragraph, I argued the games more strategic, more is known about opponents these day due to advanced analytics and therefore planning and strategy is easier to implement to upset them - that is a fact, but feel free to argue away.
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Doubling down, quelle surprise.

"Wingers were in decline, becoming auxiliary midfielders, [Bilardo] reasoned, so what was the point of full-backs? They had been becoming increasingly attacking since the early 50s and the days of the great Brazilian Nilton Santos, so why not simply redesignate them as midfielders?

"[...] when he read out the team to face Switzerland, journalists assumed he had made a mistake. 'They told me I was wrong, that I'd named three central defenders,' he said. 'But I told them I was not confused. We were going to use three defenders, five midfielders and two forwards. We had practised it for two years, and now I was going to put it into practice in tough games.'"

[...]

"'You can't play against the English with a pure centre-forward,' [Bilardo] explained. 'They'd devour him, and the extra man in midfield will give Maradona more room.' His playmaker, in other words, became a second striker as the shape shifted from 4-3-1-2 to 3-5-2 (or perhaps, more precisely, 3-5-1-1)."

That's Jonathan Wilson quoting Bilardo himself, in the very link you posted.

The problem might be that you read "3-5-1-1" as meaning those 8 players were all deployed defensively, and that simply isn't true.

I don't need to rewatch those games, because I've done so already. And I think you might be telling porkies about having watched them yourself, because if you had done so you wouldn't still be here maintaining as correct the '8 defensive players' nonsense you claimed to begin with.

So, once you have actually gone back to watch the games, see which side dominated the play, noted how attack-minded a player Burruchaga was, or how he and others (e.g. Giusti or Olarticoechea) exploited the spaces left by Maradona dragging his markers all over the shop, you can come back and tell me how defensive Argentina were.

As for strategy, I'll say it again: it's borne out of the resources available, not out of "teams trying to cope with the richer sides." which was your other ridiculous claim. It's hardly as if Spurs or Wolves were breaking ground here. Less gifted sides have always set up to frustrate more talented ones. It's as true now as it was in the '80s.
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All those words and not one single credible point within them.

There is no point in us discussing if you’re not willing to go back and watch those games/that tournament so that you can learn what actually happened.

It’s a pointless exercise to continue this debate otherwise

comment by Striketeam7 - confident for Southgate’s ... (U18109)
posted 10 minutes ago
comment by Cinciwolf-----JA606 NFL fantasy champ 2023 (U11551)
posted 1 hour, 3 minutes ago
Dunno what the argument here is to be honest.

It is fairly clear football is in a bit of a slump right now and national sides are not great. It happens things are cyclical. Not a single power house national side in this tournament is as good as recent editions of its own national side ffs, not one.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Netherlands are
England are

France - by recent do you mean there side from 26 years ago up until 2006 ? I would argue that’s debatable. They won the WC in 98, euros in 2000, group stage exit in 2002, Quarters 2004 and then finalists 2006. The current lot since 2016 have had - 2016 finalists, 2018 WC winners, 2021 exit rd16, 2022 Finalists and 2024 worst case scenario they are semi finalists - results wise there is little in it, so your opinion has to be subjective on that.

I agree with Edin - lots of rose tinted spectacle schitt going on here.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Behave yourself ffs

England have never been great but they look absolutely shocking this tournament, worse than they have ever been.

The Dutch are not a patch on sides of 10-15 years ago either. How could anyone think otherwise ffs.

comment by Cinciwolf-----JA606 NFL fantasy champ 2023 (U11551)
posted 13 minutes ago
comment by Striketeam7 - confident for Southgate’s ... (U18109)
posted 10 minutes ago
comment by Cinciwolf-----JA606 NFL fantasy champ 2023 (U11551)
posted 1 hour, 3 minutes ago
Dunno what the argument here is to be honest.

It is fairly clear football is in a bit of a slump right now and national sides are not great. It happens things are cyclical. Not a single power house national side in this tournament is as good as recent editions of its own national side ffs, not one.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Netherlands are
England are

France - by recent do you mean there side from 26 years ago up until 2006 ? I would argue that’s debatable. They won the WC in 98, euros in 2000, group stage exit in 2002, Quarters 2004 and then finalists 2006. The current lot since 2016 have had - 2016 finalists, 2018 WC winners, 2021 exit rd16, 2022 Finalists and 2024 worst case scenario they are semi finalists - results wise there is little in it, so your opinion has to be subjective on that.

I agree with Edin - lots of rose tinted spectacle schitt going on here.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Behave yourself ffs

England have never been great but they look absolutely shocking this tournament, worse than they have ever been.

The Dutch are not a patch on sides of 10-15 years ago either. How could anyone think otherwise ffs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Strikemuff

…. he aint v brite

comment by Striketeam7 - confident for Southgate’s nearly slaaaags (U18109)
posted 1 hour, 19 minutes ago
comment by Nickasaurus (U9257)
posted 2 hours, 43 minutes ago
comment by Striketeam7 - confident for Southgate’s nearly slaaaags (U18109)
posted 3 hours, 55 minutes ago
comment by Nickasaurus (U9257)
posted 33 minutes ago
comment by Striketeam7 - confident for Southgate’s nearly slaaaags (U18109)
posted 51 minutes ago
comment by Nickasaurus (U9257)
posted 21 minutes ago
I prefixed everything I said with its my opinion....what you on about you donut?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You categorically stated:

The games more boring. Is what it is.

No prefix numb nuts
----------------------------------------------------------------------
dont think you know what a prefix is...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Okay Nick, I will bite, where did you preface your matter of fact statement the game is more boring now. I will be waiting
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Footballs been on the downturn for a decade now in terms of quality and skill imo.

My very first sentence on this thread. Surely not that hard to find. Everything i have said on here is my opinion.

There is no way to determine if the game is more exciting or less as a fact, so I wouldn't begin to say there was, or couldnt be bothered at least.


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That’s a different comment you tiiit - you said you prefaced the Boring comment, that’s what I argued was subjective.
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I didn’t preface anything. I prefixed everything Ive said on this thread with it’s my opinion. Don’t know why you’re struggling with that.

As for ur Chelsea comment, Chelsea probably had a good amount of the best games this season, including what was voted the best game this season.

Strikemugs 'France are a defensive monster' arguments in the bin

comment by Cinciwolf-----JA606 NFL fantasy champ 2023 (U11551)
posted 21 hours, 48 minutes ago
Strikemugs 'France are a defensive monster' arguments in the bin
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😂😂😂